I shall be very brief, because I took a lot of time in the House yesterday. I strongly support many of the new clauses being moved by Back Benchers across the Chamber today. If I can just say something about politics, this heartens me and shows that there are ways in which we can work together to pursue the national interest across the political divide.
It breathes a bit of confidence and life back into the political process that we have all chosen to join in our careers, so I commend those individual Back Benchers who have put themselves forward and who are speaking today.
The proposals from the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mary Robinson) on strengthening the support for whistleblowing are hugely important. Whistleblowers are an essential part of our armoury in the fight against money laundering and fraud, and we know that, despite all the legal rights, they are not protected. People lose their jobs, their families get destroyed and they are left penniless. Therefore, the establishment of a capability that will do nothing other than protect and promote whistleblowers in the crucial work they do is really important, and I hope that it will be adopted.
The importance of legislating to tackle the abuse of our legal system by oligarchs and others, which the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) has just talked about so eloquently, is also really important. I want to be blunt about this and say to those on the Government Front Bench that, if they do not accept this new clause, they will not get a Bill during this Parliament. I bet that is right, so for heaven’s sake let us use this opportunity to get this bit of legislation in. It does not cover everything we would like it to cover, but it will have an impact. It will also give us the experience to see whether we have got the legislation right. I am sure that all the lawyers who helped to draft these new clauses put their best brains into them, but if they have not got them right, we will be able to learn those lessons when we come to extend these measures beyond economic crime.
The right hon. and learned Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland) made an excellent contribution on the reform of criminal corporate liability, and I want to say something about that. It is not that we want to suddenly bang up a whole load of lawyers, accountants, companies, service providers and all those people who we know are the ones that facilitate or collude with much of the economic crime that takes place. Only the best preventive mechanism that we can think of will force a change of behaviour, and we are not doing that on the back of hope; we are doing it on the back of reality. We know from the Bribery Act 2010 and from the regulations on tax evasion and on health and safety at work that putting this sort of liability on individuals and corporations is the only way to transform behaviour. Last week’s amendment to the Online Safety Bill by the Conservative rebels showed the mood of the House, and I would urge Ministers to think about that. The mood of the House is to use this effective tool to try to transform behaviour in all spheres of life, whether in relation to online harms or to economic crime.
I hope that we will hear from the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) soon on the issue of “freeze not seize”. I know he is going to make a number of propositions, and I hope he will not mind if I say something about this. We have been working with an extensive group of lawyers to see whether we can move to a position where we do not just freeze the assets but seize them in order to repurpose them and, particularly in the current context, use them to support the reconstruction of Ukraine. We have finally got a chink in the armour in that regard, but let me say something else first. The lawyers we have talked to work with non-governmental organisations in this field, and the
advice they give is always going to be slightly different from the advice that comes from the lawyers working in the Government service. I think we bring a new perspective, and I urge Ministers to listen to what we have to say. The chink is worth examining at this stage, even if we do not go for the further propositions, to show that we mean it when we say that we want to seize this money.