My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, for his support. Although it is literally a debate between him and me, he obviously made a good, thoughtful and insightful contribution, as expected. I do not wish to go back through the points I made in my opening, but I will seek to address a number of the noble Lord’s questions. I am afraid I do not have answers to some of them at this moment, but I will answer as many as I can, although I will not be able to do justice to a number of them. I assure the noble Lord that I will write to him on those. I will address his questions in no particular order.
On the timing from when the Act received Royal Assent through to this stage, the noble Lord will know that, in this case, the consultation had to be carried out on the codes, and consideration had to be given before the codes could be finalised and laid before the House.
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These statutory instruments are subject to the affirmative procedure, which obviously requires the relevant committees to go through them. If they are approved by Parliament, the intention is, as I think I said at the beginning, they will come into force on 26 April 2024.
On liaison with agencies, my understanding is that the department has consulted the agencies in this process. We have a very good working relationship, and we will continue to do all we can to work with them going forward.
On the devolved issues, the noble Lord has also asked about this on other unassociated matters. I will try to set out the interface between how these codes work and the devolved nations of the UK. First, the code relating to confiscation will apply to England and Wales only. Each UK jurisdiction has its own confiscation regime. Confiscation is linked to criminal justice and sentencing. Northern Ireland will bring its own confiscation reforms into force at a later date.
Secondly, the code for civil forfeiture applies to the whole of the UK. Scotland and Northern Ireland gave consent for the changes in the Act to apply in those nations. The independent Rules Council in Scotland is determining whether amended Scottish court rules will be required prior to those measures in the Act coming fully into force in Scotland. The UK Government will then commence those measures fully for Scotland.
Thirdly, the two codes relating to investigations will apply to England and Wales and Northern Ireland. Scotland has separate powers in the same Act.
Finally, the codes relating to terrorist crypto assets and to information orders will apply to the whole of the UK as, as the noble Lord will know, counterterrorism and anti-money laundering are matters of reserved competence for the UK. I appreciate that response is lengthy, but I hope it covers the different angles of how the regulations apply.
There was a question relating to Russia. While I do not have specifics about what we are doing in tackling that, obviously some of its origins come from what happened from the conflict in Ukraine. The noble Lord is absolutely right that we are acutely aware that many of these assets are internationally held and could be outside the UK.
I want to set out some of the other work that we are doing internationally. The Act contains measures to include and cover as many entities as possible where there is a link to the United Kingdom. That includes provisions about requests for assistance in relation to crypto assets. This allows law enforcement to detain crypto assets for a period while investigations are ongoing. In addition, the new information order powers will ensure that the capabilities of the UK Financial Intelligence Unit within the NCA are up to international standards and increase our ability to support requests from partners to prevent illicit funds entering our economy. We recognise the need always to be vigilant. That requires cross-border working, which is why we are firmly committed to working with many of our international partners, utilising our approach and sharing and co-ordinating learning as much as possible.
In terms of how it is working and whether it will be adequate, the noble Lord obviously infers that the crypto-asset technology is evolving quickly. There are specific powers in the regulations for the Secretary of State to amend definitions associated with crypto assets. We always remain vigilant and will always keep this under review, but we believe these powers strike
the right balance in strengthening the legislative framework and promoting technical innovation. We believe that, compared with other countries, we are ahead of the curve in the global efforts to tackle economic crime and terrorist financing involving crypto assets.
The noble Lord made a point about the consultation response. I completely understand the point he is making, and I will take it back to the department.
One of the questions the noble Lord asked was about oversight. I assure the noble Lord that I will write to him about that and specifically about Russia and the impact it has had there.