Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill — House of Lords, 2022-03-14
Topic: Law and Crime
Martin Callanan (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, it is my great pleasure to thank all those who have supported the progress of the Bill. First, I thank the House of Lords Public Bill Office, the House clerks and the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel for their support and extremely hard work in ensuring that the Bill could be expedited through the House. In particular, I thank our new star of social media, my noble friend Lady Bloomfield—we shall all have to be very careful and make sure that we are paying attention when she is in the House in future—and my noble friends Lady Williams and Lord Ahmad, who have ably assisted me in getting this cross-cutting legislation through the House I also give particular thanks to my private office and the whole of the Bill team in both BEIS and the Home Office. All the civil servants working there are a credit to their profession. I can tell the House that they were working evenings and weekends. People were texting me at 10 pm last night, on a Sunday evening, on the details—so they have really assisted us by working hard. That is in addition to all the officials across government, in BEIS, the Home Office, the Treasury and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, who have all contributed by working tirelessly to get the Bill to this point. I also want to remember the late Nick Skates, a dedicated civil servant who spent many years working on these issues, tackling economic crime, who is very sadly not with us today to see the fruits of his labour I also give particular tribute to the Opposition spokesmen, the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Fox, and all their colleagues—the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, and others—for their constructive challenge and continued support for the Bill. I am grateful to Members across the House for their valuable engagement and contributions to our debates on the Bill; it has been immeasurably improved by the work that they have put in in such speedy and short order. I also thank them for the support that they have already expressed for the upcoming second economic crime Bill, which the Government will introduce in the coming months, in the next parliamentary Session. I also pay tribute to the Joint Committee on the Draft Registration of Overseas Entities Bill, which, a few years ago, helped ensure that this legislation was in a good place prior to its introduction I express my gratitude and thanks to the devolved Administrations in Wales and Scotland for their support for the Bill. We are delighted that a legislative consent Motion has been agreed with Scotland I also thank the Northern Ireland Executive’s Department of Justice, the Department for the Economy and the Department of Finance for their support. In the absence of the Northern Ireland Executive, a legislative consent Motion cannot be secured from the Northern Ireland Assembly. However, given the active support of Northern Ireland Ministers, the Government have agreed to proceed with legislating on behalf of Northern Ireland. Ministers in Northern Ireland have, of course, been made aware of this. Both my department and the Home Office will continue to engage with Northern Ireland executive officials on devolved matters as the Bill is implemented The Bill will target sources of illicit wealth and their permeation through our economy. We will cut off these funds. We will send a message that the United Kingdom will not stand idly by when this exploitation is taking place. We will show the Kremlin that the United Kingdom will not facilitate or accept any aspect of aggression against any democratic nation. We will do so united, cross party and working together to bring these matters to fruition. I commend the Bill to the House.