argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-05-01
Topic: Government Operations
Luke Patrick Graham (Conservative, Centre-right): I actually wanted to praise SNP Members for standing up with others to support new clause 6 and back increased financial transparency. I also congratulate them on and thank them for recognising the sovereignty of Westminster in legislating for all parts of the United Kingdom and its overseas territories. I thank them for backing the constitution as it exists, and I appreciate such support at a time when we are looking for more investment in our constituencies, especially in relation to devolved matters.
Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-05-01
Topic: Law and Crime
Henry Bellingham (Conservative, Centre-right): I understand the hon. Lady’s point, but I would point out that some of us worked extremely hard to build up to the exchange of notes in 2016, so that our law enforcement agencies can access key information from, for example, the BVI within a matter of hours and use it in various measures they take against serious organised crime, money laundering, international slavery and the expropriation of assets—[Interruption.] I hope that it is someone important. On 70 occasions, the law enforcement agencies have been able to move against unsavoury people and get results If we move too quickly and without a decent transition, many of the corporate registrations will not stay in the BVI, the Cayman Islands, the Turks and Caicos Islands, Anguilla and so on: they will move to places such as Delaware, Panama, Venezuela, Nebraska and Equatorial Guinea—which my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield and I know well, as we have both visited it. Unless we are incredibly careful, that displacement will take place and, as the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) pointed out, it will take place to the Crown dependencies.
Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-05-01
Topic: Law and Crime
Andrew John Bower Mitchell (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend does not appear to accept the point that has been made repeatedly today that the territories may well allow access to law and order agencies, within an hour in the case of terrorism, through closed registers, but that does not allow civil society—charities, NGOs and the media—to expose them to the sort of scrutiny that the Paradise and Panama papers did. They allowed us to join up the dots. That is why I emphatically disagree with him on this point about closed registers. They work for law and order agencies, but they do not work to stop the dreadful money laundering.
Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-05-01
Topic: International Affairs
Henry Bellingham (Conservative, Centre-right): I will not get into an argument with my right hon. Friend because I think we agree on so much of this. My concern is that it required a leak from Panama to expose those people, and there will be many other jurisdictions that may not have leaks in future and where much of the business will go, unless the whole world moves to the end goal of open registers—
Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-05-01
Topic: International Affairs
Henry Bellingham (Conservative, Centre-right): That is a fair point, and those of us who have been supporting the Government loyally on this and working with them accept that it is a weakness in the argument. If we set an example, we hope that other people will follow. I hope that when the Minister winds up he will say how we will try to influence other countries and jurisdictions to follow this example.
Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-05-01
Topic: Law and Crime
Charles Geoffrey Cox (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend has enormous experience of these territories and he will know, as I know, that the operation of surveillance and monitoring of flows of capital through the overseas territories is one of the best intelligence sources that we have on the movement of criminal moneys. To demand that the overseas territories all suddenly go public will give one hit—just like the WikiLeaks thing was a one-hit wonder—because no one will then trust those jurisdictions where the light of publicity has been shone. All it will mean is that the money goes to where it is darkest, as the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) said. The surveillance and intelligence operations that have been so effective will no longer be applicable. I know the jurisdictions well, and that is what will happen.
Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-05-01
Topic: International Affairs
Henry Bellingham (Conservative, Centre-right): I very much hope that what my hon. and learned Friend says will not happen. Unfortunately, there will be a period of time when many corporate registrations will go elsewhere and we will then need the rest of the world to catch up Will the Minister, when he winds up, spell out very clearly how the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Department for International Development will work with the territories to help them with the transition over the next few years? What specific efforts will be made to help them to diversify their economies away from financial services? What expert advice will be given to build up parts of businesses that we hope will attract international interest? Will he outline to the House what measures he thinks his Department can take in terms of representations we make to other jurisdictions? Having set an example, we need to make a virtue of it. We need to go out and ensure that we play our part even more fully in OECD and G20 initiatives across every single organisation involved, particularly the IMF and the World Bank. Will he spell out what we will do to work with them to ensure that we raise standards elsewhere in the world Finally, I would have supported the Government’s proposed amendment as I thought it was sensible and pragmatic. It would have helped to build a consensus with the overseas territories, rather than move in a direction that could lead to very serious constitutional problems and difficulties unless we are very careful indeed. The Minister needs to use all his diplomacy and experience to ensure that the transition is done properly and correctly.
Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-05-01
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert William Henry Seely (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) I believe that the fight to improve the integrity of our financial system and to do what we can to reduce money laundering is critical in the fight against not only corruption but the malign influence of authoritarian states. I very much welcome the work done by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) and the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge). I felt very proud to agree to rebel against the Government— I am quite glad I did not have to—but nevertheless, I thank them for that amendment On the point about corruption and the malign influence of others, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne), the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw), my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Adam Holloway) and I have been shown documents that we believe relate to our national security and money laundering. They originate from Monaco’s Sûreté Publique, the police department that manages security and foreign residents in that area. They are based on the Sûreté Publique’s own information and on information provided by the French Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire—the DST—which at the time, was the French equivalent of MI5 These documents are brief, terse, factual files, listing activities, associations and judicial actions. They have been authenticated by senior French intelligence sources and by British and American counterparts familiar with their contents. The documents link a noted individual in this country with Russian intelligence. These files are dated from 2005 and cover the period from the mid-1990s. The documents concern Christopher Chandler and his brother—Christopher Chandler is a public figure, owing to the Legatum Institute. In citing this evidence, I note the words of the right hon. Member for Exeter, who in November 2017 called for the House’s Intelligence and Security Committee to examine Mr Chandler According to the French security services, as recorded by their colleagues in Monaco—and clearly, I am confident that these documents are genuine—Mr Chandler is described as having been "an object of interest to the DST since 2002 on suspicion of…working for the Russian intelligence services." I repeat: "an object of interest to the DST since 2002 on suspicion of…working for the Russian intelligence services."
Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-05-01
Topic: International Affairs
Robert William Henry Seely (Conservative, Centre-right): I am most grateful for that intervention. I am aware that the right hon. Gentleman has seen these documents and that he shares my concerns. I believe that the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill, should he have the privilege of being called to speak, will talk further on that point and make reference to these files Christopher Chandler’s personal file is marked "File code S", a DST marker indicating, if I understand correctly, a high or higher level of threat to France. In France, the letter "S" is now used to designate radical Islam. In Monaco then, it was used to designate counter-espionage. As I have said, Mr Speaker, I believe that other Members, if you wish to call them, may cite further details—the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill, the hon. Member for Rhondda, the right hon. Member for Exeter or my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham I wish to state explicitly that I make no criticism of the staff at Legatum, nor those people who have engaged with its charitable work, nor members of the public, nor, clearly, Members of this House who have dealt with this institution. I have thought long and hard before making this statement, but I have done so because I believe, and the five of us believe, that it is in the national interest to do so. If people like Mr Chandler are vulnerable to malign influence—maybe he is an innocent party in this, who knows?—especially if the information on them is covert, that matters to our democracy In November 2017, the Prime Minister highlighted the danger from Russia of subversion. I take my lead from her when she said that the Russian regime was trying to "undermine free societies". I also read the excellent piece in The Sunday Times this weekend looking at how Russian bots may have manipulated elections. One of the problems in elections is that if they are manipulated successfully, the winning side does not want to know and the losers plead sour grapes, so the answer is to do what we can to strengthen our electoral system before it is too late.
Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-05-01
Topic: International Affairs
Robert William Henry Seely (Conservative, Centre-right): Anything that helps us is important because we need to keep our society free of covert and malign influence. I was in the States last week, as the hon. Gentleman knows, and I am working with Congressmen there and in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, so that we can combine best practice. That is important because a counter-propaganda Bill is going through the United States Congress—do we need that here, etc.? If I see information of this kind, I have a choice: I can disregard it and become complicit or, if it is genuine, I can put it in the public domain. It might be that Committees will wish to have access to this information, and I suspect that those who have it will provide it to any of the six Committees investigating Russia, if they wish to do so. It might be that Mr Chandler can provide a satisfactory explanation or argue that these relationships, if they existed, are now historical or have been misrepresented in the documents. I do not use privilege lightly, Mr Speaker. He might wish to offer evidence, written or oral, to any of those six Committees, whose work I am supporting, in a modest way, as secretary to the Russia steering group. I look forward to his response— I am quite sure there will be one I will be writing to the Prime Minister in the coming weeks to suggest further measures to strengthen our democracy and electoral system. The struggle of our generation is how we deal with authoritarian states and their actors, official or proxy, who use free and open societies to damage those free and open societies. We need to do something about it. Increasingly, Members now see that covert malign influence from authoritarian states, most commonly our friends in the Kremlin but also elsewhere, is a real and present danger to our nation, to our financial system—hence this debate—and to the transparency of our democracy and electoral system, not to mention the Kremlin’s ability to conduct acts of violence and murder on our soil. We have a duty to speak up and to use this House for the public good. That is what I am doing now.
Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-05-01
Topic: International Affairs
Robert James MacGillivray Neill (Conservative, Centre-right): I welcome everything my right hon. Friend has done around the Magnitsky law and the fact that the Government have accepted it. Is he aware that the Government and Parliament of Gibraltar have already introduced a Magnitsky law, which indicates their willingness to be ahead of the game, rather than having to be dragged forward?
Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-05-01
Topic: Government Operations
Richard Benyon (Conservative, Centre-right): I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman is making. I am not completely wedded to that idea. I simply say that this is in our grasp—this is now Parliament’s duty. Following the very good discussions that I have had with my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), the Chairman of the Liaison Committee, and my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker), the Chairman of the Procedure Committee, as well as with other wise heads and people with much more experience than I have, I know that we need to design something that really works. The crucial thing that works in Congress and in other Parliaments is what is known in the United States as the "congressional trigger", under which it is possible to really ask questions of the Executive. Through the measure that we are discussing today, the Executive are giving Parliament the power to get this right, and we must take that duty very seriously.
Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-05-01
Topic: International Affairs
Richard Benyon (Conservative, Centre-right): Language is really important, and I know that the hon. Gentleman will agree that when we talk about Russia’s malign influence, we are talking about the Russian regime and the coterie of criminals that surrounds it, of which the Russian people are the victims. The Magnitsky amendment we will pass today is the most pro-Russian piece of legislation that we can pass.
Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-05-01
Topic: International Affairs
Nick Herbert (Conservative, Centre-right): I was pleased to add my name to new clause 6, and I congratulate the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) on bringing it forward. I will not repeat the powerful arguments that have been made for transparency today—they were also well made on Second Reading—other than to say that progress has been made in the overseas territories. Central registers have been introduced, but that is not sufficient for the reasons that have been given. We need that transparency to shine a light on what is happening. I suspect that there has been relatively little interrogation of the central registers by law enforcement authorities. There also needs to be a step up in law enforcement action as well as in these measures Two principal concerns were adduced to explain why we should at least hesitate before we compel the overseas territories to act. The first is the potential economic damage to the overseas territories. I argued strongly on Second Reading that that should not be an impediment to act. It can never be an argument that, where something wrong is being done, we fail to act simply because there might be some economic consequences. We do, however, have a duty to ensure that those economic consequences are addressed and that we help to mitigate them In accepting the new clause, there is a strong responsibility on this House, and now on the Government, to ensure that there is no damage to the economies of the overseas territories for taking action, especially as they may now be taking it more rapidly than they wished to, particularly when we consider, for instance, the impact of the hurricane damage on the British Virgin Islands. That concern should not prevent action, but it should be taken seriously The second concern is the constitutional objection: is it right for us to intervene? That is a serious argument. Again, on Second Reading, I argued that if the harm that is being done is so great that it can no longer be ignored, there is a justification to act, and there clearly is a power to do so. These are not just domestic matters for the overseas territories in which we have decided to intervene; they have a global impact. It is therefore very important for the Governments of the overseas territories to understand the reasons why this House has felt it so important to move. If they can act voluntarily, ahead of any action being taken legislatively, that would be very welcome.
Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-05-01
Topic: International Affairs
Nick Herbert (Conservative, Centre-right): The Crown dependencies do not fall within the ambit of new clause 6, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield pointed out. They are in a different constitutional position The wider point is this: I would have been minded to accept the Government’s compromise amendments and new clauses had the House had the opportunity to consider them. We should have avoided, if at all possible, dictating to the overseas territories what to do, but that option was not available. None the less, I welcome the fact that action is being taken In agreeing to new clause 6, the key concession that the Government made was that it was no longer acceptable that the overseas territories should move only at the pace of the rest of the world. As my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe and the Americas said, the key concession was that he accepted that the will of the House was that the overseas territories should move ahead of the pace of the rest of the world for reasons that have been very well made by Members on both sides of the House. That said, we should not lose sight of the objective here. The objective is not to force the overseas territories to take action, but to ensure that we tackle corruption where we find it, and that has to be done on a global basis The arguments that there will be displacement should not be an impediment to action, because we can never argue that we will not tackle a crime on one street corner in case it moves to the next. That can never be a moral argument or a reason not to take action. Nevertheless, it is a serious argument. What are we going to do to avoid displacement? The imperative is therefore on the Government and on this place, which has now forced this action, to support every effort possible to mobilise the global community behind transparency for everyone This House and the UK will be taking a lead, and we will be requiring our overseas territories to take a lead, but we now have to step up. That may mean taking initiatives such as having another global summit to encourage action, as the anti-corruption champion, my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose), suggested. Whether it is through means such as the G20 or the G7, we must now drive action on a broader basis than simply the overseas territories or the Crown dependencies.
Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-05-01
Topic: International Affairs
John David Penrose (Conservative, Centre-right): I completely back up what my right hon. Friend is saying. The time for global action must be now. We need to use the lead that we will create by imposing this measure to drive and exert a global leadership. It must be about not just the transparency of company disclosures but the transparency of trust disclosures and other kinds of asset classes as well as company shares.
Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-05-01
Topic: Law and Crime
John Philip Glen (Conservative, Centre-right): We contend that the amendment would change this part of the devolution settlement, and we have received no representations from the Scottish Government on it Amendment 21 would remove Ministers’ power to make consequential amendments, related to sanctions and anti-money laundering regulations, to existing primary and secondary legislation. That would remove the ability to ensure that the statute book works after sanctions have been imposed. The power is not unusual, and is confined to modifications that arise solely as a result of sanctions or anti-money laundering provision. In any case, regulations making such modifications of the statute book would be dealt with by the draft affirmative procedure, so both Houses would need to approve them before they could come into force. I ask the House to preserve that important power Let me make it clear that the Government support the principle of amendment 2, tabled by the hon. Member for Glasgow Central, which is to help prevent organised crime and human trafficking. Those are serious issues that we are strongly committed to tackling. However, as we have explained before, we do not think it necessary to state that sanctions regulations could be created for these purposes in the Bill, because it already provides the powers to impose sanctions in these cases Government new clause 5 is technical. It simply seeks to clarify the interaction of the powers in this Bill with the provisions of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill. This Bill contains powers that enable the Government to amend retained EU law to impose or lift sanctions. The new clause simply makes it clear that restrictions in the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill do not prevent those powers from being exercised in the way that was intended.
Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords] — House of Commons, 2018-05-01
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert Alexander Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady says there are no proactive checks at Companies House, but if an outside person challenges an entry, surely the people at Companies House have to check it out. It is a criminal offence if an entry is wrong, is it not?