To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to encourage NHS Trusts to use British-made washable PPE garments with RFID (radio frequency identification) tags that can be laundered multiple times, instead of single use garments which go to landfill.

PPE waste is potentially hazardous, and recycling is challenging. However, the NHS is committed to sustainability and net zero across its operations and is working with UK manufacturers to encourage innovation. On PPE procurement, the NHS recently piloted reusable RFID-tagged gowns and has trialled reusable face masks, and the findings will inform the future approach. On waste, including PPE waste, NHS England intends to publish a full clinical waste strategy later this year.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. I must declare an interest: I am the unremunerated chair of the company that produces these gowns. While I welcome what the Minister said, could I make a plea to him? This is a time when we need the NHS to make sensible economies and to look after the environment. It is not the fastest and nimblest organisation for adopting things that it should, so I would welcome an assurance that he will do everything possible to encourage every trust. They should not wait a year for trials—the trials have been successful; we know that it works. I would like to meet him to discuss how we can take this forward.

I thank the noble Lord for his question. I agree: the trials have shown that this is something we should be doing. It has shown big savings —about £180 million a year in procurement—so there is a very good case to do it. As ever, it is non-trivial. To begin with, we have a lot of PPE stock which we clearly need to use first, and we would need to put launderettes in place so that we can clean and recycle the PPE, but this is absolutely something we want to do going forward.

My Lords, can I appeal for a strengthening of that question? How many trusts currently have single-use PPE contracts? Will the Minister give a guarantee to this House that the Government will ensure that all those contracts are replaced by multiple-use contracts, as described, by the end of this year?

Right now, the Government are supplying all PPE centrally until next year, using up the excess stocks first, which I think we all agree should be the first thing we do. It will not be until next year that new contracts will be set. When they are set, I absolutely agree that we should push this agenda.

My Lords, the Minister is an experienced businessman—and, I am sure, an honourable one. Based on that experience, what would he say is a fair and reasonable profit margin for somebody to make when selling PPE to the NHS? How would he describe somebody who saw the pandemic as an opportunity to make super-profits by maximising the mark-up they could apply to that PPE? This may have been legal, but was it right?

I can only speak personally here; I believe that the best businesspeople look to have long-term customer relationships. That means you have long-term, sustainable and fair prices, which is the way to build real customer value in a business.

Did the trials find that, as well as being good for the environment, the washable PPE garments might be able to save the NHS money, which could be reinvested into health and care services?

Yes; as I say, the trials that we have seen so far definitely save money—the figure I have for the procurement savings is £180 million. A process of education also needs to happen. It has been shown that up to 50% of uses of disposable gloves are unnecessary. Understandably, however, medics got into the habit of using them during Covid. We absolutely want to be doing a lot more of this.

My Lords, the Government were elected on the promise of 40 new hospitals, but the Observer recently reported that only 10 have planning permission and are likely to be built during this Parliament. Are those 10 being built with laundry facilities—which the Minister referred to as needed—so that we can indeed stop using single-use items and go back to laundering them?

First off, we are committed to the 40 new hospitals, on which the House will be hearing more going forward. Some of those might not have planning permission because they are on the site already, so that should not be taken as read. All those hospitals have the net-zero targets built into their plans so that we can make sure that they are sustainable.

My Lords, can the Minister provide an update on the warning by the National Audit Office that because of poor financial controls over procurement of PPE during the pandemic, auditors may be unable to sign off the accounts for the UK Health Security Agency? Does he share the view of the chair of the Public Accounts Committee that the scale of waste of unusable PPE is yet another reminder of the vital importance of proper controls, including during a crisis?

I think we all agree that controls are a good thing. We all have to cast our minds back to two years ago, when planes were being gazumped in mid-air because they were carrying PPE and countries were trying to outbid each other. I think we all remember at the time that the strict instruction from everyone was, “Buy it, almost at any cost.” That is what happened. Were mistakes made? Absolutely, they were, but the priority was to make sure that we had PPE for our front-line medics. Are we looking to learn lessons? Yes, we are, and clearly the auditors’ role at the UKHSA is one of those situations.

My Lords, the Government have spoken about using the current stockpile of PPE. What lessons have been learned to make sure that we always hold a stockpile ready for the next pandemic and that we have high-quality PPE? In that way, the problem of long Covid following Covid contraction by staff who went into work knowing that they were putting their lives at risk and yet used PPE that they recognised as inadequate will not happen when the next pandemic comes along.

Clearly, we need to build resilience in the supply chain. A lot of that involves promoting domestic production. Through this whole exercise, over 4 billion items were bought from the UK. We must ensure that we keep that capability going forward. We should keep some level of storage, but, again, get the level right. Another question that I am often asked is, “How much are we paying in storage right now?” It is important that we get the balance right, with future resilience though not to excess levels.

My Lords, in addition to PPE and the steps laid out by the noble Baroness, what success has there been in analysing a sustainability strategy for the NHS? For example, switching patients from propellant inhalers to powdered inhalers could be a big step forward.

The whole agenda on this is close to my heart. I do not have that particular detail, but I know that with LED lighting, for instance, you save 25%, so if we put LED lighting across the estate it would cost £400 million and save £100 million a year. Those things clearly are good for the environment and good for the health service in terms of savings, so, absolutely, it is on my agenda to make sure that we pursue it.

My Lords, the NHS spends billions of pounds. Have the Government considered having a “buy British” policy, on which we can start to build up capacity not just in this area but in many other areas?

As I mentioned in answer to a previous question, when we started off, less than 1% of PPE was bought from the UK. We extended that, so that 4 billion items were bought by the end of it. To me, the beauty behind this whole question of sustainability is that it benefits domestic production, which is better for the environment as well. That is absolutely the direction of travel.

My Lords, I declare my interest as president of the Health Care Supply Association. Will the Minister join me in recognising that NHS procurement people have saved the health service millions of pounds through their efforts in the last few years? Does he agree that they need investment in training and development? Will he ensure that they receive it very quickly, so that more savings can be achieved?

Absolutely; wherever there is a savings case, I will be right on it. Also, it is about education and training for all our staff. As I mentioned before, a one-hour course can reduce disposable-glove usage by as much as 50%.

Is my noble friend aware—I can see no reason why he should be—that at the request of her daughter and son-in-law, both GPs, my wife made them three sets of multi-washable scrubs each, which to the best of my knowledge are still in use?

Score another one up for UK domestic production.

To ask His Majesty’s Government what representations they have received from organisations representing disabled people about the widespread introduction of Driver Only Operated trains on the rail network.

My Lords, the Government regularly receive ideas and feedback from the public and passenger bodies, including the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee. The proposed modernisation reforms are intended to provide greater flexibility for operators to deploy staff in multi-skilled customer-facing roles that are able to deliver more assistance for disabled passengers and those with additional needs.

My Lords, given that 45% of Network Rail stations are unstaffed and that a similar number are only partially staffed, does the Minister accept that that response does not reflect experiences in the real world? The addition of driver-only operation to unstaffed stations means that travel for the disabled, particularly those in wheelchairs, becomes virtually impossible. The Government’s attitude may well contravene both equalities and disability discrimination legislation.

The noble Lord makes an important point. Many factors feed into the accessibility of our rail network, and that is why in the Plan for Rail we committed to a national rail accessibility strategy. This will take a system-wide approach and ensure that we can make as many routes as possible accessible to all.

I confess to my noble friend that I am a cynical old politician. Recently, there has been the practice of split ticketing. It takes me two hours to come here and now I get two tickets, one for the first hour and one for the second hour. I do not need to change trains; the price is the same. Can she reassure me that this is not some device to show that more people take short journeys and therefore need fewer people on board the train to look after them, as opposed to people who take longer journeys, which might merit a guard?

My Lords, such cynicism! I will certainly take that away and establish why it might be the case, but my noble friend makes a very important point: our fares are too complicated and there are simply too many. That is why, when the Secretary of State spoke at the George Bradshaw address yesterday, he talked about what we are doing to simplify fares by extending the single-fare pilot and by piloting demand-based pricing, as there is in aviation. Some tickets could be substantially cheaper when the demand is less.

My Lords, driver-only trains will be accompanied by the closure of ticket offices and no platform staff in rural areas. Is the Minister concerned that these measures will discriminate against groups such as people with learning disabilities, who may often need reassurance, have difficulty buying tickets from machines or worry about last-minute changes to train times, and so on?

The key to the ticket office issue is not that they will close and the people staffing them will disappear; rather, they will come out from behind the Perspex. In the example given by the noble Baroness, somebody with learning difficulties could be assisted to use a ticket machine. Perhaps in time, they would feel more confident using the ticket machine with the assistance of somebody who can leave the ticket office. Any changes to ticket offices are set out in the ticketing and settlement agreement and are subject to local consultation.

My Lords, I have absolutely no doubt that the Minister puts disability and disabled passengers at the heart of her views, but for some years now she has been talking at the Dispatch Box about this strategy and how access will improve. I find that, at least once a week, the person I am expecting to get me off my train at my home station has not been alerted by the station I departed from. Without a conductor on the train, I have to go on to the next station, or even the one after that, and then try to get a train back—assuming I can. When will the system work for disabled people, whether they are in wheelchairs, are visually impaired or have learning difficulties?

I am appalled at the circumstances the noble Baroness faces. The system is in place but clearly is not working, and that is what we have to fix. We have to go through every element of our railway system, modernise it, and make it more accessible, reliable, punctual and affordable.

My Lords, may I table the idea of level boarding for trains, possibly with retracting ramps at each door? It would obviate the need for people always to be at the station if wheelchair operators could get on and off without anybody being there. It is not a total solution, but it is a solution.

The noble Lord raises an important point. There are many solutions to improve accessibility for wheelchair users and other people with reduced mobility. That is why the Access for All scheme was launched back in 2006, and it has made huge strides to improve the number of accessible routes into stations. Between 2019 and 2024, we are spending £383 million to add more accessible routes. When we built the railways centuries ago, they were not built to be accessible. I accept that it will take time to make them 100% accessible, but that is where we want to be.

My Lords, do I take it from the answer my noble friend gave to the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, that it will be possible to purchase a physical ticket at every mainline station?

It will be possible to purchase a physical ticket in the vast majority of cases, but I do not know about every single mainline station, as there are many hundreds of them. We have seen over time that people are not using physical tickets as much any more. We have to take into account the multiverse of different needs of the ticket-buying public to ensure that people can use the sorts of tickets that they want to.

My Lords, building on the testimony of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, the difference between disabled passengers who have a problem and ordinary passengers that have a problem is that in the case of the disabled passenger, the impact is almost catastrophic. Whereas occasional things going wrong are tolerable in a mainline system, for disabled passengers it must be 100%. The noble Baroness’s experience is not a singular one: the Office of Rail and Road did a survey of passenger assisting in July 2022. Almost a quarter—23%—of all the assistance that they booked was not received. 11% of passengers are not met by staff and a further 7% have to wait too long. And there is the emotional side of it: there is still concern that 28% do not feel confident that all the elements of the assistance they have booked will be delivered on the day of travel. The question is quite straightforward: is that acceptable? We do not want to hear about input; we want to hear about output.

Well, I do not think that anybody would say that that is acceptable and that is why we are actually doing things about it. Part of the reforms we want to introduce is to have multi-skilled, passenger-facing roles whereby people are trained to deal with passengers with reduced mobility and those with learning difficulties to help them use the railways, so that the railways work for them.

My Lords, do these important questions that have been raised today not raise the very clear point that the rail strikes are a battle, not simply against ordinary people who want to go to work, children who want to go to school and elderly people who want to visit their families, but most of all against perhaps the most disadvantaged category: the disabled? This is a strike which hits the disabled. Would my noble friend agree with that characterisation?

I agree with my noble friend that the strikes do indeed hit every single passenger who uses our railways. What worries me the most is that some of those passengers will not come back. We need a collaborative and constructive relationship with the unions, because things have to change. Our railways must change; we must see reform so that they work for disabled passengers and indeed all passengers.

My Lords, I travel to your Lordships’ House on the train most days. Not so long ago, I was travelling on a very crowded train when the young woman next to me completely passed out. We were crowded shoulder to shoulder. I did not know whether she had had some sort of attack or simply fainted. There was no means of getting the guard’s attention—there was no guard. Now, the young woman concerned may or may not have been in dire difficulty, but the fact is that all trains now tell you that you cannot pull a communication cord but must wait until the next station. Supposing she had had some sort of heart attack, and there was no guard there to help her. It is a terrible experience to have gone through, and what the Minister has said does not reassure me at all that she understands the predicament of disabled people or people in the position I was in.

What we are looking at is not necessarily taking people off trains but ensuring that the people who are on the trains are able to provide precisely the sort of assistance that that person may have needed. The reality is that if one is on a train which stops fairly frequently, the best option, if it is driver-only-operated and there is no guard, is to wait until the next station, because such trains tend to be on routes where the stations very close together. On longer routes, where the stations are far apart, there are other people on the train looking after passengers, and in those circumstances that person would have been able to help.

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the report by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit Cost of Not Zero in 2022, published on 30 December 2022; and in particular, the finding that the delay in switching to renewables and improving energy efficiency resulted in some households paying around £1,750 extra on their bills last year.

My Lords, the Government remain committed to deploying renewables and energy efficiency measures. Renewable electricity generation has more than quadrupled since 2010, and will be supported further by the annual contracts for difference scheme. For energy efficiency, the Autumn Statement committed a further £6 billion until 2028, in addition to the £6.6 billion committed over this Parliament. This is alongside the £4 billion expanded ECO4 scheme and the additional £1 billion ECO+ scheme, launching in the spring.

I thank the Minister for his response, but it was not really an answer to my Question. The delay in going to renewables will be made even worse now by the Government handing out gas and oil licences, which completely goes against all common sense. If we rush to renewables, which is possible, we can stimulate jobs and make sure that consumers do not carry on shivering in their homes. So will the Government commit to moving faster on this and perhaps bring the deadline down to 2035, which is long enough away anyway, rather than 2050?

I actually do not fundamentally disagree with the noble Baroness, but we are rushing out renewables deployment. We already have one of the largest deployments of offshore renewables in the world. We even have one of the largest solar capacities in Europe: we have more solar generation than France. I agree that we need to try to go faster. We are doing that—we have increased targets for 2030—but it takes time to roll these out. I disagree with the noble Baroness about there being no requirement for oil and gas; there will be during the transition, and we should get as much of that as possible from domestic sources.

My Lords, I congratulate the Minister on his appointment to the new Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. I personally was very pleased to hear of the establishment of that department, because energy security comes about by net zero, renewables and all those technologies. If that is the case, how come the Government have approved a coal mine—fossil fuels—in Cumbria? That clearly has trashed part of the UK’s reputation globally in terms of the net-zero objective.

I thank the noble Lord for his congratulations and I look forward to working with him. My responsibilities will be pretty similar to what they were before, but I accept the point he makes. I refer him to the answer I gave to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, on renewables deployment. I do not want to get into the issue of the coal mine, but, as he well knows, that is not to do with power generation: we are phasing out coal for power generation facilities.

My Lords, I echo the words of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, about the restoration of a department for energy, among other things. I declare an interest as once having been Secretary of State at the Department of Energy. I also congratulate my noble friend on his appointment. Although we know that the long-term decline will be in oil, gas and fossil fuels, which we want, the delay that caused such a violent increase in oil and gas prices last year and the year before was simply because we had failed to manage that decline and to match supply with demand. As supply was outpaced by demand—and the world has an excessive demand for oil and gas—the result was a tenfold increase in gas prices, huge suffering, vast instability, political concern about cuts in real wages and a great deal of damage for millions of people. That is something those pushing for renewables should keep firmly in their minds.

I know that my noble friend speaks with great authority on this matter, given his background, but of course there are many different aspects to the equation. Of course we need to expand supply in renewables, which we are doing, but we also need to reduce demand where we possibly can. That is where our various energy-efficiency campaigns come in. We had a big public relations campaign over the last few months, which has been extremely successful in rolling out energy-efficiency measures.

My Lords, the report makes it clear that the insulation of homes was increasing until 2013, when government grants were cut. This was followed by a 90% decline in rates of insulation, leaving us with the least efficient homes in western Europe, with 12 million in band D or below. The Government’s plans for this Parliament and the next fall well short of what is needed, so will they urgently review these plans to increase insulation rates much faster?

The noble Baroness is right that we need to do more on insulation, but she is wrong about the progress. I will give her the statistics: 47% of homes in England have now reached band C. That is up from 14% in 2010. So we are making very rapid progress in increasing the EPC rating. Of course, there is always more that we can do, and I outlined some of the vast sums of money that we are spending to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones.

My Lords, have the Government yet read the World Climate Declaration, which is supported by some 1,400 scientists and professionals worldwide and finds that our climate is changing as it always has and that man is not responsible, so really there is nothing useful we can do about it? Why do the Government want to go on wasting billions of pounds by running with the climate scare lemmings who pretend otherwise?

Well, I am not going to get into a debate with the noble Lord about his statements. Let me perhaps give him another perspective. Even somebody like him, a great British patriot, should surely accept that, even he does not believe in the net-zero target, that it makes sense to develop more renewable sources of electricity in this country, so that we are not dependent on unstable parts of the world for our oil and gas. Despite what I said earlier about needing to expand production as much as we can from the North Sea, it is a declining asset that we will not have in future. Therefore, even in his world, it surely makes sense to develop our energy supply locally in the UK.

My Lords, the Minister has just told your Lordships that we are making rapid progress on energy efficiency. He will be aware that back in September 2020 the Government consulted on raising energy performance in the privately rented sector. If he looks at the government website today, he will see that it says:

“Visit this page again soon to download the outcome to this public feedback.”

How much longer must landlords wait to know exactly what the Government want them to do to improve the energy efficiency of the privately rented sector?

Of course, landlords can voluntarily take action if they wish to improve the performance of their buildings. We are looking at the consultation responses at the moment. However, nobody should pretend that these policy decisions are easy. It is simple and straightforward to just pass a regulation saying that we have to improve the performance, but if the net result of that is a net loss of privately rented accommodation, particularly in poorer parts of the country, there are many people who want that accommodation and we will not have gained anything. So these decisions are not easy, but we are looking at this.

My Lords, the report from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit makes the cost of inaction and delay for households abundantly clear. We also know how important it is for the planet. I add my congratulations on the Minister’s role in the new Department for Energy Security and Net Zero in the reshuffle yesterday. Can I ask that this new department take its remit seriously by urgently prioritising the relatively cheap and quick options of renewable energy, onshore wind and solar, and making a statement to that effect?

I thank the noble Baroness for her congratulations, but her question implies that we are not doing anything in this space at the moment. Since 2010 the UK has seen a more than 500% increase in the amount of renewable electricity. The UK continues to break records in renewable electricity, which has more than quadrupled since 2010, while low-carbon electricity overall now gives us around 50% of our total generation. Of course we need to do more and do it faster—we are doing that—but let us not try to pretend that we have not made fantastic progress in this area.

My Lords, my noble friend said the issue of solar power is of great importance. While we are in favour of his policy in general, many people, in rural areas in particular, are deeply concerned about the way in which good agricultural land is apparently now vulnerable to massive solar farms. This destroys our countryside and is quite unnecessary. Does my noble friend not agree?

I do not agree with the noble Lord, actually. Only a relatively small—in fact, tiny—proportion of land is taken up with solar power generation, but of course we always have to make sure we get the balance right. We need agricultural land, but we also need more solar generation.

My Lords, I declare my interests. Given the Minister’s compelling argument for increasing home-grown renewable energy, can he update the House on how the Government’s consultations on getting a sensible planning regime for increasing onshore wind are progressing?

We already have considerable quantities of onshore wind, but I know the noble Baroness’s commitment to seeing that rolled out even further. As she will be aware, onshore wind will be eligible for contracts for difference in the next allocation round commencing in March, and we will consult shortly on developing local partnerships for a number of supportive communities that wish to host new onshore wind infrastructure in return for the benefits that can then flow to those communities.

To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have (1) to introduce legislation to prohibit the forcible installation of prepayment energy meters, and (2) to compensate those subjected to this practice.

It is right that Ofgem has asked suppliers to pause the installation of prepayment meters under warrant until they have assured Ofgem that they are compliant with all relevant regulations. Courts have been instructed not to list warrant applications, and the Secretary of State has asked energy bosses to report back on how they will identify consumers who may have had a prepayment meter installed inappropriately and how they will put those matters right.

My Lords, I am not really satisfied with the Minister’s explanation. All the parties that he mentioned are partly responsible for the current state of affairs. Since 2019, nearly 1 million warrants for the forced fitting of prepayment meters have been nodded through the courts. The victims have been denied fair and public hearings, as required by Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Will the Minister now commit to a judicial inquiry into the failure of the whole apparatus and immediate compensation for those who have suffered?

Ofgem is in fact conducting an inquiry into the matter. We were all appalled to see the activities of British Gas in particular, which were exposed by the Times newspaper, to which we should be grateful. However, we should remember that prepayment meters are a useful tool for some customers to help prevent debt building up. A complete ban on prepayment meters would likely just see a move to debt enforcement by the courts and bailiffs, which is not a desirable outcome either. So none of these policy choices is easy, but the Secretary of State has written to all energy suppliers asking them to report back to him urgently on what steps they are taking to put these matters right.

My Lords, is not the problem that people with prepayment meters are in the main people who are financially stretched, but they pay a higher rate for their electricity? What is the regulator doing allowing this to continue?

My Lords, my noble friend knows that normally I agree with him, but in this case he is partly wrong. Yes, there is a slight extra charge for those on prepayment meters, but actually the highest rates are paid by those who have traditional standard credit. The cheapest way of paying is by direct debit. It is also not true that all customers on prepayment meters are necessarily in financially straitened circumstances. Some people—students, young people, people in tenanted accommodation and so on—prefer that method of payment. If we socialise the costs and equalise them among everyone, then many poorer people who prefer either standard credit or direct debit would pay more to take account of that.

My Lords, on Sunday, as the Minister said, the BEIS Secretary gave energy bosses until yesterday to report back on what remedial measures would be taken where prepayment meters were installed in the homes of vulnerable customers. He also said in his Statement on Monday that any compensation scheme is a matter for the regulator, Ofgem, which raises the question: what exactly are the Government going to do with what the energy suppliers report back to them?

I am told that those letters came in last night, and the Secretary of State and officials are reviewing those responses. We will have more to say on this shortly.

The Minister must be alive to the prospect that what is happening here is that the courts system is simply so overrun that the warrant operation system is not functioning properly. Are the Government prepared to invest what is needed in the courts system to overhaul that, if it is indeed found to be one of the causes of these terrible incidents?

The noble Lord makes an important point. The Lord Justice in charge of it has instructed the courts not to issue any further warrants in the meantime while these matters are investigated, but I am sure that is an important thing that we need to look at.

My Lords, what is the cost of the 1 million warrants issued by the courts since 2019 for the forced fitting of prepayment meters? How much of that money has been recovered from energy companies?

I am afraid I did not quite understand the noble Baroness’s question, as it depends on what she means by the cost. Is it the cost to suppliers or customers, or the costs through the courts system? I will ask officials to look at it and perhaps write to her on that.

My Lords, those consumers who are not on direct debit get their £67 a month back through vouchers. We know that some 18% of those are not claimed, so who keeps the money? Is it the energy retailer or the taxpayer?

Ultimately, it will be the taxpayer because that is a taxpayer subsidy, but we want to ensure that everybody gets the money that they are entitled to. The performance of companies varies widely in delivering these vouchers. Clearly, if people are on a smart meter then it is more advantageous because the support can be delivered easily and directly. We are working with suppliers to ensure that people get the support that they are entitled to but, by the very nature of premises with prepayment meters in them, it is sometimes difficult to get hold of the person paying the actual bill.

My Lords, I accept the basis of what my noble friend is arguing, but might he see whether we could look again at the real costs of prepayment meters? It seems that the energy companies get the money in from them to start with and that normally, if you pay in advance, you pay less. It seems odd if it is still true that some of the poorest are paying more. Can we look at that and see whether the figuring is in fact accurate?

Of course, we continue to look at this and I know that Ofgem is taking a close interest in it at the moment. All that is allowed under the licensing conditions is that suppliers can cover their actual costs that are reflective of servicing those different customers. As I said, the most expensive method for suppliers is those who pay by standard credit, because they have to send out a bill then receive the payment in, et cetera, so those people pay even more than those on prepayment meters do.

My Lords, Lord Justice Edis stopped all of the warrant process on the basis that the courts had not been considering the vulnerability of the customers against whom warrants were being issued. The reason that process exists is to prevent prepayment meters being forced upon people who are vulnerable and would maybe therefore not get heat. There is a degree of urgency, therefore, in sorting out who has prepayment meters and is not getting access to energy. From the Minister’s answers, I did not detect when Ofgem is going to report back to him and what steps he understands either it or he are taking to try to protect those people who did not get the protection of the courts.

The noble and learned Lord is right. The purpose of the Secretary of State writing to suppliers was to find out what arrangements would be made to put right matters that went wrong. Clearly, a number of consumers who are vulnerable have had the meters fitted, which of course is against Ofgem rules and against the licence conditions of those suppliers. That is why the courts are right to stop the issue of these warrants until these matters have been sorted, but we want Ofgem to report back as quickly as possible.

My Lords, is there not another aspect of this agenda as well? Ever since the start of the Covid crisis, HMG have been doing all they can to persuade people to use non-cash payments for items such as utility bills. Surely it makes no sense whatever to now force some of the poorest members of the community in this country to use cash against their will.

Of course, you do not have to use cash with a prepayment meter. You can have a smart prepayment meter, which you can top up using mobile phones and so on, but overall my noble friend’s point is valid.

My Lords, the issue of a warrant to forcibly enter a dwelling-house is a very serious matter. In this case, we have heard that it has been done in mass numbers, which I suggest is clearly unacceptable. Would it not be in the interests of justice for the householder to be given the opportunity to make representations during the hearing as to the right or wrong of that procedure being taken?

I am not an expert on the system, but my understanding is that they are able to do exactly that now. The suppliers have to write to people to say that they are applying for a warrant and anybody has the right to go along and make representations in response to that. It is only when the applications are unchallenged that they are issued en masse.

My Lords, there is a degree of urgency to lowering the price of gas so that the poorest people in greatest difficulty, with or without meters, can pay. It just so happens that the price of gas is lower now than before the lockdown two years ago or the Ukraine invasion. Why is that much lower price not being passed on now to the poorest so that they can pay, rather than having their doors knocked in and being forced to take meters?

It will be passed on when the price cap is reviewed by Ofgem. It is worth stating the amount of government support being given to all consumers. The reality is that over the winter the Government—the taxpayer—have been paying approximately one-third overall of people’s energy bills. There is a considerable amount of government support because of the massive increase in prices due to Putin’s war. Thankfully, the world has responded, and prices are coming down. However, many suppliers hedged against that and bought long-term contracts. As that unwinds into the energy system, prices will come down and the price cap will reflect that. Later in the year, we should hopefully see a reduction in the price cap. At the same time, of course, government support will begin to be unwound, so we will have to see how those two factors interact.

That Standing Order 38(4) (so far as it relates to Thursdays) and (5) (Arrangement of the Order Paper) be suspended until the end of the session so far as is necessary to enable notices and orders relating to Public Bills, Measures, Affirmative Instruments and reports from Select Committees of the House to have precedence over other notices and orders on Thursdays.

My Lords, in moving the Motion in my name on the Order Paper, I will update noble Lords on the approach agreed by the usual channels on the use of Thursdays in light of this Session being extended until the autumn. As is usual at this point in a typical Session, this Motion enables priority to be given to legislative business on Thursdays. While the Government will use some of these sitting Thursdays for scrutiny of government Bills, as the Session is longer, we have also agreed that there will be additional days throughout it for debates, which I know are valued by your Lordships.

Reflecting the arrangements in a typical Session, we have agreed that at least eight of the additional Thursdays will be used for debates. These will be divided between party, balloted and Select Committee debates. They will be taken throughout the remainder of the Session in a staggered way. These days are also in addition to time that will be made available this week for a debate on Ukraine. I say in parenthesis what an honour it was to see so many of your Lordships present at that extraordinary occasion in Westminster Hall; we affirm our support for President Zelensky and the brave people of Ukraine.

These debates will be in addition to time for a debate on the Spring Budget, which will be on 16 March. I am pleased that this year the debate on the Budget will follow very soon after it. The usual channels agreed the division of the extra debate days between various groups. The first was on 2 February, when noble Lords debated three Select Committee reports. I know that opportunities to debate these are valued by your Lordships. The next will be on 31 March, when we will have Labour Party debates. Subject to the progress of the legislative programme, we will look to allocate additional Thursdays for debates, if possible, above the eight I can confirm today. The timing of further days will be announced in Forthcoming Business in the usual way.

Could the Leader of the House kindly let us know how many Select Committee reports have been debated so far and how many are outstanding?

I know that this is a matter of concern to your Lordships. My noble friend Lady Williams of Trafford and I acknowledge the strong feeling across the House on the need to progress debates on Select Committee reports. We have already made good progress this Session; 28 reports have been debated and a further two are due for debate tomorrow. This puts us on track for well over the recent norm of around 30 debates in a 12-month Session.

This has gone a long way towards reducing the overall backlog. Currently, I think there are only 10 reports —I do not have the information to hand—for which debates are still to be scheduled. Only two of those are from 2021. We have also already had more debates in the Chamber. Last Session, only about a third of debates on Select Committee reports were in the Chamber; this Session, we have already debated 18 reports in the Chamber, representing around 65% of the total number.

There is never perfection, but these debates on our Select Committee reports are of inestimable importance to the House. I hope that noble Lords will feel that this and the announcement I have made today demonstrate the earnestness with which we in the usual channels attach importance to enabling your Lordships’ voice to be heard. I thank most earnestly the usual channels for their agreement to this and their support.

My Lords, I assume that we are debating this Motion. In his characteristically emollient and persuasive way, the Leader of the House is actually announcing what a shambles the Government’s legislative programme is in. As he said, towards the end of a Session, it is normal to have government business on a Thursday, and I know that this has been agreed between the usual channels, but the Motion says that government business will take precedence

“until the end of the session”.

The end of the Session should be in May. It is a good discipline that Sessions normally last a year, to make sure that the Government get their act together in time and can deliver on their promises in the Queen’s Speech at the end of the year—that is what happens.

However, we now know, at least in part, that the Session will end not in May but in the autumn, whenever that may be—that is the best date I could find in searching the internet—so it may be six or seven months before the end of the current Session. Of course, the next one may be truncated because there may be a general election —who knows? This Motion says that the Government can carry on having their business on a Thursday until the end of an unspecified Session that will go on until an unknown date. Couple this with the fact that not getting their act together has been a behaviour pattern of this Government since 1970; we have had at least two two-year parliamentary Sessions that I can remember, and this one will apparently last at least 18 months.

I am not happy with this Motion. It has been agreed by the usual channels, and I can understand why this gets done; I know that we are getting a few extra days. But it is an important discipline for a Parliament and a Government, even more so, that they announce a legislative programme that can be done in 12 months and do their best to deliver during that period. Perhaps, at the very least, the noble Lord could help the House by telling us when the next Queen’s Speech will be—we would know where we are then.

It will be the King’s Speech.

I will not remind His Majesty the King of that. Recollections may vary, but I recall a two-year Session when the noble Lord was at the helm of the state and sitting in No. 10. It is rare for a member of the Opposition to complain about the Government taking more time to lay their legislation before Parliament. The Government will seek to proceed with their legislation in a timely way, paying full respect to the rights of all Members of this House, to which I attach great importance.

This Session will be longer, although I am not in a position to announce the precise date of Prorogation. We have made some rough planning assumptions to help organise business and ensure that the House can prepare. I have shared that information with the House, and I cannot give a precise date for Prorogation at this point.

I thank the Minister for this Motion and the effort being made to clear some of this huge backlog, of which I, among others, have been pretty critical. However, does he not think that, since the Government operate under a requirement to respond to a Select Committee report within two months, it would be quite reasonable if the House set a limit on the time that it could delay putting this on the agenda? Would he be prepared to discuss that with the usual channels?

My Lords, I have not been in post for eternity. I repeat what I have already said with all due humility: I hear what the noble Lord says, but my noble friend the Captain of the Gentlemen-at-Arms and I have sought to address the concern that he articulated. As I said, we have already debated 28 reports this Session and two are tabled for debate tomorrow. The backlog is being attacked, and I hope that that will continue. I have had the honour of chairing a Select Committee of your Lordships’ House and believe that Select Committee reports should be debated in this House, so, for as long as I am the Leader of the House, I will try to ensure that they are.

My Lords, we welcomed the conclusions of The Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, which quite rightly called for a radical reset of the childcare system. There will be a lot to scrutinise in the Government’s strategy, but giving children stable homes, built on love is something we all want to see. I thank Josh MacAlister and his team for their inspirational report. I especially thank those who work with children each day and, most of all, the children themselves, who played a central role in the report. The review takes place in a very challenging context for children’s social care: we have seen Sure Start centres closing, preventive services stripped away and young people abandoned in unregulated settings, including some, heartbreakingly, in semi-independent homes miles away from their homes.

At the same time, we see some providers raking in, frankly, obscene profits, and the response from the Government so far is not sufficient. It is not the radical reset that we need. What additional funding there is is welcome, but it risks becoming just another sticking plaster. There is insufficient vision for the direction of children’s social care; it is still insufficient in ambition for our most vulnerable children. Government is about what we do and how, but we still do not know how the Government will pull together the different departments that must now step up and work together so that change can be lasting and impactful. That will not happen without strong grip from the centre. Whether it is for looked-after children themselves, kinship carers or social care workers, the system is just not working: 43% of children’s services departments are currently rated as inadequate or as requiring improvement. Does the Minister think that the announcements the Government have made so far will lead to the current dire situation improving? I want to think that, but I do not at the moment.

On the issue of workforce, we have unsung heroes working with children in every community in the country. They change lives every day, and we thank them. Sadly, however, the gaping hole in these reforms is the lack of a sustainable workforce plan, and without that, so little will be achieved in the long term.

Last year, the 20 biggest private providers of children’s homes and private foster placements made £300 million in profits. Are the Government sure that those private providers are offering the best value for money, the best quality of care, the best services and, most importantly, the best opportunities for these children? I welcome the consultation on national rules for the use of agency social workers. It is a good step, which I hope will help to achieve better outcomes, but to go after agency social workers rather than the worst providers is reaching for the low-hanging fruit and does not get to the root of the problem. The Government need to do both.

We want stable homes, built on love. I am still worried that these piecemeal measures will not lead to the long-lasting, loving relationships that every child in the social care system deserves.

My Lords, I, too, thank all those involved in the care review, who have done such an important piece of work and pay tribute to the utter dedication and commitment of all those in the social care workforce. I welcome the Government’s plans to reform children’s social care and to rebalance the system towards early support for families. However, we need to see action quickly, backed up by funding, because children’s social care is in crisis.

More than 80,000 children are in care in England, more than ever before. The record number of children looked after by the state, and the horrific killings of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Star Hobson, as well as the abuse of disabled children recently uncovered in residential settings in Doncaster, are powerful reminders of the urgent need for sustained reform. The care review estimates that, without this reform, the number will rise to 100,000 within a decade, with the costs rising from £10 billion to £15 billion a year. As the costs of simply accommodating children grow, local authorities are spending less on the critical preventive services that can save money, reduce harm and keep families together.

I welcome the proposals to trial new family help teams, more early support and more integrated and expert-led approaches to child protection and to promote kinship care and develop new approaches to the planning, commissioning and delivery of care placements, together with a fostering recruitment drive. In particular, I welcome the proposal to extend corporate parenting duties to a range of public bodies and authorities. That is all a step in the right direction, but—and it is a big but—this strategy does not address the urgency of the crisis that vulnerable children face. It does not meet the £2.6 billion funding commitment called for by the care review, nor the £778 million that local authorities need to close the children’s social care budget gap. It will not, of itself, address the chronic shortage of care placements in some parts of England. It drags the reform processes out by more than a decade, by which time many of today’s vulnerable children will already be adults.

I have a number of questions for the Minister. We are told that the Government will improve social workers’ mental health expertise, which is good—I welcome it. However, given that care-experienced children and young people are at a greater risk of experiencing mental ill-health than their peers, what measures are the Government taking to improve access to mental health services for that group? The strategy says that the Government will launch a recruitment drive for 500 more social worker apprentices and support local authorities to improve retention to reduce reliance on costly agencies. That is good but, given the current high level of vacancies and very high turnover rates, what else are the Government doing to improve the working conditions of social workers and promote the professionalism of the sector?

Will the Minister commit to increased funding for children’s social care now to stabilise the current system while the reforms are being implemented? Will she also commit to investing £2 billion into family help once the pathfinder programme is complete, as was initially recommended by the care review? Can she tell us what proportion of children in care will be helped by the proposals in the Government’s implementation plan in this Parliament? What assessment has she made of the impact that a delayed rollout of the children’s social care reforms will have?

We welcome the recruitment of foster carers, but can the Minister say how exactly they will be targeted so as to recruit carers who can care for children not currently well served by the system, such as sibling groups, older teenagers and unaccompanied asylum-seeking children? Also, what safeguards will the Government put in place to ensure that the development of regional commissioning and procurement does not lead to more children being placed out of area?

Finally, the recent Health and Care Act—which so many noble Lords in this Chamber, myself included, were involved in—included a commitment for the Department for Education to come back to Parliament within one year with the results of a review of the sharing of data and information and the practicalities of the use of a consistent child identifier. The social care implementation plan mentions proposed approaches to data and information sharing. Can the Minister confirm that the Government are still in favour of the use of a consistent child identifier? If the Minister is not able to answer my questions now, will she write to me?

My Lords, I thank both noble Baronesses for their remarks and questions and for recognising the incredibly important work that our social workers do all around the country. I echo in particular their thanks to those care-experienced young people who worked with the department in putting together our response to the reviews and who are, in many cases, continuing to work with us through implementation.

If I may, I will start with the importance of implementation, but I think that I will also finish with the importance of implementation. All the points that both noble Baronesses have raised are valid questions to ask, and I will do my very best to answer them, but we know that this is an area that is not a new problem. The problem may have evolved and may be in a particular state at the moment, but the need to implement change effectively—and implement high-quality responses, which I know both noble Baronesses and all your Lordships care deeply about—is vital. That is why we have chosen the approach of “test and learn” through pathfinder sites so that, when we come to scale up, we can be as confident as it is possible to be that we have the evidence of—as the noble Baroness opposite said—not just what we are going to do but, at a local level, how it is going to work on the ground from the beginning to end of the experience of that child and family coming into contact with services.

The noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, questioned whether this was really a “radical reset”—she used the term “sticking plaster” and spoke about a lack of vision. Our ambition is aligned to that which Josh MacAlister set out in his review. We believe that the changes we are proposing and will be testing are radical. Through this work, we are sending the system a very clear message about a focus on family help. I know that both noble Baronesses will have read the Government’s response; the theme of family help goes through pretty much every one of the pillars.

We have talked a lot in your Lordships’ House about the truly preventive work that we believe is going on, and will go on, in family hubs. This will be at the earlier intervention end of the spectrum, as opposed to truly preventive, but some of the work that we will be doing to merge early help teams and children in need teams will respond to what children and families tell us, which is that they feel that they are being endlessly assessed and not getting enough support. We want less assessment—we want good assessment, but to have that as streamlined as possible—and more help.

The noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, spoke about the 80,000 children in the care system and she is right that that figure is very high. There are some particular factors that have influenced that: one is obviously a growth in population; the other is the number of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children who are in this country, many of whom stay in the care system much longer than might be the case for children who have gone into care in other ways. Obviously, the proof of the pudding will be in the delivery and that is why we will be putting so much focus and emphasis on the 12 pathfinder sites.

Both noble Baronesses raised the question of the children’s social care workforce, which of course has risen in absolute terms and is currently at 32,500, but we are absolutely aware of the pressures within the workforce. The noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, asked what else we are doing. She will have seen that we will be introducing an early career framework for social workers. We are supporting recruitment more broadly, including in relation to apprentices: we have seen some local authorities offering apprenticeship opportunities in this area and it is something that we think we can learn from, build on and support. As the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, said, we are consulting on the use of agency staff. The level of use of agency staff has risen a lot, it puts an important financial burden on local authorities, and we want to understand better the reasons behind it and what appropriate levels might be.

As for our confidence that the system is improving, the noble Baroness will be aware that in 2017 only 36% of local authorities were judged good or outstanding by Ofsted. That figure is now 56% and the number of inadequate local authorities has fallen from 30 to 16. There has been, and continues to be, very active intervention and support from the department for those local authorities and we think we are on a good trajectory with that, but we recognise that there is still more to do.

On children’s homes, I think the noble Baroness knows my views on some of the profits, so I do not need to repeat them; I think my popularity on the Benches opposite rose at that point. The House should be aware that we have already announced an investment of £259 million to expand the number of children’s homes. We agree that it is not acceptable that children are sent miles from their roots. We are going to do a pathfinder for two regional care co-operatives, which we think will support the sector better in future.

The noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, asked about the focus on foster carers—she might have spoken my briefing for me. The areas she highlighted were sibling groups, unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and others, and those are exactly the areas where our investment in expanding the number of foster carers will be focused. The Government still support the consistent child identifier to which she referred.

Both noble Baronesses challenged the amount of funding that the Government have committed at this point. I think it is important that we do not compare apples and pears. Josh MacAlister’s review was for a five-year period and national implementation, and he recommended £2.6 billion of investment. We have announced, at this point, £200 million over two years, with a focus on pathfinders principally in those 12 areas that I referred to, although there will be two regional care co-operatives and seven additional specific pathfinders in relation to kinship care. So, we are not comparing the same things there.

I understand and very much respect the challenge from the noble Baroness opposite about the speed of implementation. We are balancing quality versus speed and if we are successful in those 12 pathfinders, delivering in the way the whole House hopes they will deliver, we will be able to scale up and review the funding that is required at that time.

My Lords, the steps taken to expand kinship care are extremely welcome, but does the Minister recognise that they are also extremely modest? They are really just scratching the surface of the problem and until the Government are prepared to grasp the nettle of funding for kinship carers, we are not going to get the big expansion we ought to have. Does she also agree that there is now a lot of evidence that kinship care is a cost-effective way of addressing the problems of children who need care and that it will, in the end, be less costly than their being fostered or sent to homes? If that is so, could the Government please get on with it?

The Government are getting on with it. As I said earlier, there is a huge focus in our response on family-led solutions, and kinship care is an invaluable part of that. In addition to the £9 million we have committed for training and supporting kinship carers—who do an extraordinary job—we will be publishing a national kinship care strategy by the end of the current year. That will look at a number of the issues that have been rightly raised, such as educational entitlement, training, improved and more consistent local authority practice, and exploring financial allowances. I accept the noble Lord’s point that kinship care is, most importantly, a hugely valuable part of what is offered and, secondly, cost-effective.

My Lords, one of the previous initiatives announced by the Government is priority admission to schools for looked-after and previously looked-after children. Obviously, the priorities are to get them into good and outstanding schools—where not just the education but the leadership, pastoral care and safeguarding systems are good—and for schools to know that they have to plan and keep places available in case looked-after children come into their area. Can the Minister outline what progress has been made on this? Do we have the data on a local authority area to see in which schools children end up—free school meals data is not a proxy for this because if you have been adopted, you may no longer qualify for free school meals—and whether the children are getting into good and outstanding schools? Is there an awareness of these issues? I have had to advise people informally, even though they have been through a lengthy process to become foster carers, because they did not seem to be aware that if they take in children, that comes with priority school admission.

My noble friend is right that getting looked-after and previously looked-after children into the right school and getting them the support they deserve within that school is a really important element of changing their life trajectory. My understanding is that it varies between local authorities, in part because of different levels of school places, but if there is data on that I would be very happy to write to my noble friend and share it.

My Lords, I welcome the fact that the Government have broadly supported the recommendations of Josh MacAlister’s report, but I am sure the noble Baroness will recognise that I am somewhat underwhelmed at the pace and conviction of actually making sure it happens quickly enough to change, in real terms, the opportunities for many of the most vulnerable children in our society.

I echo what others have said about kinship care, which I have talked about a lot in this House before. What kinship care does, and what we need to look at in other settings, is to allow children and young people to have a consistent relationship with the person who is caring for them. One of the shocking discoveries, in a sense—it was not unknown—was the number of social workers and carers, and the fact that children would go out in the morning and not know which carer was going to be there when they came back in the evening. That really has to be addressed.

When do the Government expect to roll out the pathfinders, and when do they expect to move from a rollout to a more universal service? What is happening with family hubs? The only way we will change from the crisis intervention we now have is through much more effective early intervention. Family hubs are the model that the Government are going with, and I am very happy with that. As the Secretary of State said last week, it needs to be a universal service, but we are a million miles and a lot of money away from that. Can the Minister tell the House about that unrolling of family hubs so that we really can have universal preventive services?

I share the noble Baroness’s desire that everything should be done as quickly as is humanly possible. I hope she would agree, though, that the Government are sending a very strong signal to every local authority that a family-first approach, if you like, is important and gets the best outcomes for children. That is why we are investing £30 million in programmes such as Lifelong Links to make sure that extended family connections for children in local authority care are explored as much as possible—family finding, befriending, mentoring and all those services. Those things will be happening quickly and are directed at our most vulnerable children.

The first pathfinders will start this autumn, and there will be a second tranche next year. They are running for two years, at which point we will review the next steps. On family hubs and universality, if I understood what my right honourable friend the Secretary of State said last week, and as the noble Baroness knows, we are rolling out family hubs in 75 local authority areas. Access to them is universal. If I am right, I think the distinction is that there were certain eligibility criteria in Sure Start’s early stages in particular. The noble Baroness is shaking her head; perhaps I misunderstood, but that was my honest impression. If I am wrong on that, I apologise. I am confident that there are no eligibility criteria for family hubs, and obviously there is a wider age range.

My Lords, first, I declare my interest as a governor of Coram, which has been adopting and looking after children since 1739. I want to ask the noble Baroness a question about leadership. There are a variety of institutions in our country which are in a state of crisis and require strong leadership to turn them around. I point out that in the decade between 2007 and 2017, there were four Children’s Ministers in office, and in the five and a half years since June 2017, there have been no less than eight. I suspect that there is a degree of correlation between the deterioration in the system and the lack of consistent leadership. I suspect that it is above her pay grade—it is certainly above mine—to influence who is and is not the Children’s Minister. However, I suggest, from a long experience in helping businesses try to change, that it would seem a sensible insurance policy to make sure that within the ministry there is a core team of individuals who are completely focused on the breadth and depth of these recommendations; who are properly resourced; who are the best people to be in charge; and who are there to ensure continuity as Ministers change, to get them up to speed as quickly as possible and to make them as effective as possible.

Of course, the noble Lord is right that leadership is incredibly important. As regards the core team, that is what we are lucky enough to have in our senior civil servants, who have huge subject expertise—I spent time with them earlier today—and an extraordinary personal commitment to delivering on these reforms.

My Lords, following on from the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong of Hill Top, particularly about lifelong relationships, I welcome the Government’s emphasis on ensuring that children in care have good-quality, lifelong relationships. On that subject, Star Hobson and Arthur Labinjo-Hughes both lived with unrelated adults—a situation in which children are nearly 50 times as likely to die of inflicted injuries than if they live with both biological parents. The national review said that the risk from new partners was not considered in either case. Apart from the reducing parental conflict programme, what else are the Government doing to make parents and professionals aware of the greater risks from parental relationship breakdown—the elephant in the room—which ultimately leads to so many children coming into care, or worse?

Sadly, my noble friend is right about the problem that he articulates, which is very clear. I think that the experts and professionals working in the sector are clear that relationship breakdown, and domestic violence and abuse in particular, are very important reasons for children being taken into care. My noble friend is right that more needs to be done to raise awareness around some of the specifics that he cited. However, I suppose I feel that it is not sufficient to be aware of it; as my noble friend suggests, one needs to know what we then need to do about it. Work will come out of this review on the standards that we will be setting for all multiagency partners, and being clear about information sharing, which is a theme that comes out of every serious case review that I have ever read. However, with all that we just need a relentless focus on the quality of implementation, which is what we plan to bring to this.

My Lords, the Government refer in their six pillars of transformation to one of those being unlocking the potential of kinship care, and I want to return to that. Although developing a national kinship care strategy is welcome and a significant step towards ensuring that kinship care is properly supported and that more children remain safely in their family network, for it to be delivered and for it to make a real difference it needs cross-government buy-in, from the Treasury, the DfE, the MoJ and from BEIS—not just conversations but real buy-in, with the money following through from that. So I would really welcome even stronger assurances from the Minister unequivocally that the strategy has cross-government buy-in and that the adequate funding to match the ambition will be provided. On the current budget it cannot meet that ambition—we all know that intuitively. In addition to all the support structures that are needed, which have been articulated by others in this debate, we have the issues of advice services that are critical, legal advice, financial support to these families and employment rights, all of which need to be addressed if we really are going to fulfil the ambition of unlocking the potential of kinship carers, because, as I have said on previous occasions, the barriers are quite dysfunctional at the moment.

The noble Baroness asks me to predict the outcome of the strategy that we are consulting on. Obviously, I cannot do that, but I can share with the House the scale of the Government’s ambition and the value that the Government place on kinship care. This is the first time that there will be national training and support for kinship carers, so it is an important step forward in the short term. We know that there has already been a move from the Ministry of Justice in terms of extending legal aid to special guardians in family court proceedings. We are exploring other workplace entitlements with colleagues across government for kinship care, as in cases where they have special guardianship orders or child arrangement orders—and, as I said, we will be looking at educational entitlements, local authority practice, training, and financial allowances, which I think encompasses quite a few government departments.

My Lords, further to the excellent question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, and the last question, from the noble Baroness, one of the conclusions that I reached after dealing with many constituency cases was that so many social service departments do not involve the wider family—aunts, uncles, grandparents. We all agree that it is incredibly important to prioritise kinship care. What is the Minister going to do to change the culture and attitudes of different social service departments?

I mentioned earlier that we are keen to establish and clarify, as your Lordships and my noble friend have highlighted this afternoon, that there is variability of response, understanding, support and capacity from local authorities in relation to kinship care. We want to be clear about what good practice looks like. We are also working with Ofsted to raise the visibility of kinship care in its inspection framework. Everyone violently agrees about the value of kinship care. The question is how we make sure that it is available and supported, and that some of those barriers to which my noble friend refers are removed.

My Lords, the report has some very positive elements. Overall, I share the view of many noble Lords that it is a disappointment. I would not call it a missed opportunity, because time will tell on that. However, Mr MacAlister himself must be disappointed, because the call that he made for a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reset the delivery of children’s social care will not be met in terms of the report and its contents thus far.

There are two more consultations. I want to hinge again on the question of funding, which is well short of what MacAlister asked for. In the Statement, the Government say that they are determined to deliver

“bold and ambitious reform”.

Well, that will not be achieved with the sort of funding that we have heard about so far.

Kinship seems to be the central theme of this session. In the Statement, the Government say that they will

“invest £9 million to train and support kinship carers before the end of this Parliament.”

Well, that could be 18 months away, and £9 million would be about £50 per kinship carer. If that is not scratching the surface, I really do not know what is. It is not like him, but if anything, the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, understated the case when he talked about the financial benefits that kinship carers bring. They save the Government countless millions and do not get the recognition either of that fact or of the work that they do.

Perhaps I might ask the Minister another question on kinship care. The review called for a single legal definition of kinship care to be written into law to improve recognition of the varying forms of kinship care arrangement and to improve access to the support that carers and their children need. Does the Minister recognise the many benefits to having a clear definition of kinship care enshrined in legislation?

On funding, I have made the point that we are talking about a two-year programme in selected areas, not five years nationally. The reason for that choice is that we believe it is critical to get the quality of implementation right, on the ground, before scaling. Secondly, I remind the noble Lord that spending on children’s social care is £10.8 billion annually. There was a £3.2 billion uplift to the adult and children’s social care budget in the autumn, so the Government are already committing very large sums of money to this area—as we rightly should.

On the definition of kinship care, we want to strike a balance that retains flexibility, as every family potentially has a slightly different model for how kinship care works, and absolute clarity, as we want to make it easy for families to deliver this and for them to feel supported. Whether that is through a definition or not is a slightly different question, but it is our aspiration to retain those two things.

My Lords, the Minister regularly refers to the independent pay review process, even though it may have suited the Government to ignore its recommendations in the past. Ministers have said that it is time to come together in the interests of patients, while NHS employers and staff, and the public, all want to see negotiations. Can the Minister explain why the Government have not come together with the unions to sort this out? If they do not do this, how will this dispute, which is unprecedented in the history of the NHS, ever be resolved?

Clearly, we all want to resolve the dispute, and many meetings have been held with the unions to date. We believe in the independent pay review body; it is something we have backed since 2014. In the circumstances, April is very close—it is a matter of six or seven weeks away—and we enter into the new pay deal then. I would expect the pay review body to take all these factors into account, including historic inflation and inflation going forward, and put forward something that is fair and reasonable on that basis. I believe that is the foundation for a solution.

My Lords, the Government’s response to NHS staff seems to be to offer them jam tomorrow, when they are struggling to pay for jam today. Does the Minister accept that, if the Government do not lift the funding constraints on the independent pay review body so that it can make a decent settlement for 2023-24, the entire process risks losing all confidence and the independent pay review process itself could become irreparably damaged?

I would not say that six or seven weeks is jam tomorrow; I would say that it is jam pretty soon. That gives us a basis to go forward. The noble Lord’s basic point of allowing the pay review body to take all factors into account is fair: we need to give it the freedom to be able to do that.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his replies. It seems, from what he is saying, that they are going to run out the clock and hope for deliverance next year. I think that is acting irresponsibly. Does the Minister not agree? He probably will not agree, but comments from some of his colleagues have been less than helpful. Does he understand the strong feeling among NHS staff when Ministers talk about unions failing to maintain decent service levels, as it is 13 years of Conservative Government that have led to this failure?

I totally agree with the noble Lord that constructive dialogue is the way forward, and language and actions are important as part of that. I am glad to say—and I thank the unions for their part in all of this—that the first priority for everyone is to protect life. We all appreciate their role in ensuring those minimum derogations are in place, to make sure that those key life-threatening situations are well-handled and catered for.

My Lords, the Minister and other Ministers have often mentioned that the lowest-paid workers have been given a higher percentage uplift—I recall 9% being mentioned. Does he accept that 9% of a small amount is a very small amount, and does not buy an awful lot more food? Does he accept that this is why people are campaigning for a proper percentage increase to match inflation right across the board?

In the case of the lowest paid, it was made sure that everyone received at least £1,400, so there was a pound note amount there. I note, in the case of the calculation, that 9.3% is fairly close to the rate of inflation, which is about 10.5%. It is not exactly the same, clearly, but it is pretty much the impact that the cost of living will have had on them. The other thing that I would note at this point is that they will have been protected from energy bills by the unprecedented steps that the Government took there, because of course that had a big impact on people’s cost of living as well. So it is a range of measures. Is it a challenging time? Absolutely, but we are seeking to really try and protect those who are on the lowest incomes.

My Lords, the devastation in Turkey and Syria is clearly heartbreaking, with thousands losing loved ones in the most shocking of ways. Our thoughts and sympathy must go out to all those so deeply affected, in particular the diaspora community here in the United Kingdom. As the Minister reminded us on Monday, the death toll of this terrible disaster was rising at a huge rate—by the hour, he said. At that point, the reported casualty figure was 2,000; this morning, the Disasters Emergency Committee reported that at least 9,000 people have been killed across the two countries, anticipating that the figures will continue to rise. President Erdoğan announced later that the death toll in Turkey had reached 8,754. Combined with the 2,470 known deaths in Syria, that brings the total official death toll to 11,224.

Of course, it is anticipated that, sadly, these figures will continue to rise. Many people are trapped under rubble and search and rescue operations are still continuing. More than 5,770 buildings have collapsed in Turkey and 4,000 have collapsed in north-western Syria—that was the estimate from last night. Information from rural areas, however, may not have been received due to the damage to communications and road infrastructure. The WHO has suggested that the final toll could rise as high as 20,000. A similar-sized earthquake in the region in 1999 killed at least 17,000.

This afternoon, the Disasters Emergency Committee announced it was launching the DEC Turkey-Syria earthquake appeal tomorrow through TV and broadcast appeals. I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us this afternoon how the Government will ensure support for that appeal, both in funding and in promotion.

The Turkish Interior Minister has issued an international assistance call and stated that Turkey has mobilised state emergency teams. On Monday, the Minister gave us a detailed report on how our international search and rescue teams had been deployed and commenced life-saving activity within the crucial 72 hours. Can he tell us whether we plan to send any further search and rescue resources, beyond what is in the Statement, in particular heavy-lifting equipment, helicopters, et cetera? Clearly, the demand is huge. Anyone listening to the BBC this morning would have heard the terrible reports about the need for shelter, energy, water and sanitation. There are reports that cholera is already spreading in Syria. The terrible conditions and the question of how bodies are stored and buried also need to be addressed.

DEC reports that its humanitarian directors indicated that at least 10 of its members have the presence and ability to implement a response in Turkey, either directly or through partners, and 13 of its members have indicated that they have capacity to respond in Syria. Several DEC agencies have already begun responses using existing resources. We want to hear how the Government can support additional services.

This disaster highlights the desperate need to improve humanitarian access to Syria from Turkey, particularly after last month’s renewal of the UN Security Council mandate on cross-border aid secured only one crossing for six months. I also mentioned on Monday that many NGOs are deeply concerned about Syria, in particular on access and control of different areas. Ismail Alabdullah from the White Helmets spoke to the BBC from within Syria, near the border with Turkey, to appeal for international assistance. He said:

“We need help. We need the international community to do something, to help us, to support us. North-west Syria now is a disaster area. We need help from everyone to save our people.”

On Monday, the Minister said that the FCDO was working directly with the United Nations and that he hoped to speak to the UN co-ordinator, Mohamed Haji, later that day about Syria. I hope he accepts the need to drive humanitarian access up the international agenda and open new flows of aid to north-western Syria. I thank the Minister for his regular updates to me and, I am sure, other noble Lords on the situation. I understand from them that he was able to speak to Mohamed Haji earlier today. I hope he can tell us the outcome of those discussions and what more positive steps we are taking as a nation to help those people in Turkey and Syria.

My Lords, I associate myself with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Collins, regarding our sympathies being with those directly affected. This is also an extremely concerning time for the diaspora community. Is the FCDO offering any guidance and support to the diaspora community on how to access information about those it may be concerned about? I will not be alone in this House in having friends in the area who have already struggled with communications. We have all seen the images of the pure hell of the area, with whole villages and communities razed to the ground. Part of the communications and infrastructure network has also been affected.

As the noble Lord, Lord Collins, indicated, the human cost is rapidly growing and is now more than 11,200 in southern Turkey and northern Syria, with more than 23 million lives affected. Without question, the UK population will respond to the DEC appeal; the public in this country respond when there are awful disasters such as this. Can the Minister confirm that the Government will trigger the UK aid match? They did so with regard to the Pakistan floods and, of course, the Ukrainian appeal. I would be grateful if the Minister could make a rapid announcement on a UK aid match from the Government, matching the generosity of the British public.

The European Union has provided a commitment for €3.5 million through the EU civil protection mechanism in response to a formal appeal from Syria. What is the UK government mechanism for support? As the noble Lord, Lord Collins, indicated, the people of northern Syria have been afflicted by conflict, and it is an area where control is divided between the Government and rebel groups. There is already concern that the Assad regime may use this politically, but the people will need humanitarian assistance. So what are the mechanisms by which the UK will work with our international partners on delivering assistance? I understand that it has been the Government’s approach not to provide equipment that could be used internally in Syria. There are grounds for exceptions to be made for this. Are the Government actively considering that in an urgent way?

We pay tribute to the work of those providing humanitarian assistance already. Beyond support for the White Helmets, what is the FCDO advice for British charities and NGOs that wish to be active in this part of Syria? I know this is a very delicate situation, but what clear advice has been provided?

We know the reality in this region: 4.1 million are already dependent on humanitarian assistance, the majority of whom are women and children, in a harsh winter and with a cholera outbreak. With regard to healthcare, medication, food, shelter and essential provisions, if the British public want to contribute to specific organisations beyond the DEC, what is the advice as to whom and how?

I pay tribute to the crisis response and recovery unit at Crown Agents, which does sterling work on Ukraine and across the area. I know the Minister knows Crown Agents extremely well. It supports supply chain organisations, shelter response, heaters, latrine units and, specifically, water and sanitation for girls and women. How are the Government supporting Crown Agents, which I think is held in the highest esteem in the world for tackling logistical difficulties in very complex areas? Are the Government ensuring that it is equipped as it should be to provide this assistance? I hope the Minister can respond positively.

My Lords, as I am sure all noble Lords do, I fully associate myself with the words of the noble Lord, Lord Collins. The situation in Turkey and Syria continues to worsen, exacerbated by both hard-to-access areas and the weather conditions; snow and rain are hindering progress.

I turn to some of the specific points. I thank the noble Lords, Lord Purvis and Lord Collins, for their strong support. This underlines the importance of being at one when these crises hit. Of course, I will continue to update your Lordships’ House on a regular basis, as I said I would 48 hours ago, as things evolve and emerge. Tragically, as the noble Lord, Lord Collins, pointed out, the figures continue to increase. From both official statistics and the reality on the ground, as conveyed to us through reports and, importantly, some of the calls I have had—which I will come on to in a moment—it is very clear that this number will continue to increase.

There is always the odd bit of hope. I am sure that many noble Lords saw on the front pages of our newspapers that young girl in Afrin—a source of hope. The tragedy was that she was born under the rubble and the rest of her family have died. Who knows how many such cases we will come across?

On the calls I have been making, I spoke yesterday to the head of the White Helmets, Raed al-Saleh. I join the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, in commending their incredible work, which we are again seeing unfold on our screens. As I announced then, we immediately stood up another £800,000. I conveyed that to Raed al-Saleh and his team and asked him to identify specific needs and requirements in Syria.

I accept what the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, said about accessibility. As I said a couple of days ago, that remains a priority. There is one sanctioned humanitarian corridor, as the noble Lord, Lord Collins, alluded to. I have been in contact with our senior ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations, Dame Barbara Woodward, to see what further pressure can be exerted on the likes of Russia to open up corridors. This is about saving people’s lives. It is important that Russia now recognises, notwithstanding the immense differences that we have because of its illegal war in Ukraine, that lives will be saved through accessibility into Ukraine. I assure noble Lords of our best efforts in working with both our key partners at the UN and partners such as the United States and the European Union to apply further pressure in that respect.

I turn to some of the specific questions. Both noble Lords asked about the DEC appeal. I do not want to pre-empt any announcement, but I assure noble Lords that, as we have done previously, we are working closely in a co-ordinated fashion. When those announcements are finalised, I will update noble Lords. I reassure them that we very much stand by the DEC appeal in terms of both logistics and financial support, as we have done previously. The details of that are still to be determined, but I will update the House accordingly.

The noble Lord, Lord Purvis, asked about Crown Agents. It is a key partner and I associate myself totally with what he said. I have not yet seen the specifics of some of the requirements, but I will update the noble Lord on that.

I am trying to find my note on the UN—this shows just how much of a live issue this is. The DEC appeal has just been launched. I will not go into detail on that because it is still being worked out, but we will look at match funding; indeed, as I left the FCDO today, that was one of the issues that were still being determined.

The noble Lord, Lord Purvis, pointed to the EU contribution of £3.5 million. The UK has stood up £8 million, which will focus specifically, as we announced earlier today, on a package of life-saving support to cover both Turkey and Syria. The humanitarian package includes immediate extra support, covering thousands of tents, blankets and hygiene-kit specifics, as the noble Lord outlined, as well as equipment to help address urgent medical needs and the offer of a world-class UK field clinic. It is important that in Turkey we co-ordinate this through the Turkish agency, which we are doing, and that in Syria we work through the UN. My right honourable friends the Foreign Secretary and the Development Minister had a very constructive call with Martin Griffiths.

I can also inform noble Lords that today I had a good call with the UN co-ordinator, Muhannad Hadi; unfortunately, he painted a very bleak picture, but there is some hope. Senior representatives of the United Nations, including Martin Griffiths, will be going to Damascus to plead the importance of humanitarian relief. On the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Collins, about direct support, I asked Muhannad Hadi what could be done so that we could relay that information. He said that he would provide specific information to me; as soon as I have it to hand, I will share it with noble Lords.

I stress that our agencies, NGOs and charities that work in the UK have incredible reach. The Red Cross and the Red Crescent, through their networks, are providing important support; I am sure that, as partners are identified through the DEC appeal, they will provide other opportunities for key partners working on the ground. Of course, we continue to work in a very co-ordinated fashion with them.

I will make a quick point on engagement. I am sure all noble Lords acknowledge the strength of the message sent by His Majesty the King to the President of Turkey. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister also spoke to President Erdoğan yesterday. The Foreign Secretary and I have both sent messages to the Foreign Minister of Turkey, while the Turkish ambassador is in the FCDO as I speak and meeting the Minister for Europe. He conveyed his sincere thanks for the outpouring of support that he has seen, not just from the important and valued British-Turkish diaspora but across all communities. I am sure that will continue to be the case.

I will continue to update noble Lords as the details are finalised, but we are very actively engaged on this agenda through international agencies and directly through the UN teams, working with key partners. I can report that the team that I announced, made up of 77 search and rescue specialists, is now on the ground and working with other teams there. A UK medical team has also been dispatched and has arrived in Gaziantep, where it will meet the Turkish Ministry of Health to establish other key priorities.

My Lords, like all noble Lords, I am absolutely heartbroken, particularly because I have so many good friends in Britain who have already travelled to Istanbul. Some are trying to access Syria. I am deeply touched by the powerful contributions of my noble friend Lord Collins and the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, and I thank the Minister for keeping us up to date.

I have two questions. A huge amount of effort is already under way within the various communities. How can the Minister and the Government ensure that those British efforts are directed in one direction, so that they can be maximised? The sending of tonnes of food and clothes is being arranged. Can we ensure that there is some collaboration with the Turkish embassy, Turkish Airlines, et cetera?

My other point is to ask the Minister whether he has sought meetings with other Muslim countries in the region, particularly Qatar, given that it has just created some massive, good-quality tents. Can some of those be donated to Turkey, especially in light of the fact that Qatar already has really good experience of creating high-class clinics, as it did in Pakistan some years ago? My prayers and condolences are with the people of Turkey. I hope that we will all, individually and collectively, do everything within our ability and capacity to ensure that Turkey is helped.

My Lords, on the second point, as the Minister for the Middle East and North Africa, I will very shortly travel to the Gulf and this will be one of the key areas of my discussions. Equally, I know that those near neighbours are responding.

The noble Baroness talked about co-ordination. We are speaking directly with the Turkish authorities, as well as with the ambassador here, to see how we can best co-ordinate efforts. I have already indicated certain NGOs that can be worked with. Undoubtedly, the Turkish authorities are overwhelmed. Specific lines have now been set up for British relatives who are in Turkey; those are directly with the Foreign Office and consular offices are available 24/7. On people looking for family support, as was pointed out in our previous discussion by the noble Baroness, Lady Hussein-Ece, that is a matter for the Turkish authorities directly but we are looking at how we can disseminate that information.

Finally, I add a note of caution. As we have seen, the Turkish Government have stated clearly that only vehicles which carry aid teams and aid materials will be allowed to enter certain cities deemed to be inside the disaster areas. That should be borne in mind.

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the DEC should be congratulated for getting off the mark much faster than usual? This is going to be very reassuring to all those who have donated. I recall from my time with some of the DEC members that there was a healthy tension—not to say competition—between them early on in these events. Can the Minister give the House an idea of how briefings are provided without showing any restraint or regulation? How does one keep in contact, especially when there is duplication of food and materials?

My Lords, I applaud the efforts of the DEC. It has stood up aid during the recent challenges and disasters which have engulfed the world, including last summer in Pakistan. This also underlines the strong generosity of the British people in supporting these contacts. On co-ordination—if I understood the noble Earl correctly—the DEC provides a strong framework. It is being briefed regularly and has meetings with FCDO officials.

My Lords, geology, as we have found yet again, is no respecter of national boundaries and nor is the disease which follows such events. Can my noble friend the Minister outline how we will use the expertise in this country to help our friends and colleagues in Turkey and Syria deal with the disease that will inevitably follow this terrible disaster?

My Lords, I assure my noble friend that it is for exactly that reason that we have dispatched a UK medical team, which is analysing what the exact requirements are. We are also meeting the Turkish ministry of health and the World Health Organization to determine the direct impacts. As I have said, we have offered health facilities directly to the Turkish authorities to see how and where they can be best utilised.

My Lords, I am pleased the Minister indicated that he has just left a meeting that considered the question of match funding for money raised through the Disasters Emergency Committee. When might we expect a decision to be announced?

They say that patience is a virtue. I assure the noble Lord that he will not have to wait too long.

My Lords, can my noble friend provide a little more information about the aid and support the UK is sending to those in the middle of the search and rescue operation?

My Lords, my noble friend rightly raises the importance of the type of aid; it is not just about standing up aid. The specific initial requirements, which we have responded to, are search and rescue expertise. We have deployed experts and specialists, along with rescue dogs and equipment. The second requirement from the Turkish authorities has been on health. As I have already said, we are looking at this and making assessments to stand that up. There will be a requirement for more medium and long-term support. We are directly co-ordinating with AFAD, the Turkish relief agency, which is co-ordinating all international efforts. I think that over 70 countries have now responded. It is important to see which countries have which strengths and equities, so they can be directly and correctly deployed across Turkey and Syria.

My Lords, an area of development assistance the UK traditionally does best is humanitarian assistance. As the Minister has outlined, our response in the face of this disaster will be quick and impressive. The press is alive with rumours of cuts in ODA. Can the Minister assure the House that humanitarian assistance in particular will be protected so that, when there are future disasters, the UK response will be equally nimble and large?

My Lords, over many years and under successive Governments, the United Kingdom has prided itself on its humanitarian response; it defines who and what we are as a nation. When people are in need, we should respond accordingly. As the noble Lord, who speaks with great insight and from experience, says, we need to respond to humanitarian crises as they occur in a dynamic way—and long may that continue.

My Lords, when such disasters strike, anywhere in the world, the British public are very good at responding to these appeals. In previous situations—flooding in Pakistan and earthquakes elsewhere—I have seen a lot of small groups collecting money for these purposes. How can we make sure that every single penny collected goes to the people we are collecting for?

My Lords, several noble Lords have asked about the DEC appeal. The Government’s advice will always be that aid should be given through recognised agencies. The DEC appeal provides the vehicle to ensure a structured and co-ordinated response and that the money reaches those it is intended to reach, as the noble Lord pointed out.

Will we ensure that women have sanitary products, contraceptive pills, et cetera as part of what we offer in responding to this disaster?

As I alluded to, we have health teams on the ground and they will specify the requirements. But the issue of vulnerable communities, women and girls is of course an important part of any humanitarian response.

My Lords, on 23 April 2019, two British citizens, Daniel and Amelie Linsey, were killed in a terrorist attack in Sri Lanka. At the time, there was great difficulty in bringing their bodies back, and the Foreign Secretary then said he recognised that the Foreign Office had a weakness in its procedures. The Linseys were dual citizens, and the United States Embassy was much more efficient and helpful. In the end, the bodies had to be repatriated to America because the Linsey family could not wait for the British Foreign Office to facilitate the return of the bodies. At the time, there was talk of reviewing the whole systems and procedures for British nationals dying abroad and the bodies being returned. Given the very sad recent events in Turkey and Syria, have those changes been implemented?

My Lords, I will of course follow up the specific case my noble friend raises and determine exactly what the issue is. But in my experience over several years at the Foreign Office—now the FCDO—it has always prioritised repatriating British citizens during tragedies such as the one sadly unfolding in Syria and Turkey. Thankfully, according to my current report, we have not received any specific reports of British nationals being among the casualties. However, I will certainly take back my noble friend’s point about the importance of prioritising this issue and ensuring that we are able to return the bodies of the deceased. If there is further information to share in that respect, I will write to my noble friend.

That the Bill be now read a second time.

My Lords, I draw noble Lords’ attention to my registered interests, including as the director of and person with significant control of AMP Ventures, and as a shareholder of and person with significant control of several other companies. I do not believe that any of those are relevant to today’s debate.

Economic crime threatens our national security, prosperity and global influence. It underpins serious and organised crime and undermines legitimate business, causing great harm to individuals, our society and our economy. That is why this Government are determined to tackle economic crime and drive out dirty money.

We have already taken unprecedented action to prevent kleptocrats and organised criminals abusing our open economy. We were the first G20 country to establish a public register of domestic company beneficial ownership in 2016. We introduced new powers in the Criminal Finances Act 2017, including account-freezing orders, which in 2021-22 alone enabled £132 million-worth of assets to be frozen or seized. We secured £400 million through the spending review and the new economic crime levy to support law enforcement over the next three years. We established both the National Economic Crime Centre to co-ordinate the law enforcement response to economic crime and, more recently, the combating kleptocracy cell in the National Crime Agency to target corrupt elites.

With the support of this House, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we took immediate steps by passing the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act. It introduced reforms to improve transparency in land ownership and to provide greater powers and more information to identify, investigate and take action against illicit wealth. It also helped the UK to act swiftly to impose sanctions against over 1,200 individuals and 120 entities linked to the Russian state. I was very pleased, as I am sure we all were, to hear President Zelensky praising these moves today in his moving speech to both Houses.

However, we know that this is a constantly evolving challenge. We must not be in any way complacent about the threat. Building on the first Act, we are pleased to bring to the House the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill. It will bear down even further on kleptocrats, criminals and terrorists who abuse our open economy, and it will strengthen the UK’s reputation as a place where legitimate business can thrive, while ensuring that dirty money has no place to hide.

The Bill will ensure that law enforcement and the private sector have the tools needed to help tackle economic crime, including fraud and money laundering, and it will deliver greater protections for members of the public and businesses. It forms part of the wider government approach, sitting alongside the key provisions in the Online Safety Bill, which will tackle online fraud, as well as the forthcoming second economic crime plan and fraud strategy, the delivery of which are all supported by the spending review settlement.

The Bill covers several areas, and I will now speak to the measures set out within it, starting with the reform of Companies House. The UK operates one of the world’s largest and most open economies. It is important to note that the vast majority of companies are formed and run by legitimate business owners, benefiting the economy and contributing to society. We want to maintain that ease of doing business and continue to welcome investment and legitimate business. However, while that brings prosperity and opportunity, it also exposes the UK to harmful practices, such as money laundering, corruption and terrorist financing. Our welcoming business environment is open to misuse by those who seek to undermine the business framework. The use of anonymous or fraudulent shell companies and partnerships provides criminals with a veneer of legitimacy and undermines the UK’s reputation as a sound place to do business.

The Bill will deliver significant reforms to the role of Companies House, marking the biggest change to our system of registering companies in over 170 years. The changes will improve transparency and bear down on the use of thousands of UK companies and other corporate structures as vehicles for economic crime, including fraud, money laundering, illicit finance, corruption, terrorist financing and illegal arms movements. The reforms will provide Companies House with the appropriate information, tools and powers to take action and better respond to abuse, thereby strengthening our business environment.

Through clauses in Part 1 of the Bill, we will introduce identity verification for new and existing directors, beneficial owners and those who file information with Companies House, helping to ensure that we know the real people acting for, and benefiting from, companies. The Bill also broadens the registrar’s powers so that the registrar becomes a more active gatekeeper over company creation and a custodian of more reliable data. Improving the financial information on the register will make it more reliable, complete and accurate, thereby supporting better business decisions and creating wider economic benefits. Part 1 will also provide Companies House with more effective investigation and enforcement powers and will introduce better cross-checking of data with other public and private sector bodies. We will also enhance the protection of personal information and addresses, thus helping to protect individuals from fraud and harm.

On limited partnership reform, Part 2 tackles the misuse of limited partnerships, including Scottish limited partnerships, while modernising the law governing them. We will tighten registration requirements and require limited partnerships to have a lasting connection to the UK. The Bill will also increase transparency requirements and provide the registrar with powers to deregister limited partnerships which are dissolved or no longer carrying on business, or where a court orders the dissolution because it is in the public interest.

Part 3 of the Bill makes some technical changes to the register of overseas entities that was legislated for in the first Act. These changes will maintain consistency with changes to the Companies Act and are intended to enhance the effectiveness of the register.

On crypto asset measures, the measures in Part 4 and its associated Schedules 6, 7 and 8 will provide additional powers to law enforcement officials, so they are able to more quickly and easily seize, freeze and ultimately recover crypto assets. The creation of a civil forfeiture power for crypto assets will mitigate the risk posed by those who cannot be criminally prosecuted but use their funds to further criminality or for terrorist purposes. These measures will modernise our proceeds of crime and counterterrorism legislation to ensure that crypto assets cannot be a conduit for money laundering, fraud, ransomware attacks or terrorist financing.

Measures in Part 5 of the Bill will enable better information sharing between certain businesses and with law enforcement to prevent and detect economic crime. It also provides new intelligence-gathering powers for law enforcement to tackle money laundering and terrorist financing. These reforms will enable the better detection and prevention of crime taking place across multiple businesses and will prevent criminals exploiting information gaps between them. Clause 174 also stream- lines the process for updating the UK’s high-risk third-country list.

The Bill will provide legal service regulators with enhanced enforcement powers to support them in upholding the economic crime agenda within their regulated community. A regulatory objective will be added to the Legal Services Act 2007—the LSA. The Solicitors Regulation Authority’s—SRA’s—statutory cap on the financial penalty powers for disciplinary matters related to economic crime will be removed, and the SRA will be able to proactively request information from its regulated community for the purpose of monitoring compliance with the economic crime regime. These measures will make clear to regulated bodies and individuals the expectations that government has of the regulators on this issue and support their ability to uphold sanctions and the wider economic crime regime.

The Bill will also enable the Serious Fraud Office to use its powers under Section 2 of the Criminal Justice Act 1987 at the pre-investigation stage in any SFO case, including fraud cases. This will support the Serious Fraud Office in delivering its functions and assist with the Government’s efforts to tackle fraud.

I conclude my opening remarks by highlighting the opportunity that we have in front of us. This Bill will make a difference to businesses, law enforcement and our citizens. Businesses will receive a better service from Companies House; law enforcement will receive new powers and better information to help root out criminals; and citizens will be better protected. This Bill is significant, and addresses several technically and operationally complex areas. The measures within it have undergone extensive and constructive scrutiny through the other place, particularly through the work of the Public Bill Committee. Through that process, we have listened and made several refinements and improvements.

In that vein, I also want to thank noble Lords for the support which was received during the passage of what became the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act. I am mindful of the pace at which that Bill was passed and noble Lords’ request to ensure that this second Bill is subject to a timetable which enables full and proper scrutiny. I welcome that further scrutiny, including today’s debate, and I look forward to engaging with all noble Lords on the Bill as we seek to ensure that it achieves the crucial objective of making our country, our businesses and our citizens safer. I beg to move.

My Lords, I open by welcoming the Minister to his new position in his new department; we wish him well. I agree with all the sentiments that he has expressed when introducing this Bill, particularly that we are dealing with a “constantly evolving” threat and what he said about the mechanisms that are being addressed in this Bill. It went through a very lengthy process in the House of Commons, and I hope that we will have an equally thorough process in this House.

Although the Bill introduces many necessary changes, we must make sure that those changes are strong enough to stand up to the significant problem that economic crime has come to be in this country. The Government first promised action against fraud, money laundering and other forms of economic crime in 2016. It is regrettable that change has taken so long to reach us and that action has come only after the war in Ukraine exposed the deep connection that economic crime and dirty money have to war and the threat that not plugging the gaps in our financial system poses to the rule of law and democracy across the world.

In the Bill’s absence, the problem of dirty money within our system has not only been allowed to continue, but has grown significantly. Estimates of the total annual cost to the UK from economic crime are between £290 billion and £350 billion per year. These are huge sums, and around twice what we spend on our NHS in England every year. Over the past two years, 64% of businesses have experienced fraud, corruption or other financial crime—a figure that has increased by 50% over the past four years. In 2020, 4.5 million incidents of fraud were recorded, and many more remain unreported. This makes it the single most common crime perpetuated against people in the UK, and only 0.01% of cases are brought to court where somebody is charged with an offence. Only three convictions for serious fraud were secured last year, which is a decrease of seven since 2015. Reform is vital to ensuring protection and justice for individuals and businesses across Britain, but the scale of financial crime across the country also threatens our economic fortune, national security and international status. If we are to continue to welcome and encourage good business and clean money, we must firmly expel the bad.

On the day on which we welcomed President Zelensky to speak to us in Parliament, we must also reflect on the part that economic crime here in the UK has played in supporting crime and war worldwide. Crime within our financial system supports international organised crime, such as people trafficking, drug smuggling and illegal arms dealing. Through the corruption of political systems, it threatens peace, democracy and the rule of law across the world. President Zelensky spoke earlier of the bravery that Ukrainians have shown in the face of invasion and thanked the British people for standing with them, in his words, “from day one”. We must all work together in this House to make sure that this Bill is strong enough to play its role in helping Ukraine. Ending the flow of illegal Russian money through the UK, which is being used to fund the war in Ukraine, will be one important measure of this Bill’s success.

The Government must explore strengthening measures in the Bill in several areas. The overhaul of Companies House is welcome and long overdue. Verifying the details of nearly 5 million existing company directors and others with significant control is a large but achievable task. The Government have allocated £63 million to Companies House for this reform and stated their intent to raise registration fees. We do not wish to see fees raised to the point of discouraging enterprise, but they must cover the costs of preventing not only serious instances of large-scale fraud, but the day-to-day frauds perpetuated against ordinary individuals. I said that fraud worth up to £350 billion takes place every year. How does the Minister think that £63 million stands up against that figure? Given the large number of existing directors, as well as new directors, who will need to be verified, I am interested to hear from the Minister how long he thinks that it will take to complete the process and whether the balance between encouraging business creation through low fees and covering costs can be met.

The Bill as written also fails to mention all the loopholes connected with the use of trusts and with companies registered in British Overseas Territories. In fact, it remains completely silent on this point. The Bill will be marked down as a missed opportunity, and we will return to this issue as it progresses through this House.

The Bill also needs strengthening in its enforcement measures. The Government have not yet set out a clear strategy to recoup assets seized through economic crime enforcement and to compensate victims. It is welcome that the Government have indicated their intent to introduce further measures on corporate criminal liability after significant concerns were raised in the other place. The lack of measures to hold directors to account for fraud and money-laundering conducted by their businesses is a clear omission in the Bill in its current form, and we look forward to seeing what measures the Government will bring forward, as was promised in the other place.

We must ensure that this Bill allows us to get ahead of those wishing to abuse our financial system through economic crime. The delay in bringing forward these reforms, and the gaps that remain in the Bill, risk us being condemned instead to playing catch-up with the criminals. We are pleased to support its Second Reading, and I look forward to working with the Government and colleagues from across the House to address the issues and make this a better Bill.

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, and to associate myself with his remarks about why the Bill is so important and why its effectiveness is essential. I also agree with him on welcoming the noble Lord, Lord Johnson, to his new and expanded role. It is lucky he did not have much to do on his first day in office, and we welcome him.

Over the years, as we have heard, the United Kingdom has, wittingly or unwittingly, become a haven for economic activity that should not be acceptable or legal in our country. We have become a haven for stolen wealth for some of the worst regimes in the world. That is why we want the Bill to succeed and for the objectives set out in it to be achievable. We will be supporting and working constructively with the Minister and across the House to make sure that the Bill that leaves your Lordships’ House is fit to deliver the things that have to happen.

When your Lordships’ House fast-tracked the first economic crime Bill through this House, and we all worked hard and very quickly to make sure we were able to deliver the sanctions immediately and quickly, there was much talk about what the next Bill should achieve. This is that next Bill, so we will be examining it on the basis of the hopes that were expressed during that debate: is it capable of achieving the objectives we discussed then and will be discussing now? The Minister in his introduction—and, indeed, his predecessor, when we met—laid great stress on the changes being brought to Companies House. This was, of course, a source of great discussion during the previous Bill, with many of us outlining the scale of the challenge that organisation faces, particularly given from where it was starting. With this Bill, that challenge has not got any less, but I think many of us fear that the journey that Companies House needs to take, from being a passive paper repository to becoming a data-led investigative doorkeeper, is still not fully appreciated. The scale of cultural change required for this to happen is great, and I think this is something we will come back to time and again through this debate.

Perhaps the first test was the UK property register. Only last week we learned from the Financial Times, and I think there was a report this week from the BBC, that thousands of offshore companies have missed the UK property registration deadline. It was aimed at identifying owners of around an estimated £100 billion of illicit financing, much of which is channelled through British real estate. The new register requires previously anonymous foreign owners or buyers of UK property to reveal their identity, yet thousands of offshore companies owning properties in the UK had not declared their real ownership on the new government register by the deadline, which was a couple of weeks ago. The previous Minister is on the record as saying that the Government

“will be using all the tools at our disposal, including fines and restrictions, to crack down on foreign companies who have not complied.”

Can his successor explain how anonymous foreign owners will be fined? Can he tell your Lordships’ House how many Companies House employees are currently investigating the unregistered owners?

According to data taken from Companies House at the end of December and analysed by the research organisation Open Ownership, some 2,800 companies had said they were based in the British Virgin Islands, with Jersey and the Isle of Man also at the top of the league. I am sure my noble friend Lord Wallace will expand in due course on the role of overseas territories.

Looking forward, I note that new purchases that involve anonymous foreign buyers should now disclose the beneficial owners to Companies House before any application can be made to the UK’s various land registries. Can the Minister tell your Lordships’ House whether this is now happening in all cases, and how he knows it is happening? In other words, what is the reporting structure and data structure that the Government have on the performance of Companies House?

The Minister mentioned the excellent debate at Report stage in the Commons. During that debate, MPs called for stronger reporting to hold the whole of Companies House’s works to account. As Dame Margaret Hodge MP put it, it should

“ensure that it delivers what we have in mind in being at the front end of fighting economic crime through the data that it collects.”—[Official Report, Commons, 24/1/23; cols. 916.]

In other words, we believe this Bill needs to be strengthened in terms of the reporting regime to Parliament from Companies House.

As the Minister highlighted, identity verification is a vital tool in the policing of the sector, if it is to be successful. On that basis, I would have thought that it should be a core competence of the new model Companies House. However, it seems that much of this work is being outsourced to corporate service providers. These are the same firms and sector that provide identity support for at least 50% of the applications that Companies House is supposed to verify. To hand the role of identity verification to the very sector that is seeking to obscure identity for its clients is absurd. I believe the Minister should look again at what is happening on this front. I would like to hear the justification for outsourcing what should be a core competence of Companies House.

We then turn to the funding of Companies House and related activities. In the Commons, there was considerable debate about the fees paid to register. The current level is ludicrously low. The Commons proposed £100, which to my mind remains a relatively small sum and in no way a barrier to serious players. I understand why the Minister may not want to enshrine this in primary legislation, but I would ask that the Minister tells your Lordships’ House—either now or perhaps in Committee—what figure the Government intend to bring forward, and will the Government commit to linking this to inflation and ring-fencing it from HMRC siphoning off, because the money is needed to bolster the whole process of policing this?

I have allowed Companies House to dominate much of this speech as its effectiveness is key. I know that my noble friend Lady Bowles will look at this more, and there are other issues too that my noble friends and your Lordships will no doubt raise, both today and in Committee.

We were heartened that the Government took on the challenge laid down in the amendment moved by Robert Buckland MP and supported across the Commons. This sought to address the need to make a failure to report into an offence. The aim is to start to better address the role of enablers—the lawyers, the accountants and other professional services—in the laundering of dirty money. The details in this are key and, like others in this House, we will look at the Government’s version of this amendment. Can the Minister undertake to have it published well before the first day of Committee? I expect my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones to speak to this in more detail in Committee, and I am afraid he is unable to participate today.

One of the ways that service providers will be brought to book is through whistleblowers. My noble friend Lady Kramer has been the lead in the debate to better facilitate and protect whistleblowers. I am afraid she also is unable to attend the Second Reading, but I know that both she and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, are following this debate very closely. Whistle- blowing is crucial in the fight against economic and financial crime. Unfortunately, many of the whistleblowers who have come forward and contributed vital evidence have suffered from the consequences of doing so. This Bill should do more to reinforce their position and encourage others to step up. We believe that, so far, the Bill fails to do that.

In the Commons, Dame Margaret Hodge MP, again explained that all the work on economic crime done by the Public Accounts Committee in her time as its chair came from whistleblowers. Similarly, Kevin Hollinrake MP, now the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Business—at least, I think he is; the Minister is nodding to confirm—asserted that he believed that 100% of economic crime detection could be attributed to whistleblowing. This is important. That is why Mary Robinson MP, chair of the APPG for Whistleblowing, moved an amendment in the House of Commons to provide meaningful protection to whistleblowers by creating an office of the whistleblower. Even Tom Tugendhat, the Minister of State for Security, while refusing to accept the amendment, conceded that the country needs an office for whistleblowers. There is work to do on this, and we should address this hole.

Moving on, none of this matters a jot if there is no effective enforcement. We have to ask ourselves: why does Latvia have a better record of enforcement on economic crime than we seem to have in the United Kingdom? According to my reading, there have been essentially no economic crime cases brought in this country since Putin came to power. Why? One of the most charitable explanations is that the fear of costs generated by super-rich litigants in the setting of a civil court can lead to budget-busting costs if they are awarded against the prosecuting authorities. This fear that the costs will be so high breeds a risk-averse attitude in the prosecuting authorities, but this would not be a problem if it was happening in a criminal court. I am sure we will want to try to find ways of probing this in Committee.

Then there is the role of lawyers in intimidating people such as journalists seeking to shine a light on the sort of practices that have shamed our country. Essentially, this is legal bullying. It has another name in this country: SLAPPs, or strategic lawsuits against public participation. As we will hear from my noble friend Lord Thomas, SLAPPs are a form of legal intimidation used by wealthy persons to avoid what often turns out to be the truth from coming out. There has to be action to stop this, and I am sure he and other noble Lords will raise this.

To speak briefly on crypto assets, there were something close to 50 amendments to the Bill brought in the House of Commons on this subject. I am intrigued by the idea of what is a UK-connected crypto asset and how the Government will go about seizing a crypto asset when it certainly does not reside within a UK-governed territory and often does not really reside anywhere at all. The intentions within the part of the Bill on crypto assets are good, but I think the practicalities may be well beyond the words we see in it. I am interested to hear about that.

Finally, I will mention the issue of seizing assets that have been frozen, as the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, also raised. Very few of us who witnessed it could not have been moved by what President Zelensky had to say today, but we need to match our applause with action. One issue he raised was compensation; one way to do this is to use frozen assets to effect some sort of redress. In the case of Ukraine, I believe there is some $350 billion of Russian assets currently in the international freezers. As I am sure the Minister is aware at the moment, moving assets from being frozen—perhaps interminably so—into a place where they can be legally redistributed is fraught with legal problems. Before the Minister tells me that this is because of sovereign immunity and above our respective pay grades—it is certainly above mine—I agree. But that is why an amendment was tabled in the Commons to propose that the Government look into this and report back to Parliament within six months on how these assets can be put to use to make good some of the harm that has been caused to Ukraine. There is a Private Member’s Bill in the Commons on this topic, so perhaps the Minister, either now or otherwise, could come back with some idea of what the Government’s feeling on that Bill is or how some of the debate around it might be incorporated into what we are talking about here.

To conclude:

“The UK’s and its overseas territories’ lax laws on company formations, trusts, our financial centre, our huge expertise, our lack of resources for enforcement and our weak whistleblower protections enables economic crime, probably more than any other nation on earth.”

Those are not my words but those of Kevin Hollinrake MP, before he came Under-Secretary, who now has some responsibility for the Bill. We agree with him: now is the time for his department to rise to the challenge that he himself so savagely outlined when on the Back Benches. We commit to help the Government make the important strengthening that this legislation needs.

My Lords, I remind the House of my interest as a non-practising member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. I hesitate to do that, given the comments that I am sure will follow about enabling, but there we go.

Like, I suspect, everybody else, I welcome the Bill, which is an important step towards cleaning up the high levels of economic crime that have been allowed to build up in this country for far too long. However, like other noble Lords who have already spoken, I share the concerns that it does not go far enough; it is not strong enough at the moment.

I too welcome the Minister to his new role. I am going to be slightly unfair to him by referring to what his predecessor said during the passage of the first economic crime Bill, which was rushed through last year as emergency legislation. The then Minister was clear that the introduction of this second Bill would be an opportunity to revisit the first one. Accordingly, I start by asking the Minister, as the noble Lord, Lord Fox, has already done, to update us on progress with the register of overseas property. Has anything been learned from that process so far that might be of relevance to the Bill before us?

This is a good moment to look back, because the initial deadline for filing for the register of overseas properties was last week: 31 January. Transparency International issued a report yesterday on the progress made. It highlights that the register is starting to serve its purpose and that it reveals the names of many individuals who control overseas companies that own UK property; so far, so good. However, of the estimated 32,000 companies that are required to declare their ownership, nearly half had not yet filed; more than 3,000 listed anonymous companies as the beneficial owners; more than 4,000 indicated that they are held by trust arrangements; and 12% of all the companies that have filed claimed to have no beneficial owner. Therefore, while, to be fair, it is early days, it would be hard to claim that the register of overseas entities has so far been a resounding success. It is clear that those who wish to hide their identity are still managing to do so.

The Transparency International report highlights five methods people are already using to hide their beneficial ownership: simply failing to submit information or filing non-compliant information, listing opaque companies as beneficial owners, trust companies hiding the real owners, companies claiming to have no beneficial owner, and naming service providers as beneficial owners. I would be interested to understand what the Government are now doing to follow up on these, and in particular what action is being taken to identify regulated entities which have verified the information and remind them of their liability, as well as reporting them to their regulators. It would be interesting to know whether there are any trends in particular verifiers or types of verifiers using any of those methods to hide identity. All these things have obvious implications and lessons for this Bill, as well as highlighting the need to continue to strengthen the last one. Therefore, again, what have the Government learned from the experience so far?

The Bill’s main purpose is to strengthen Companies House and enable it to ensure that it can verify the information provided to it. That is extremely welcome, if very long overdue—did the noble Lord say 150 years? The importance of Companies House cannot be overstated. Your Lordships’ Fraud Act 2006 and Digital Fraud Committee, of which I was a member, met a number of fraud victims as part of our inquiry. One thing that stood out was that in all cases where the fraud was carried out involving an apparent business, the victims we heard about had checked that the company existed with Companies House before parting with their money. The fact that the company was registered actually helped the fraudster. The Bill is therefore essential, but there are areas where it could be improved.

The success or otherwise of the Bill is extremely heavily dependent on how well the authorised corporate service providers, or ACSPs, carry out their verification responsibilities. Let us be honest: history is not terribly encouraging in that respect, especially regarding trust or company service providers. The proliferation of regulatory bodies is a major issue—there are 13 alone for the accountancy profession. In particular, there is nothing in the current supervisory regime that obliges the supervisors to check the verification standards of the entities they supervise. I know the Treasury is looking into reforming the supervisory regime—that cannot come quickly enough—but in the meantime, it is essential that Companies House is proactive in its oversight of the ACSPs and that it has an obligation to check that they are carrying out the required verification properly. It should not just rely on the fact that ACSPs will be regulated, as is currently proposed.

More generally, will ACSPs be publicly identified for each filing, in the same way that now happens with the register of overseas properties? Identifying them publicly would make them much more likely to take verification seriously and would enable public analysis of which ACSPs are verifying the more dubious-looking companies. If they will not be publicly identified, why not?

As we have heard, none of this will work if Companies House is not sufficiently resourced. At the moment, the fee for creating a company is the laughably low £12, which is among the lowest fees in the world and nowhere near enough to cover the costs we are asking Companies House to incur in strengthening the regime. Indeed, it could be argued that the very cheapness and ease of creating companies may actually encourage wrongdoing. The EU average is about €300, and in the US it ranges from $570 to $1,400. An increase to, say, £100 will not disincentivise legitimate companies but would greatly increase the resource available to Companies House without increasing government funding. What consideration are the Government are giving to that?

Moving on briefly to other economic crime, and specifically fraud, I mentioned earlier the inquiry carried out by the Fraud Act 2006 and Digital Fraud Committee, which was expertly chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Cotes, who we will hear from later. That report made many recommendations on how we might break the fraud chain and start to reduce the 42%—I stress, 42%—of all crime against the individual that fraud now represents. In passing, I note that the Government’s response to that report is now nearly a month overdue and that the long-awaited national fraud strategy was also expected before Christmas. Both those documents would be extremely helpful in our deliberations on the Bill, so can the Minister please commit that we will see these well in advance of Committee?

One of the key recommendations in our report was the introduction of a new corporate offence of failure to prevent fraud. The report concluded:

“Until all fraud-enabling industries fear significant financial, legal and reputational risk for their failure to prevent fraud, they will not act.”

To be effective, the offence needs to cover the whole range of fraud enablers. It must cover, for example, a telecoms company failing to take reasonable steps to stop fraudsters using its network to contact victims, and social media and other platforms failing to take reasonable steps to prevent fraudsters using their platforms to carry out fraud. I understand that the Government intend to introduce a “failure to prevent” amendment. To follow up the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Fox, when might we see that amendment, and will it cover the area I have described, especially telecoms and social media platforms? I understand that that might not be the case, because the Government intend that the offence will depend on the company itself having benefited from the fraud. That would not cover—or it would be difficult to make it cover—a social media company failing to take reasonable steps to prevent its platform being used by fraudsters, for example. This is not a small issue: according to TSB, 70% of all investment frauds originated on Meta platforms, and Action Fraud tells us that 80% of all fraud is cyber-enabled. Do the Government really not intend to put a stop to that?

One could say an awful lot more about the Bill but I am conscious of time, so I will wind it up there. However, I welcome the Bill and look forward to working with the Minister and others around the House to strengthen it and make it better.

My Lords, I too congratulate the Minister on his new position, and congratulate the Government on bringing forward this Bill. It is probably the most significant of several steps which have been taken in recent years to begin facing up to the enormous problem that we face of financial crime generally, fraud generally, and money laundering. It also addresses the presence of overseas criminals in this country.

I think that the main point of this debate and of your Lordships’ proceedings will be to make sure that the splendid policy intentions that lie before it, and which I suspect have almost universal support in this House, are turned into something that makes a real, practical difference on the ground. That has not always been the case in the various pieces of legislation that we have had since 2016. For example, one of the most important introductions that the present Government made was to introduce unexplained wealth orders—but we have not had many of them made. They are extremely difficult to enforce. The acquittal of someone charged under the unexplained wealth order is extremely expensive to the prosecuting authority and a considerable deterrent to proceeding. That kind of thing has been repeated in many instances in the more recent legislation.

I am particularly influenced by an experience that I had in my last period in the House of Commons, as Father of the House. I was one of quite a number of Conservatives who voted with Members from all the other parties in the House to defeat the Government and insert in a Bill a requirement that our overseas territories, places such as the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands, should have a public register. The Conservative contribution to that vote was led by Andrew Mitchell. He is now in the Cabinet. I am almost certain that Kevin Hollinrake, now the responsible Minister, also supported that Conservative rebellion.

Of course, its practical effect was practically nil, because shortly thereafter I discovered that the public register that appeared in these places contained information that was almost comically valueless and misleading in the case of those suspicious companies that had registered in those territories. One rapidly discovered of course that Companies House here, which had moved to having a public register, was equally fooled by suspicious companies giving valueless information for those trying to enforce the law and those trying to protect themselves. So we do not want a repeat, whereby the legislation sets out a legal position that makes us all highly satisfied and proud but which on the ground makes remarkably little difference.

In recent years, sadly, I have got into the habit of referring to London as the money laundering capital of the world. Most of the most sophisticated and prosperous financial criminals know perfectly well that London is an attractive place to go to and that, while it has quite a good reputation in most ways, it is a comparatively easy place to find some professionals, lawyers and accountants to help you clean the money, obscure its origins and invest it in a variety of attractive and realisable assets, ranging from very expensive accommodation in Chelsea to football clubs or anything else that takes your fancy. So what we actually need is not attractive legislation on the subject but legislation which turns rapidly into considerable change on the ground, where London is no longer an attractive place for criminals from around the world and is no longer subjecting our society to the ever-increasing volumes of financial crime which we have been experiencing in recent years.

In the Commons, a very large number of cross-party amendments were tabled with this objective. Quite a few have already been referred to today. I find myself in the position of being lucky enough to be allowed to speak fifth in the debate but already having to avoid being repetitive. I hope that the entire debate continues to be repetitive, because that will give the strongest possible message to the Government that, again, while I congratulate them on having been responsive in the House of Commons, adopting some changes and responding to them, we have been promised more and we wait to see what will be done as soon as possible in the Lords to give effect to the intentions already pronounced in the Commons. The Government should take on board that there is almost universal support for their policy but not yet adequate satisfaction that it will make the significant difference that we hope for in rescuing people and rescuing the country from financial crime.

The key part of the Bill, and the only part that I will touch on without repeating what has already been said by the noble Lord, Lord Fox, and others, is the transformation of Companies House, which I think will take place. It will be transformed from being just a registrar of companies to being an accurate registrar of companies, and one that investigates the accuracy and verifies the accuracy of its own register and has enforcement powers. The Bill gives Companies House very extensive new powers. The broad-brush point underlying the changes that are being pressed for is that those powers should be turned into legal obligations to verify the information being given and which Companies House is publishing. Also, Companies House and the registrar should be made accountable to this place and to the public for the delivery of its duty to make sure that it is putting forward a verifiable register that can be of use to individuals who are suspicious and wish to be reassured before they entrust their money to a body that they wish to know more about.

The points that need to be verified are quite clear. Someone should verify that those who are described as the beneficial owners of entities actually are the beneficial owners. Who are the main shareholders? Is the address that is given for the organisation a useful and plausible address? When one reads accounts of frauds in this area, one discovers that the beneficial owners, the main shareholders, are useless nominees who can give no guarantee of security to anybody. It is quite common for a shell company to register some stray residential address in some suburb of London where the residents, quite genuinely, have never heard of the company and cannot assist anybody in moving towards it. So we have been publishing a register since 2016 that publishes what appears to be vital and helpful information but is actually an abuse. People have rather amused themselves by giving the information on the basis that this will help to deceive the victims of their crime. We are going in the same direction.

I will add to the other subjects. A criminal offence of failure to prevent financial crime should be explored seriously. The Government have already said that they are coming back to us on that, so I hope that they come back with something that matches the arguments in the lower House, not something touches on that but is actually trying to move away from it.

The lobbying of professional bodies, such as the Bar Council and the Law Society, disappoints me. In the dim and distant past, for a long time I practised as a barrister at the criminal Bar and I quite understand the cab-rank principle and that it is for the jury, not you, to determine the guilt of the accused, but the moment that you feel you are participating in or furthering a crime, the moment that your client—I never had one do it, actually—admits his guilt to you and asks for your advice on how he should avoid the consequences, you return the brief. It is not a respectable part of the legal profession or the accountancy profession, which at the moment make so much money by offering their services to people from overseas and elsewhere who ask for help, to turn dishonest, dirty money into clean money that they can enjoy the benefits of here.

I have indicated my strong support for the principles of the Bill and expressed my congratulations to the Government on how far they have got. If the debate in this House continues along the same lines, as I expect it will, I hope the Minister who replies will take on board the message that the Government will have to further strengthen the Bill in its process here. We want to turn out a Bill that makes a real difference to the reputation of this country and the financial security of our citizens.

My Lords, it is an immense privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Clarke of Nottingham. He invites us all to be repetitive, and I will try not to be, except to this extent: I agree with every syllable, every word that was uttered by my noble friend Lord Ponsonby, followed by the noble Lords, Lord Fox, Lord Vaux and Lord Clarke of Nottingham. In trying not to be repetitive, I may inadvertently touch on some of the subjects they mentioned.

My thanks go particularly to the noble Lord, Lord Fox. His speech covered almost all the points that I want to make, so maybe I should go on to his Back Bench and support him, as he suggested his noble friends will be doing. I also welcome the Minister to his Front-Bench position and congratulate him. I look forward to working with him, particularly on this Bill, as we all do.

I noticed that the Minister used a form of words that the Government almost always use when talking about economic crime. He is not to be criticised for that consistency; it is a good thing. Almost every time I go on a government website about economic crime, in which I have an interest, the first sentence is to the effect that economic crime is not merely an enforcement or regulatory issue but—and this is what interests me—it poses a threat to the UK’s national security, economy and institutions, as well as causing serious harm to society and individuals. It is a threat to our national security because we seem to have an open door to some of the most dangerous and violent people in the world who either send their money or, in some cases, come to live with us because they can, partly because, at one stage, they could buy visas that would allow them to do that if they invested a significant amount inwardly.

It is not only that. I was pleased that my noble friend Lord Ponsonby started with the scale of this crime, which is extraordinary. It is estimated that economic crime costs this country somewhere in the region of £300 billion per year, but everybody who says this also says that the difficulties of assessing the scale of undiscovered economic crime means that this is almost certainly an underestimate. As we heard in the fraud Select Committee, which I will come back to, a large number of people are so embarrassed about being defrauded that they do not report the crime so it is never entered into the statistics. Even so, at that rate, it constitutes 15% of GDP. I do not think there is a measure of London buses that would help people realise what that means, but it is seven and a half times what the UK spends on defence.

The prize for all this and the contribution it would make to the good order of this country is that, if we can interdict this behaviour, there is an enormous amount of money to be gained. There would be no problem with the Government paying public servants what they want if we could get that money back or, better still, stop it leaving the country in the first place. That is where our focus should be.

This debate takes place directly in the shadow of the UK’s fall from 11th to 18th place in the Corruption Perceptions Index. This should concern us because it suggests that the systemic failures, which we have often discussed in your Lordships’ House and will be discussing today and throughout the passage of this Bill, are being noticed by our partners abroad and causing trust in the probity of our institutions to ebb.

Against this backdrop, the provisions in this long-overdue Bill are welcome. I think they will be welcomed by all the speakers who contribute to this debate, but my welcome is not unqualified. The reforms to Companies House, the enhancement of transparency, the disclosure requirements for limited partnerships and the strengthening of the scope and ability of law enforcement agencies to confiscate illicitly acquired crypto assets—although I share the bemusement of the noble Lord, Lord Fox, about how that is going to be done, because I have no idea how you can take an illicitly acquired crypt asset off somebody; that will have to be explained to me at some stage—have all rightly garnered cross-party support, but with this support, and we have the other place to thank for it, comes a helpful, cross-party and expertly informed call for the Government to strengthen certain measures further and include a few well-thought-out additional provisions.

In the 10 or more years that I have been in this House it has been almost a tradition for many speeches at Second Reading to include a criticism of the other place for a failure to scrutinise the detail of the legislation, consequently delivering it to your Lordships’ House in a state where fundamental repair or, in some cases, reconstruction work is necessary. Nothing could be further from the truth in respect of this Bill. The Report stage debate on 24 and 25 January in the other place is a model of parliamentary legislative scrutiny. It was cross-party, informed and detailed, and in almost every line of the excellent speeches an improvement of the Bill emerged. It turns out that—people who have been around Parliament long enough know that this invariably happens in debates on Bills—the Government resisted the temptation to accept any of those amendments although, in this case, they promised to come back to some of them.

The deep irony was that the two Ministers who were being persuaded—one was the current Security Minister and the other was Kevin Hollinrake—were partly responsible for the process that generated these amendments in the first place. Behind this—a virtual industry, over the years—were two All-Party Parliamentary Groups. The people who spoke in the debate were either members of those groups and had contributed to these amendments or were members of the Treasury Select Committee, which had been debating and promoting them for some years. It was a virtual treasure-trove of advice and suggestions to improve the Bill significantly.

Over the period of time that we have the Bill, it is almost certain that this House will nurture it and bring it forward through a process in which all this will be repeated and debated. From my experience of the House, particularly recently, the Government will have greater trouble here in getting the votes to go with them when they resist common-sense and well-thought-through improving amendments to the legislation. I am not suggesting that we just jump to that process—we have to go through it and we will—but that is my confident prediction about where this Bill will end up. We will give it back to the other place in the state that it hoped it would come to us in.

This will be a big challenge for the Government but, in my view, it will be a much-improved piece of legislation that starts to deliver what the Government want, which is to make us more resilient against what has become a disease in this country, that is, corruption and fraud. It is costing us phenomenal amounts of money. There is a big prize.

I had intended at this point to refer to some of these points, but since the noble Lords, Lord Fox and Lord Vaux, have done it for me, I will not. I think that we have laid out the menu. However, I will ask the Minister one important question. I too was a member of the fraud Select Committee, immensely ably chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Cotes, and there are other speakers in this debate—such as the noble Lord, Lord Young—who were also members. I think that we are all very proud of the work we did and commend the report, which should be read. However, I say to my noble friend Lord Vaux that I am not certain I want the fraud strategy to be published in the current circumstances, for the reason that I am about to come to.

Coincidentally, alongside the publication of the committee’s report—we did not set this up—the National Audit Office published a value for money report on combating fraud, which is the responsibility of the Home Office. Five years before, it had published a value for money report and been deeply critical of the Home Office for not having, among other things, data about the level of fraud, so it must have been to its surprise—it was to mine—that this report, which it published at the same time, said among other things that the Home Office had no reliable way of measuring the financial impact of fraud or the value for money of its own policies to tackle it. That is because its data was—guess what—six years out of date, coincident with the last time that the Home Office told it that it had no data to measure fraud. That struck me as appalling, given the Home Office’s responsibility, as I am sure it did the National Audit Office. This is now with the Public Accounts Committee, so we cannot debate it in any more detail in this House until that comes out.

Believe it or not, the Home Office put up a spokes- person on the day who said, and I paraphrase—responses of all Governments of any hue to crises start off by saying, “We take this issue very seriously”; the answer to that in many cases is, “No you don’t, because if you did then there wouldn’t have been a crisis”—that they took this issue very seriously, were in the process of drafting a national fraud strategy and would take into account the criticism of the National Audit Office. They should have said: “We will delay the publication of our national fraud strategy until we have some data on which to base it.” I am not so desperate to get from this machine a national fraud strategy until they have corrected the problem that the National Audit Office described.

I am conscious of time; I had promised myself that I would not go any further than eight minutes. I think that I have said enough; I will say no more. I support this legislation, but it must be improved, exactly as the other place tried to improve it.

My Lords, I join everyone else in welcoming the Minister to his role. I also join with them in a theme that I think will emerge from everybody: support for the objectives and intentions of the Bill, but a rather more cautious view about its implementation and the resourcing of the tools to deploy it.

Unfortunately, the word SLAPPs—the use by wealthy folk from around the world, including in the UK, to deploy UK law firms to intimidate those who wish to publish information in the public interest—has regrettably become part of our parliamentary lexicon. I have repeatedly raised this urgent issue, and as have others in both Houses, so I hope it is not necessary for me to detail tonight the tactics deployed in the action of SLAPPs.

I will, however, touch on their impacts. At a personal and professional level, being on the receiving end is not just stressful; as one victim said, it takes over your life. It involves huge amounts of time, in some cases years, and bills for legal advice that are simply unaffordable. On such costs, the report ‘London Calling’ by the Foreign Policy Centre quotes a leading defamation lawyer as stating that:

“£500,000 is the ‘absolute floor’ for a full-scale libel trial, with most starting at £1 million. Even preliminary hearings, at which stage defendants might seek to get the case thrown out on meaning or jurisdictional grounds can run anywhere from £50,000-£100,000.”

At a public interest level, when people with fabulous wealth—perhaps from murky sources—can engage top London law firms to act as legal attack dogs to set on anyone going public, then who can blame a journalist or newspaper editor who decides, as many have done, simply not to investigate or publish public interest stories, no matter how well-researched or important? That is why so many stories never see the light of day.

At the level of the legal profession and the rule of law, we must recognise that many lawyers do not participate in SLAPPs. However, there is no shortage of firms willing to deliver such harassment and look the other way from the source of their client’s funds. This brings into disrepute the UK’s much-vaunted rule of law. At the level of the economy, it corrupts our financial markets. Suppressing public interest information about substantial business figures and their activities is market abuse by those who gain from it. It sits squarely in the purview of this Bill on economic crime and transparency.

Let us not get carried away. There are two problems here. First, surely everyone has a right to defend themselves before the law. If they want to spend millions on doing so, is that not their choice? The second problem is what can actually be done about this. This House is uniquely rich in legal expertise, and I can think of no better way to answer these two conundrums than to quote from the recent letter of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, to the Times, where he considered both problems and said that

“the rule of law … requires that all persons, however ‘dubious’, have access to legal advice and representation.”

I agree with him. Crucially, he then added:

“There are exceptions to this … and rightly so, in particular that we may not assist litigation which we believe to have no reasonable basis or which is being pursued to harass others.”

Again, I agree with him, but some lawyers do not follow this sound advice. They grasp instead the substantial fee opportunities available for acting as legal heavies; it is these harassment tactics that constitute a SLAPP. The noble Lord’s letter concludes that it is for judges, not lawyers, to determine the nature of such litigation. Once again, I agree.

What can be done? The answer is a vital but modest amendment to current practice to address the proliferation of SLAPPs. We need a process whereby, for example, a journalist subjected to SLAPP tactics can obtain a hearing in front of a judge far earlier than is currently available. This both reduces the time and keeps down the cost. Evidence can be presented by both sides and the judge can then rule on whether the case is vexatious or not. There are details to be resolved, such as the criteria and evidence required, but this has already been considered and clauses drafted, which I shall refer to again shortly.

Why this Bill? Well, the Government have repeatedly stated on the record from as far back as July last year that they are appraised of the issue and absolutely determined to legislate. I sat in on the debate on this Bill in the House of Commons and there was loud—I might say impatient—support from all sides of the House for the Government now to act, as I believe is also the case in this House. Instead, on Bill after Bill we hear, “Sorry, not in this Bill”, or reference to the Bill of Rights Bill, which is under fire from all sides, including from the Joint Committee on Human Rights, or even suggestions of deferring to stand-alone legislation at some future unspecified and distant date. This Bill is the right and logical opportunity to address this growing issue. If we miss this opportunity then nothing will happen in this Parliament and those reporting on economic crime will continue to be unprotected until goodness knows when.

So what to do? As has been mentioned, the Government have had many months to think about this and we have further time between now and Committee, so they have ample time to turn their publicly and repeatedly stated commitment into a government amendment to the Bill. It might help the Minister to know that professionally drafted clauses have already been prepared by lawyers and have been shared and discussed with, and improved by, highly respected Members of this House with legal expertise. I offer to share these with the Minister and the Bill team if it would assist them in producing a government amendment. I therefore ask the Minister to tell us whether he will agree to stand by the Government’s declared policy and work with us to bring forward a suitable government amendment in Committee.

In concluding, I highlight again that our free press, our legal profession, the rule of law and the proper functioning of our markets are all things that we are usually and justifiably proud of in the UK, but all four are under threat and are being damaged and dragged down by the bullying and abuse that SLAPPs embody. This Bill, which is after all dedicated to preventing economic crime and to promoting corporate transparency, is the realistic and logical place to enact a suitable amendment. I therefore look forward to the Minister’s reply and to his doing more than reading out a statement about the Government’s commitment to some unspecified future date. It is now or never to bring this vital amendment into the Bill and on to the statute book. It must be now.

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell. I will pick up on quite a bit of what he has just said but, like other noble Lords, I will attempt not to be repetitive—certainly not unhelpfully so. I should say from the outset that I recognise that this is a very important Bill and my noble friends on the Front Bench will have my full support in getting it on to the statute book.

I feel a little bit like an interloper. As noble Lords who have observed my interventions in this Chamber over the years will know, I would not normally be found participating in a deep dive into economic crime and issues of corporate transparency law. However, I come to this Bill with my role as chair of the Communications and Digital Select Committee very much to the fore, because of the topic the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, clearly and ably gave us an account of, which is SLAPPs—in full, strategic lawsuits against public participation. I will not go through a detailed description of what this means because the noble Lord has already done that, but I will add a couple of things to what he said.

Although this practice came to public attention last year when it became apparent that it was often deployed by oligarchs, it is important to bear in mind that it is not just something that rich Russians use. It is widespread and used by powerful and wealthy individuals but also by institutions. They reach for it as a defence when they do not like legitimate scrutiny or have something to hide.

When my committee first looked into this matter a year ago, we established that what we were aware of about this practice represented just the tip of the iceberg. In fact, the deployment of SLAPPs or very aggressive lawfare is so successful in deterring scrutiny that many cases never get anywhere near a court. I should add, as a former chair of the Charity Commission, that this practice of aggressive lawfare is also sometimes deployed against regulatory bodies, not just journalists.

The Communications and Digital Select Committee recently held a follow-up session on SLAPPs and took evidence from the regulator, the Solicitors Regulation Authority, to find out what it is doing to identify, deter and punish British law firms that profit from facilitating these abuses of our legal system. I am pleased to say that the committee heard that it is now taking the issue seriously, but I was concerned to find that there are completely inadequate deterrents against lawyers taking on SLAPP cases. In a moment I will comment on what the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, said as a more expansive solution to this issue, but two specific points stood out to me that are directly relevant to the Bill whether or not the Government support the noble Lord’s proposal to use the Bill to address the matter more comprehensively.

First, the regulator can fine wrongdoers up to £25,000. This has just been increased from £2,000. Noble Lords do not need me to point out just how ludicrously small that sum is; it probably amounts to a few hours in legal fees for the top law firms. I cannot imagine that many lawyers working for billionaire oligarchs or any other rich and powerful figure would live in fear of such a punishment.

The Bill provides a crucial opportunity to change that. It will give the regulator unlimited fining powers in relation to economic crime. That is welcome, but most lawfare cases would fall outside of that scope. I therefore recommend changing Clause 181 to allow the regulator to fine solicitors up to £250 million for pursuing SLAPP cases, whether they relate to economic crime or not. This amount is in line with what the SRA can fine other types of organisations, such as alternative business structures. To be clear, ABSs are law firms that are run by non-lawyers or whose partners are a mix of lawyers and non-lawyers. That means that the big accountancy firms qualify for this status, so in theory the SRA could fine those big accountancy firms that provide legal services up to £250 million but not the majority of law firms. I do not know about other noble Lords, but that strikes me as rather odd. In correspondence with me following my committee’s public hearing, the regulator confirmed that it supported this suggestion. The money this would generate could go into a defence fund for journalists and others facing such SLAPPs.

Secondly, I learned that payment for legal advice is not subject to the same type of money laundering regulation checks as other legal services. In addition, key parts of the Proceeds of Crime Act, which should require solicitors to report suspicious activity to the National Crime Agency, apparently do not apply to the conduct of litigation by lawyers. I accept that lawyers will need to represent individuals from all walks of life, including criminals, but that does not mean they should profit from dirty money. Again, this loophole is odd, to say the least, because it suggests a risk that dirty money can be used to pay lawyers to pursue abusive lawsuits aiming to silence journalists. That is particularly ironic, given that money laundering tends to be a key topic of interest for investigative journalists. Indeed, one of our witnesses made explicit allegations that the law firm pursuing a SLAPP case against her was working for someone using illegitimate funds. I recommend taking this opportunity to close that loophole and send a message that law firms should be doing everything in their power to uphold proper standards of due diligence.

The SRA has said it will write to lawyers about money laundering but, in all likelihood, the lawyers carrying out these cases know exactly what they are doing and how to game the system. The only way to stop them is with meaningful deterrents and sanctions. On that topic I have written to the Lord Chancellor and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I hope my noble friends the Ministers will agree that these changes would be a valuable and proportionate contribution to the Government’s commitment to stamping out abuses of our legal system.

As the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, said, we need to do more to stamp out the practice of SLAPPs and end London’s disreputable status as the best place for wealthy and powerful bad people to hide from legitimate scrutiny. If the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, seeks to use this legislation to bring forward wider measures to tackle this—and I very much urge the Government to seize this opportunity to deal with this practice—it is possible that we will be able to achieve more than I had hoped we might in what I have covered today, which is quite modest and precise, in amendments that I propose to the Bill.

My Lords, it is a pleasure to join the debate. This is the second instalment of the economic crime Bill; we had one earlier that created the register of overseas entities and required disclosure of beneficial owners of UK properties. As was pointed out during debates, that Bill—now an Act—was deficient because it made no reference to property ownership through trusts, even though it was pointed out to the Government that this was a deficiency. Also, the definition of beneficial ownership is incredibly malleable. Those caught by disclosures this time can easily rearrange the ownership structure to make sure that they do not have to disclose it next time. So I hope the Minister will revisit that and bring forward amendments. In my view, anyone who has a beneficial interest—it does not have to be 25%, 20%, 10% or 5%—needs to be identified, because they could well be dabbling in dirty money.

As has been pointed out, the BBC and Transparency International recently reported that almost half the firms required to disclose beneficial ownership of foreign property have failed to do so. Some 18,000 offshore companies, which between them hold more than 50,000 properties in England and Wales, have either ignored the law altogether or filed information in such a way that it remains impossible for the public to find out who the beneficial owners of those properties are. I hope the Minister will reflect on that. The promise in the Act was that those who do not comply with the law—and that deadline has passed—will receive a fine of £500 per day or a prison sentence of up to five years. I hope the Minister will tell us what preparations are being made to implement that kind of retribution against those who have failed to comply with the law.

The Bill claims all over the place that it is trying to tackle crime and fraud, yet there is no reflection on whether we have the institutional architecture for dealing with that. I raised this during a debate on the Financial Services and Markets Bill. Our police forces are regional, whether in the City of London, Reading, Bristol or somewhere else. There is no national police force, and forces do not co-operate. If you find that somebody involved in an alleged crime is in another district, you have to seek the co-operation of the police force there. That force may be willing to co-operate with you, or it may not because it simply does not have the funds or personnel. That kind of issue has been recurring for the last 40 or 50 years, yet it is not really addressed.

A classic example is the HBOS frauds. Two police forces looked at the issues, found that it was too expensive to pursue bankers from HBOS for fraud and simply did not wish to proceed. The Thames Valley police and crime commissioner decided that he would pursue them—and he did. He eventually secured convictions and just under 50 years of prison sentences for a few people, but he had to spend £7 million of his own budget. He did not get a single penny from central government for securing convictions. After the event, the FCA decided that it now needed to show a brave face because it had done nothing for years. It fined Lloyds Bank £45 million—all of which went to the Treasury. When the police and crime commissioner for Thames Valley requested reimbursement from that, the Government said no. He appealed to then Prime Minister Theresa May, and the Cabinet Secretary agreed to arrange a meeting with him. He then provided more details and mentioned the names of banks—especially Lloyds Bank—that was involved in this, but mysteriously, a couple of weeks later, the invitation to meet was withdrawn. It disappeared; nobody wanted to see him about it.

So I hope the Minister will tell us what kind of institutional architecture there is. We just do not have any, which is why these things do not get prosecuted. We need resources, and the resources are there. They can simply be levied on the institutions engaged in fraud. If the Minister thinks that corruption and fraud are not rife in the City of London, perhaps he would care to name a pristine bank. Just one example of a major bank will do—I will accept his word for it. If he cannot, he knows that plenty of resources can be raised to clean up the world of finance.

I agree with the possibility of new checks at Companies House on company formation, but I totally oppose the idea that those checks are to be outsourced. There are too many conflicts of interest, as has been pointed out. Outsourcing is a bad practice. It means that you do not build in-house knowledge and you do not have an institutional memory of what happens, has happened or could happen. Therefore, regulation is poorly designed and poorly enforced and there are simply too many exceptions.

The Bill is fairly vague on what kinds of checks will actually be made on company formation. I point out to the Minister that it is not just checks at company formation; they need to be continuous. Companies’ directors, secretaries, addresses and many other details, including persons with significant control, change, so these checks are not going to be a one-off; that simply will not work.

In some of the examples of fraudulent practices I have come across—over the last couple of years I have referred many of them to the government department through Written Questions, and I will come back to one or two of those—individuals have used a variety of names as company directors. Imagine if somebody’s name was John Brian Smith. They might call themselves John Smith, Brian Smith, J Smith, JB Smith and numerous other names. This way, they get around the issues when they are disqualified. They keep appearing again and again, in many other guises. In some cases, individuals have changed their name by deed poll so that they can become a company director.

I do not see anything in the Bill that tells me what exactly is going to happen and what kind of checks there will be. Those kinds of things really need to be debated and discussed, rather than the Government saying that later on there will be some kind of magic formula developed by somebody. What kind of evidence will be sought to authenticate the names, addresses and any other details?

I have given Ministers numerous examples of companies which have never traded, have been used as fronts for crime and have filed false information. Will Companies House be authenticating financial numbers in any way? I shall give one example. There was a company, which I have referred to in my Written Question, called Aflak Traveling Abroad Ltd. It was dormant, had never traded and had no employees but, according to the accounts, its share capital was £1.46 trillion, and Companies House happily accepted that. Someone filed those accounts so that they could impress people: “Look, chaps, I run a company in London and the British Government have given me a certificate of incorporation, which is vital. There you are, you can do business with me.” The British state is then complicit in facilitating these frauds. Will Companies House be checking for those kinds of numbers? That is not an isolated example.

Currently, anyone from anywhere in the world can set up a company in this country, using any name and address. I see nothing in the Bill that would prevent someone living in Latvia, Timbuktu or anywhere else forming a company in the UK. How will we authenticate their details? What language will the information be in? How will we know it is genuine? Would it not be better if every company registered at Companies House was required by law to have at least one UK resident director, so that we would know where the buck stopped, who was actually responsible and who we could go after if things went wrong?

Companies have used very strange names for their directors that have been easily accepted. Companies House has been accepting names and details in other languages. A head of the mafia filed accounts in Italian that contained a lot of information. Companies House did not translate it; if it had bothered, it would have found that the translation in English was that the director’s name was “The Chicken Thief”, occupation “Fraudster”, living at “Street of the 40 Thieves” in the town of “Ali Baba” in Italy. Companies House happily accepted that filing for years.

In other companies, some directors’ names have been given as “Mr Adolf Tooth Fairy Hitler”, “Lord Truman Hell Christ”, “Judas Superadio Iskariot” and “Victor Les-Appy Hugo”. Another director was called “James Bond” and his occupation was “security controller”. Another had a director named “Joseph Smith Jr”, whose occupations were listed as “Steward of the Ring of Mormon”, “Profit and Ringwatcher” and “Guardian Angel of the Ring of Mormon”. Another was “Lord Truman Michael Spypriest”, whose occupations were given as “Secret Espionage Service”, “War Lord”, and “Weapons System and Tuba (Latin)”.

How can we stop this? I see nothing about it in the Bill, especially given that we are allowing foreign residents to register companies in the UK. I think the House has a flavour of some of the practical issues here. There are numerous examples of companies being registered with false addresses. I shall explain what I mean by that. The miscreants use a genuine address but without the knowledge or permission of the genuine owners of the property. Those owners become aware that their address has been used only when threatening letters from various people arrive on their doormat. They go to Companies House and say, “We’re nothing to do with this company”, but Companies House says, “No, we can’t remove that address unless you get a court order.” Innocent people have to incur legal costs of thousands of pounds to remove their address, which has been fraudulently used, and I can see no remedy in the Bill for that. What are those people to do? I hope the Minister will explain that.

Individuals from sanctioned countries such as Russia can easily form a company. Do government departments talk to each other? Should it be possible that those companies can be used as fronts for sanction busting? That is not explained either.

We have heard that the Government are going to introduce an offence of failure to prevent fraud. I welcome that but I look forward to hearing the details, specifically about the regulatory architecture for that, especially as the Government are not doing anything to reform accounting, auditing, insolvency or corporate governance.

The Bill has “corporate transparency” in its title but I do not see much about that. For example, there is no proposal to require rich people to make their tax returns publicly available. As the Prime Minister would testify, if he had known about the tax returns of a certain former Chancellor, he might have made a different ministerial appointment. Why is that missing? Why are large corporations not required to publish their tax returns?

Throughout this Bill, the previous Bill and company law, we are constantly redrawing the boundaries between what is public and what is private; they are always shifting. Why does the Bill not really demand transparency of tax returns? That is one way of dealing with a large part of economic crime. Up to £1.5 trillion of taxes has not been collected since 2010. That is a hell of a lot of money. HMRC admits to only £400 billion but its estimate is wrong, and we can have a debate about that another day.

I hope the Minister will bring forward some amendments to require greater transparency of everyone’s tax returns or, if not, then at least of wealthy individuals and large corporations. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

My Lords, I thank the Government for reorganising business so that those of us who were engaged in the Financial Services and Markets Bill have an opportunity to speak. I am obviously a beneficiary of that. While I am thinking in economic terms, perhaps if we solved fraud, fraud enablers and fraud defenders and put their efforts to good use, we would not have a productivity gap, so there is a lot to be gained.

I welcome the Bill because it has measures in it that noble Lords on all sides have been flagging for some time. Perhaps inevitably, we are queuing up again to say, “Can we go rather further?”, and I will be offering encouragement to do that.

Companies House being a passive recipient of rather strange information—reliant upon many public eyes as scrutiny for correction, as Ministers have said in the past—has completely failed to result in correction, so changing it to a more active gatekeeper and custodian is welcome. Like other noble Lords, I hope it can live up to that promise and operate in a dynamic way, and that there will be adequate resources. Like others, I want to know what kind of fee increase the Government envisage. There is plenty of room to generate funds to do things properly so that we do not have to try to outsource it on the cheap but, rather, build up a true body of expertise.

There is also a need for sound procedures for correcting not just mistakes but fraud—for example, if someone has been wrongly registered as a company director or their address abused. Why are there no longer notifications telling you that someone has been registered at your address or that you have been registered as a director? These are vital pieces of information and useful protections for citizens.

Parallel to that, will the Government be doing anything about fraud in the Land Registry, where entries can be changed? It is hard to understand why it is necessary to register for notification of changes to entries, rather than it being the default situation if you own a property. There is protection if there is a mortgage, as the mortgager can ask for notice due to the registration of their interest, but people who have paid off their mortgages may be surprised to learn that their entry in the Land Registry can be changed without them ever finding out, yet they are clearly an interested party.

I accept that there have been compensation arrangements when fraud has been discovered but, again, surely some automatic notification of the change of entry would be a simple matter. If you can register for it, why can you not have it automatically? I am rather surprised that this is not done routinely by conveyancers; it was rather negligent for that not to have happened automatically.

I understand that the Government will introduce a failure to prevent fraud amendment and that there may be other offences. Like others, I await the text with interest. I too was on the Fraud Act 2006 and Digital Fraud Committee. We looked at this issue and strongly backed offences for both failure to prevent and failure to prevent facilitation, as has the Justice Committee. In the context of fraud, facilitation offences are essential to catch the enablers and, just as with tax evasion, there can be professional, systematic and systemic enablers. We singled out the telecoms companies as being particularly complacent, saying:

“The telecoms sector has no real incentive to prevent fraud and has allowed blame to be placed elsewhere for too long. It must do more to tackle phishing emails and smishing texts before they reach victims, and must prevent fraudsters from making spoof phone calls using easily accessible technology to manipulate vulnerable victims into thinking they are a trusted organisation”.

It is no coincidence that the conclusion saying

“The telecoms sector has for too long been allowed to stand by while fraud is facilitated via its services”

immediately precedes the section on corporate criminal liability. Such measures are long overdue.

The committee recommended corporate criminal offences for failure to prevent fraud and failure to prevent facilitation of fraud. But the committee was also taken with the idea of regulatory failure to prevent offences and regulatory-led strategies, so as to bring regulators more directly into fighting fraud in the sectors they regulate, including a duty to prevent the facilitation of fraud in the industries they regulate. On Monday, I was suggesting such measures for financial services regulators in Grand Committee on the Financial Services and Markets Bill, but realistically, why is that not just a fundamental duty of all regulators? Surely, issues such as prevention of fraud are as fundamental as competition: both seriously affect the economy and consumers. At the personal level, fraud is more devastating.

Of course, any regulator, like any person, can seek criminal prosecutions and they do not need a statute to do so. I say this as an extension of the R v Rollins Supreme Court decision concerning the FSA, but would it not be appropriate to establish powers in the Bill to give all regulators a duty to prevent facilitation of fraud, along with regulatory failure to prevent offences? Such on the spot oversight and fraud prevention measures would drive culture change, in addition to having more effective corporate criminal liability and breaking through the identification doctrine blockage. I shall also support amendments in that direction.

This is not just about stopping the dirty money. There should also be no place for dirty people to hide.

My Lords, I hope to make the shortest speech in the debate so far and to complement the contributions from the noble Lords, Lord Vaux and Lord Browne, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, who along with me spent an enjoyable and productive year under the benign chairmanship of my noble friend Lady Morgan on the fraud Select Committee.

I begin with a general point. Your Lordships’ House has two unique selling points: first, its ability to subject legislation to detailed expert, impartial and lengthy scrutiny, uninhibited by timetable Motions or a government majority; secondly, and less publicly recognised, the work of its Select Committees, whose reports do not command the credit or attention they deserve and are often debated months after publication. Where we can do better is by linking those two strengths and focusing, yet more relentlessly and insistently, the recommendations of the Select Committees on legislation as it comes before your Lordships’ House.

I know that is not as easy as it sounds. Select Committee reports are generated by Parliament while Bills are generated by the Executive. The agendas may be slightly different and all sorts of reasons are produced for not accepting amendments. I recently tried to get a manifesto commitment added to a government Bill but was told I could not because the Bill was time-critical. There was then several months’ delay before it had its remaining stages. Ministers get approval for Bills on the basis that they repel boarders; the usual channels do not like Christmas-tree Bills to which embellishments can be attached. Ministers have to give all sorts of commitments in order to get into the programme. They may promise to deal with an issue in their own time, and on reflection, I confess I have used some of those arguments myself.

With this Bill, however, there seems to be a common agenda: tackling economic crime. We have plenty of time and several Select Committee Reports, not just the one on fraud, which give us a real opportunity to press those recommendations home. I believe we have Ministers who have already indicated some flexibility, which I welcome, and may be persuaded to go yet further. I want to mention five points very briefly.

First, on SLAPPs, the Government have made a commitment to bring in stand-alone legislation but have not said when. My concern is that it will not happen in this Parliament unless we do it in this Bill, so journalists will not get the protection they need when they work in the public interest on economic crime. My noble friend Lady Stowell, who chairs the Communications and Digital Committee, has just made a powerful contribution. She is on the record as saying:

“The current level of activity to tackle SLAPPs is wholly inadequate”,

so we have a real opportunity to make progress there.

Secondly, on Companies House, the improvements were available to the committee when we considered this, but, while welcoming them, we went on to say:

“We remain concerned about how these reforms will be funded … It will be essential that alongside any such funding, adequate resources are given to upskilling the workforce at Companies House to support the growth in investigative capacity.”

My noble friend Lord Johnson, whom I welcome to the Front Bench, mentioned the powers that are going to go to Companies House in his opening speech but did not say anything about resources. Perhaps that could be rectified in the wind-ups.

Thirdly, the committee said:

“The Government should launch a review into the use of civil remedies to tackle fraud, including an examination of obstacles, for example, fees to commence civil proceedings, to the use of civil remedies such as asset recovery and injunctions.”

To this end, capping adverse costs in civil recovery could be a useful amendment.

Fourthly, there is the duty to prevent, which several speakers have mentioned. We said that we need a new corporate criminal offence of failure to prevent fraud, applicable across all sectors. But way back in 2019, the Lords Select Committee on the Bribery Act recommended that the Government should

“delay no more in analysing the evidence”.

Related to that, as the final of my five points, is the identification principle. I do not think that has been mentioned so far but it underpins how we hold our companies liable for economic crimes. At the moment, it is a rather antiquated Victorian concept which does not fit with modern and complex governance structures. The Law Commission found it

“an obstacle to holding large companies criminally responsible for offences committed in their interests by their employees.”

The commission clearly said that we need both failure to prevent offences and identification principle reform.

I end by making a suggestion related to my first point about raising the profile of Select Committee reports. When I was leader in another place, I introduced a reform whereby the chairman of a Select Committee could launch their report on the Floor of the House of Commons on the day it was published and then have a short question and answer session. It raised the profile of the report generally and focused the House’s attention on it. I leave that proposal hanging in the air, as it may be too radical for your Lordships’ House.

My Lords, I welcome the Bill. This has been an interesting debate, and clearly issues will be raised in Committee. I have a relatively narrow point and a specific question directed to the Minister. Will his Home Office, the Treasury and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport—as I think it is now—talk to each other? We have three pieces of legislation coming before us. There is this Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill which is having its Second Reading. The Online Safety Bill has had its Second Reading and is waiting for Committee, and the Financial Services and Markets Bill is currently in Committee. There is considerable overlap between these pieces of legislation. As highlighted by the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, we had to put off a meeting of the Committee on the Financial Services and Markets Bill to take part in this debate.

They overlap as most economic crime or fraud, particularly that affecting individuals, is now committed online. Most fraud is almost by definition financial. People are defended against fraud and financial harm by financial regulators and the rules set for internet providers, so there is a clear overlap between these different pieces of legislation. On the Financial Services and Markets Bill, we had an interesting debate about the Government having a proper fraud strategy, which is clearly relevant to today’s discussions. That is an issue we are likely to return to on Report.

In the Online Safety Bill, there is a problem with the issue of “legal but harmful”. To know something is illegal, you have to wait for it to become illegal—for the fraud to come to fruition—but we need to stop the fraud before that stage. Those familiar with fraud will know that often the markers are there before you get to the stage of illegality. We need to have an overall look at the different issues and at what protection is available before it is too late and the criminal act has been perpetrated. The best way to deal with fraud and economic crime more generally is to make life difficult for the fraudsters. Will the Minister give a commitment to work in the context of this Bill with his colleagues in other departments to ensure that there is an overall view? I am pleased to report that I have finished in a shorter time than the noble Lord, Lord Young.

My Lords, I acknowledge that I am no expert in the main areas of law central to this Bill—company law and banking law, for example. I am speaking to indicate my wholehearted support for all the measures designed to strengthen powers to combat corruption and rid this country of the dirty money and—as the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, just said—the dirty people who have been allowed for far too long to infest it. I will support amendments, however draconian they may seem, which will further pursue these ends.

There are two particular provisions not presently in the Bill that I would dearly like to see included. Both were canvassed in the House of Commons and have been touched on today. The first is the seizure of assets frozen under the Russian sanctions provisions, with a view to applying them to reparations for the ghastly destruction and demolition of so much of Ukraine. Secondly, there is the slapping down of SLAPPs. I will say a word or two on each.

As to the seizing of sanctioned assets, when this matter was originally before the House of Commons it was advanced on the limited basis that it would apply only if and to the extent that sanctioned individuals were to fail in their duty to disclose their UK assets. The amendment proposed that that failure be criminalised to allow seizure. Only yesterday, as has already been mentioned by, I think, the noble Lord, Lord Fox, a wider reaching Private Member’s Bill was presented to the House of Commons by Sir Chris Bryant. It had its First Reading with very impressive and widespread support. I am proud that it was drafted by my former judicial assistant in the Supreme Court, Tetyana Nesterchuk, a Ukrainian woman, who is now in the top commercial chambers, Fountain Court.

That Bill has great merit. It would allow the seizure of already frozen Russian state assets around the world. We are told they are worth some $350 billion, which is roughly the current estimated cost of reparations in Ukraine. The justification as a matter of law for the exception to the usual sovereign immunity protection for such state assets would be Russia’s endless and egregious violations of fundamental human rights, its failure to comply with orders of the International Court of Justice and so forth. I respectfully suggest that, instead of pursuing that as a Private Member’s Bill, as it was put before the House of Commons yesterday, it should be included within the compass of this Bill.

The second provision is SLAPPs. We have already heard a great deal about them. They have recently been thrown into great prominence, above all by a couple of cases: the efforts on behalf of Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner group of mercenaries, to muzzle Bellingcat and, more recently, the solicitor’s letters quite wrongly headed “without prejudice” written on behalf of Minister Zahawi to attempt to silence Dan Neidle. It could perhaps be argued that the second case would not within the scope of this Bill. However, in respect of trying to silence those investigating economic crime and the like, the Bill would provide a blueprint which would be capable of being applied on a wider basis across the board.

There is a great deal to be said—indeed, a great deal has already been said this evening—about SLAPPs. There was an excellent Thunderer column in the Times on Monday by Margaret Hodge, who has been driving this Bill in the Commons, and the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, who is shortly to speak. If you did not read Thunderer on Monday, you should; it will tell you about the abuse of SLAPPs.

I suggest a three-pronged approach to dealing with this problem. First, an amendment along the lines proposed in the House of Commons to provide a defence, to be heard, hopefully, at an early stage, where the defendant reasonably believes that the disclosure or publication that the claimant is seeking to prevent is in the interests of investigating economic crime.

Secondly, I suggest strengthening the processes—the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, expatiated on this—of the solicitors’ authorities, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal and the Solicitors Regulation Authority, to try to deal with this, as they are already, but belatedly and thus far not very effectually. The SRA’s powers of fining were recently increased from £2,000 to £25,000 and, as noble Lords have heard, the committee that the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, chairs recommended a very considerable increase, I think from £25,000 to £25 million. At any rate, those processes should be strengthened.

Thirdly, the Bar, not merely solicitors, should perhaps be a little more astute and fastidious than it is at present in agreeing to act in these cases, before lending itself to the sort of intimidatory letters of which we have heard. My noble friend Lord Cromwell rightly commended the letter from the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, but I would respectfully add this to it: the lawyers acting for these claimants should bear very much in mind the intimidatory nature of the process and the likely acute imbalance between, on the one hand, the wealth of the claimants and the fact that they will be expensively represented, and, on the other hand, the fact that the defendants are likely to be impoverished—or certainly not particularly well heeled—without legal representation and, therefore, understandably anxious about all of this.

Finally, I suggest that the taxi-rank rule, which so many would try to invoke in their favour on these occasions, applies full-force, as it should, in criminal cases where the liberty of the subject is at stake. But it applies a lot less obviously in these sorts of cases, and of course it does not apply to solicitors at all anyway.

My Lords, enough. I hope that the Bill may perhaps be amended to include both of those matters, and, in the meantime, I wish it well.

My Lords, I draw attention to my interests as a director of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, chair of the Association of British Insurers and a director of Santander UK. I welcome my noble friend Lord Johnson to his position on the Front Bench, and I thank my noble friend Lord Sharpe for our very helpful meeting and conversation yesterday.

Like others in this House, I welcome this important Bill, which, as we have heard, is the second instalment, after the Bill we saw last year. But I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, and others that the Bill will need to be significantly strengthened as it goes through this House, for the reasons set out so far. If noble Lords did not know by now, I was asked, and was delighted, to chair the House of Commons special inquiry into the Fraud Act 2006 and digital fraud last year. I pay tribute to the work of the committee staff—the clerk, the research assistant and those who handled communications—who were truly excellent. The difficulty with having such competent and engaged members of the committee is that all of those who have spoken so far have taken all the best lines from the report and all the key points, so I will not trouble your Lordships for too long.

I will confine my remarks in this debate to fraud in particular, because, as we heard, the scale of fraud, particularly fraud committed online, is truly prolific now. A person in England and Wales aged over 16 is more likely to be a victim of fraud than of any other crime, including violence and burglary. To anybody who thinks, as we have heard, that these are victimless crimes where simply paying out money will put it right, I say: that is simply not the case.

I will raise four specific areas briefly. First, we have already heard the committee’s calls and those of many others to introduce a “failure to prevent” offence. The committee was very clear in its support, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, clearly set out what the committee called for. This is as much about changing behaviours, and the behaviours of those at the top of these organisations, as it is about launching many prosecutions—although that would perhaps not be a bad thing either in some cases. I understand that the Government are interested in, and committed to, introducing such an offence. The Law Commission has also stated that this is necessary and I want to recognise the work of Sir Robert Buckland in the other place, who led part of the debate on this.

The committee specifically looked at the whole of the fraud chain—not just the end, when the money is eventually paid out to the fraudster, but right at the start, as the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, said. I would be very disappointed—in fact, I think it would prompt some of us to want to strengthen the Government’s hand on this—if such a “failure to prevent” offence did not cover all of those along the fraud chain, particularly, as we have heard, the telecoms companies, which are responsible for, and do not seem to have much interest in, the significant number of phishing texts, smishing and all sorts of other “ishings” that you could possibly think of, which come via our mobile phones. But this applies to the online platforms and the internet service providers as well.

My noble friend mentioned the Online Safety Bill, but this is not sufficient, because we are talking about not just fraudulent advertisements but fraudulent emails and text messages containing these links. I defy any Member of this House, or anyone listening to this debate, not to have received at least one of those emails or text messages, inviting them to click on a link and share their details, in the course of even just the last week or so. Obviously, we will wait for the drafting, but I hope that Ministers are getting a clear sense from this House of what we want to see in that. As my noble friend Lord Young said, this drafting will also need to address the identification doctrine.

Moving on, we have heard that Companies House fees need to be significantly increased. As we explored in the committee, there was a question about whether fraud is underresourced, underprioritised and under- appreciated by the law enforcement authorities. As we have also heard, many good, decent citizens access Companies House to check whether a company looks legitimate before they part with their hard-earned cash, so, if Companies House charged more for the setting up of companies, could that money be recycled back into paying more for our law enforcement?

Thirdly, on the sharing of information, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, that there is a fourth Bill that we should also be interested in: the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill. I understand that, in Clause 175 of this Bill, there is a carve-out in relation to information sharing for data protection. But, until we have seen how the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill progresses—I am not sure when the next stage is—it is important that these two Bills work together to make sure that, yes, information sharing is perhaps subject to data protection rules but also that there is not such a carve-out that what we are approving in this Bill becomes worthless because of what is in the other Bill.

Finally, as we have already heard, the committee report was published in November last year. The response from the Government was due by 12 January, and today is 8 February. I am relatively patient, but patience is wearing thin, because the Government owe us a response—this is an important issue. As we also heard, we are waiting for the long-awaited fraud strategy from the Government, as well as the national economic crime plan. I heard what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, said about the fraud strategy; perhaps he is more patient, but I think it is time we saw it, because we as a committee found that there was just not enough information about fraud or enough knowledge about who the fraudsters are and where the money is going. But we do not see the fraud strategy and cannot start to understand in particular who in government is responsible. We were very clear: a Cabinet sub-committee, with the Minister for Security chairing it and being responsible, is one way to go—that is what we thought, but there may be other options. A lot about fraud needs to be moved on in this country, as we have heard. So I urge Ministers to publish the fraud strategy in the next few weeks, and I suggest that a good publication alongside it would be the response to our committee.

In conclusion, I welcome the Bill, but it will need to be strengthened. As we have heard, the Bill really matters for how this country is seen around the world. So I hope we will be able to work together to significantly strengthen it.

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Cotes, who has demonstrated her expertise in this field as chair of the Fraud Act committee.

Last year’s economic crime Act was designed, as this Bill is, to reveal the ill-gotten gains—the “stolen wealth”, as my noble friend Lord Fox called it—of those subject to sanctions or otherwise engaged in criminal activities. However, these measures do not deal with the situation which arose in the Yevgeny Prigozhin case, to which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, referred. Prigozhin is the founder of the Wagner Group of mercenaries currently featuring in Ukraine. His London solicitors had obtained a dispensation from the United Kingdom Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation to bypass the sanctions that had been made against him to fund a personal libel action in the United Kingdom against the journalist Eliot Higgins. Mr Higgins worked for Bellingcat, a firm based in the Netherlands, where the law is more protective of journalists than here—but, of course, the courts of this country are open to all, like the Ritz Hotel.

Higgins wrote the truth about Prigozhin’s activities, as that leader well knew. When Prigozhin’s case was struck out in May of last year, he said that he brought court cases against journalists because

“in any issue there should be room for sport”.

Although the claim was struck out, Mr Higgins was fastened with costs estimated at £70,000.

As the noble Lords, Lord Clarke of Nottingham and Lord Cromwell, and others referred to, an industry has grown up within the legal profession, particularly here in London, to assist wealthy people, including Russian oligarchs, to suppress investigative journalism with threats of lawsuits. The noble Lord, Lord Sikka, reminded us all of the former chairman of the Conservative Party who threated libel actions against journalists looking into his tax affairs. That took me back to Mr Profumo, who slapped libel injunctions on newspapers that dared to suggest that he was in a relationship with Christine Keeler.

I introduced a Private Member’s Bill against SLAPPs in the last Session. I had full and productive discussions with the Minister of State and officials from the MoJ. I discovered then—possibly in early 2021—that the Ministry of Justice was about to engage in a public consultation process on SLAPPs, which started last March. The consultation closed in May. In July, Mr Dominic Raab proposed a new mechanism for a judge of the civil court to reject baseless civil claims more quickly and to impose a cap on legal costs to

“defend those who bravely shine a light on corruption.”

Mr Raab has not as yet had time to introduce that legislation; he no doubt has other things on his mind. I hope that the Ministry of Justice will take the initiative to deal with these abuses of the civil litigation system. Like others, I am impatient for that to happen.

The legal profession has been warned of these abuses. The Solicitors Regulation Authority has issued guidance warning solicitors about “making allegations without merit” on behalf of their clients

“where the sole purpose is to stifle”

public debate. However, it is not only the commencement of libel actions that needs to be caught; the insistent threats of such an action by a claimant have a significant chilling effect on public discourse. As others have pointed out, it is usually a claimant of wealth threatening a journalist of very limited means.

A person who, by himself or through his agent, issues threats of litigation which he knows to be groundless, with a view to stifling evidence of economic crime and the existence of assets derived therefrom, engages—in my view, and I suspect in the views of many in this Chamber—in an activity which lies fully within the ambit of criminality. I have been advised that the problem with this Bill is that dealing with civil litigation does not fall within the Long Title, but I suspect that there is enough support in this House for the Government to change the Long Title to embrace that civil aspect. If we cannot do that, we can bring in a new criminal offence so that issuing threats of litigation has a suitable penalty.

We await the draft Bill from the Ministry of Justice to deal with the civil side of SLAPPs. I have again tabled my Private Member’s Bill, in case that draft Bill does not emerge, and would welcome the support of your Lordships if my Bill comes forward. In the meantime, this Bill is an ideal opportunity to criminalise the threatening and baseless conduct which usually precedes such actions. Accordingly, I will introduce an amendment to the Bill which will introduce a criminal element. Most of your Lordships have said that the Bill needs strengthening, and I think that it will be very much improved in this area.

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, to agree with everything he said, particularly as a former newspaper editor, and to offer Green support for work to take his ideas forward. He made me think of many nights huddled over a screen with an evening lawyer, anxiously worrying about whether we could get away with a few certain words. There is a huge temptation to go down the easy and safe route and just knock those words out, but that is almost invariably knocking out, and denying the public, a truth.

I begin by reflecting, as a number of other noble Lords have done, on the scheduling issue, which is far from trivial. The Grand Committee Room is empty today—it is where we were to be in Committee on the Financial Services and Markets Bill—because representations to the usual channels succeeded, as they so rarely do, in saying that that Bill should not be conducted in parallel with the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill, as the same people and issues are involved. The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, said that there was overlap. There is much more than overlap; we have two Bills pulling 100% in 180-degree opposite directions.

This Bill is heading in the right direction. I am delighted to say, as I so rarely do, that the Green group backs the general tenor of the Bill and wants to work with many other Members of your Lordships’ House to strengthen it. I agree with much of what the Minister said in his introduction. As well as discussing the weakness of Companies House, he said that the current system exposes the UK to corruption, that we are open to crime and that criminals are provided with the veneer of legitimacy—all of which was laid out in forensic detail by the noble Lord, Lord Sikka. I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, who said that

“high levels of economic crime … have been allowed to build up … for far too long.”

I have to go back a second and reflect on what a difference two years makes. I perhaps need to apologise in advance to the noble Lord, Lord Agnew of Oulton, because I am going to quote his own words from two years ago back at him. I know that he is speaking after me. I would say in advance of that that what the noble Lord was saying then reflected what many other people in your Lordships’ House were also saying. This was in the Second Reading of the Financial Services Bill two years ago. The noble Lord, Lord Agnew of Oulton, said:

“The UK is internationally recognised as having some of the strongest controls worldwide for tackling money laundering and terrorist financing”,

and he claimed that we had

“a whole-system response to economic crime.”—[Official Report, 28/1/2021; cols. 1880-81.]

I do not think that that reflects the tenor of the debate today from all sides of your Lordships’ House, including from the Dispatch Box.

We are in an area here where, as with so many, the Green Party has led and others are now following. We have been saying, as the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell of Beeston, said, that London is the “best place” to hide from legitimate scrutiny. That is something that the Green Party has been saying for a very long time —that the centre of global corruption is the City just down the road from here.

I want to lead your Lordships’ House further in the direction of making a link with the Financial Services and Markets Bill, as the rescheduling itself acknowledged. There are two particular elements of that: the addition of “competitiveness” to the aims of the Financial Conduct Authority; and, indeed, the way in which the Financial Services and Markets Bill seeks to deliver what has been known as the Chancellor’s Edinburgh package of reforms, which, to quote Transparency International, reinforces a “strongly deregulatory approach”.

It is worth looking back and highlighting the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, and to add to that some of the Transparency International figures, which refer to 929 cases, with 89 companies involved in corruption and money laundering in the 10 years from 2009. Some £137 billion in economic damage has resulted. For thousands and thousands of UK companies—maybe tens of thousands—their business model is based on facilitating crime and being enablers.

We have too much finance; that is the name of a growing body of literature. We suffer from a finance curse, just as some countries suffer from a resource curse. It is too expensive for us to continue to base so much of our economy on this—and the damage, of course, is far from happening just here in the UK. The High-Level Panel on International Financial Accountability, Transparency and Integrity for Achieving the 2030 Agenda, or FACTI, focuses on how the poorest and most vulnerable pay for so much of this corruption and fraud.

In your Lordships’ House, the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, and I had an exchange on corruption and its impacts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In a subsequent Twitter exchange, the noble Lord felt that perhaps I had been unfair to him in that he said that, yes, he had acknowledged that corruption was a big issue—but the noble Lord spoke about corruption in the Congo. I wanted acknowledgement from the Government that a huge amount of the corruption affecting the Democratic Republic of the Congo originates just down the road from here.

A number of points have been made so well that I shall not go over them again. I shall just note Green support for what the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, said. The idea of transparency for corporate tax returns is an excellent idea, and I look forward to working with the noble Lord on that in future. The noble Lord, Lord Vaux, gave us a very clear outline of how Transparency International has shown that the first economic crime Act is not working and has a huge way to go, albeit that it represents some progress. Many noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, focused on SLAPPs.

I want to take a moment to focus on the absolutely crucial importance, as I see it, of the “failure to prevent” amendment, and the detail of how important it is going to be. I point out that, in the 2015 Conservative Party manifesto, it said:

“We are also making it a crime if companies fail to put in place measures to stop economic crime, such as tax evasion, in their organisations and making sure that the penalties are large enough to punish and deter.”

That was something promised in 2015, and we are getting on for a decade on from there, and it is clearly desperately needed. Of course, the Law Commission paper of June 2022 focused on the importance of this, as did your Lordships’ House’s committee in its report on the Fraud Act 2006, Fighting Fraud: Breaking the Chain, published in November 2022. The UK Serious Fraud Office and the Crown Prosecution Service have expressed their desire to see this delivered.

I finish by returning to where I started, and the shocking idea, which we have not yet heard from anyone else in your Lordships’ House, made by making the link between the Financial Services and Markets Bill and this Bill. A cleaner financial sector will be a smaller financial sector—it has to be, because fraud and corruption are a built-in design feature of so much of our current system. We have to rethink the Financial Services and Markets Bill and rethink the structure of our economy around finance, and we have to think that, if this Bill really delivers on its promises, there will be a lot of empty offices in the City and Mayfair that we will have to find a new use for, and there are many things that we could do to deliver much better for the British people and the world than the current corrupt financial sector elements that now occupy them.

I refer noble Lords to my entry in the register of interests, as an adviser to Manolete, a litigation funder. I warmly welcome our noble friend the Minister to his new role. I am delighted that he is arriving at the start of this Bill’s journey through the House; he will have time to reflect on all the comments made today, where there is an extraordinary amount of consensus.

In February of last year, the Government promised to bring a second economic crime Bill into legislation, and I am most grateful that this has happened. I would also like to thank my noble friends the Ministers for their courtesy and time in addressing some of my concerns. This is a complex Bill, and it certainly improves on our current very weak system. However, given the time and effort expended by several government departments, there are a number of areas for improvement which, if we could harness the will of the Government, could easily be incorporated.

I will focus briefly on seven of these areas, taking account of many comments already made. First, on making Companies House fit for purpose in the new environment, the Bill will dramatically change the role of Companies House from a passive receiver of information to, one hopes, a dynamic analyser of data and first line of defence against bad actors gaining access to our corporate system. But this is a huge cultural change. I offer this as a little levity for this stage of the evening. I was having a poke around on Companies House and a casual search of the system revealed a previous director called Jesus Christ—country of residence “Heaven”, and occupation “Creator”. It took a year for Jesus to be removed. This is the cultural problem that is going to be faced. Unless it is very carefully monitored, the changes that we want to see happen could take years to occur.

I was a Minister responsible for arm’s-length bodies, and I know how ill equipped government is for these kinds of changes. When I arrived in that position, they could not tell me even how many ALBs there were in government, let alone rate their operational performance. Our previous Minister assured me, when I met him, that he would be vigorously holding to account the management of Companies House. Of course, that commitment lasted less than seven days. I welcome our new Minister, but can I confirm that he will also try to hold Companies House to account? More broadly, this illustrates why we need to ensure that both Parliament and the National Audit Office receive regular updates on the refit and improvements arising from it. There is talk in the current wording of annual updates to Parliament, but it is too loose. In simple terms, what gets measured gets done.

Second is the need to ensure adequate resources for Companies House to execute its role. We have heard a lot about this, but the Government have fought very shy of revealing how much will be available. As someone who has run these kind of fast-moving, high-volume, low-margin businesses, my back-of-the-envelope assessment is that we are going to need to treble or quadruple the fees. That sounds a lot but, as we have heard, the fees are laughable they are so low at the moment. It costs about £10 if you register a company online; that probably needs to go to about £40. The annual filing fee of £13 probably needs to go to about £50. The Government will need to come clean on this because, if they do not, the whole thing will be a dead letter.

My third point is on creating a duty of failure to prevent. Again, I am not an expert in this. We are going to hear from my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier later, who was a Solicitor-General and is a practising KC. He feels strongly about this and I hope will support Ministers in coming up with drafting that works. Suffice it to say that the whole idea that enablers can operate on a “see no evil, hear no evil” basis is not tenable. I take one example: the role of unscrupulous insolvency practitioners in conniving with what are known as “buried liquidations”. These are situations where an unholy trinity of company director, local accountant and so-called “friendly” insolvency practitioner quietly liquidate a company on a voluntary basis with no questions asked as to how the director might have ripped value out of the company for his own benefit prior to liquidation. HMRC is losing millions to this loophole. A tiny amendment to require the same procedure as used in compulsory liquidations—where they basically use a cab rank so that there is a rotation that cannot be distorted—would resolve it or indeed broader failure to prevent, so that this insolvency practitioner could not do that without damaging his professional standing.

Fourthly, I turn to whistleblowers. Again, we have heard a lot about this but, as an ex-businessman, for me it is about the most cost-effective and streamlined way of dealing with economic crime. We have available in our society many brave, principled people who see wrongdoing but are too frightened to alert the authorities because we do not adequately protect them. The excuse for doing nothing is the normal refrain: “It’s all very complicated.” Indeed it is. At my meeting with my noble friend the Minister last week, I brought this up. There were at least 12 officials in the room or on Zoom. I asked them to explain to me how it all worked but none of them could, so I asked to be sent a link that summarised the system. I only got that just before I came here this afternoon and, I have to say, I was completely baffled by the information that was made available.

However, it certainly protects only one category of person: workers. It does not protect suppliers, customers or anyone else who is in the chain who may see wrong- doing. I will therefore push very hard for the Government to consider an opportunity to sort this out. It will save money—the whole refrain at the moment. It would create another quango, but it would also get rid of a lot of quangos or agencies; there would be one place where the concern could be raised and then all the other nooks and crannies could be removed.

We have heard a lot about SLAPPs. We have heard from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, who, again, knows far about this than me, and we will hear from the noble Lord, Lord Faulks. We already have mechanisms for cost capping in libel cases. The noble Lord, Lord Faulks, is the chairman of IPSO, which has a very clear mechanism for dealing with this. The point is that some lawyers for claimants do not like to use these routes because they cannot charge an arm and a leg supporting their oligarch clients through this much more streamlined process.

However, this is not about creating a libeller’s charter. There must be mechanisms to ensure that baseless allegations cannot be made with impunity. The Government are doing the normal thing and trying to kick this into the long grass. We heard earlier about all the efforts that have been made with Private Members’ Bills, but this Bill is the perfect opportunity for the Government to show that they care. We are apparently the SLAPP capital of Europe—an undignified title that we should erase.

On cost capping, because of the dramatic imbalance of resources between the parties, enforcement agencies often do not prosecute. It is asymmetric warfare. A mechanism was put in place in the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act last year, in its Section 52, to restrict cost orders for unexplained wealth orders. There is no reason why this could not be extended to other areas of economic crime. Again, I will be pressing the Government to consider this.

Lastly, I turn to loopholes. This Bill immediately creates a new batch of loopholes. One example is that, for limited companies, limited liability partnerships and limited partnerships, it will be possible to claim that there are no persons of significant control and then list the shareholders, members or partners as shell companies in the British Virgin Islands, Belize and the Marshall Islands, respectively—so we are back to square one. There needs to be transparency all the way down the chain.

To sum up, the Government have at their disposal on the speakers’ list today—not including myself—a huge body of extraordinary expertise available to dramatically improve the Bill and really clamp down on economic crime. I do not want to force amendments on what are clearly common-sense improvements when the Government could so easily make them their own. I am not asking Ministers to respond to my seven points tonight, but I do ask for a commitment that we can have a dialogue before Committee with credible explanations as to why none of these can be brought forward by the Government. It is my strong conviction that there are clear, workable solutions to every one of them.

My Lords, for the moment I will restrict my comments for the moment to Clause 183, which amends the Legal Services Act 2007 by inserting a new objective:

“promoting the prevention and detection of economic crime.”

I should say right at the beginning that, like everybody else in the House today—and, I am sure, everybody who is not here today—I certainly support the policy of preventing and detecting economic crime. In that respect, I welcome the broad policy of the Bill.

However, there are two particular points that I think one must bear in mind. The first is that all the powers that are necessary for regulators to regulate the matters that people have spoken about today—and complained about—are there. The problem is that they are not being utilised properly or enforced properly. The existing regulatory objectives include such matters as improving access to justice, protecting and promoting the interests of consumers and promoting and maintaining adherence to the “professional principles”, as they are called. Those professional principles include that authorised persons should act with independence and—critically—with integrity, that they should act in the best interests of their clients, that advocates should comply with their duty to the court to act with independence in the interests of justice and that the affairs of the clients should be kept confidential.

The fact of the matter is that, if a lawyer is himself or herself involved in any kind of criminal activity—the definition of economic crime covers everything in Schedule 7, from theft right through to embezzlement in accounting—not only are they are themselves guilty of disciplinary matters in relation to their professional conduct but they bear the full weight of the criminal law. If it is thought appropriate—and I can quite see why it is thought appropriate—that, because the existing powers are not being used and enforced properly, there needs to be express reference to promoting the prevention and detection of economic crime, we have to be careful that the wording is sufficiently tight so as not to cut across other matters. The word “promoting” in that reference is almost unbounded. The 200,000 or more lawyers who are practising need to understand what they can and cannot do in practice, against the background of established rules such as the fundamental right of confidentiality between a lawyer and a client—that brings me to my second point.

That confidentiality is normally encapsulated in the concept of legal professional privilege. This privilege is the privilege of the client—that is all of us, were we to consult a solicitor or a barrister—not the lawyer. It is a fundamental common law constitutional right. It applies to communications made confidentially for the purpose of seeking or giving legal advice, whether or not litigation was contemplated or pending. There is also litigation privilege, which applies to communications that come into existence for the purpose of litigation.

The reason for this privilege is that there must be the fullest possible communication between the solicitor and barrister, so as to enable the client to be properly advised and represented. In a case in the Judicial Committee in this House reported in 2003, Lord Hoffman described it as follows:

“LPP is a fundamental human right long established in the common law”—

and the European convention.

“It is a necessary corollary of the right of any person to obtain skilled advice about the law. Such advice cannot be effectively obtained unless the client is able to put all the facts before the adviser without fear that they may afterwards be disclosed and used to his prejudice.”

We have to remember that both solicitors and barristers frequently act for and give advice to people who either have committed or may be about to commit financial crimes, fraud, embezzlement, false accounting and all the other matters in Schedule 9, and they may do so for perfectly legitimate reasons, whether in relation to criminal proceedings or to avoid committing an offence—structuring one’s affairs in an honest and appropriate way. How can those who act for such clients comply with their professional obligations if they have a broad duty to prevent and detect economic crime? That is a critical issue: the wording is so wide that it is capable of cutting across, for example, this fundamental right, which has been described, as I said, as a long established common law constitutional right of every citizen. If it is the intention behind the legislation that that right, for example, is to be cut down in the interests of promoting the prevention and detection of economic crime, that must find its place on the face of the Bill so that we can see it there and debate it separately.

In relation to SLAPPs, I can see why it is necessary to deal with them but, again, one has to be very careful how it is worded. It should be on the face of the Bill—a Bill; this Bill or some other Bill—so that it can be properly debated, so that there is no denial of access either to legal advice or to proper representation in court. Subject to those qualifications, which we have to bear in mind, I too welcome the Bill.

My Lords, likewise I welcome the Bill, which addresses a major issue for this country. I refer your Lordships to the register of interests, where I am listed as an employee of finnCap Group plc, chairman of the aforementioned Manolete Partners plc and of course a chartered accountant, as a number of others are as well.

We have an enormous issue here, as my noble friend Lady Morgan explained. The University of Portsmouth estimated that the cost of economic crime is some £350 billion—indeed, some 40% of all crime is economic crime. Your Lordships’ House would not be the right place to unnecessarily knock our financial services industry, but once again the City of London was ranked last year by the Z/Yen index as second in the world, second only to New York and ahead of every other European city, due in no small part to the regulatory regime we have. But there is room for improvement and Companies House is an area where improvement is needed.

There was a documented instance in the Times recently, by Ali Hussain, of a road in a Herefordshire market town where 100 companies have been set up by nationals from one country in south-east Asia, not one of whom actually lived in that market town. In that same town, 30 businesses were registered to 30 different people in one flat, and none of those people live there. It looks like some 2,200 new companies per day are being set up, 17,000 a year by Chinese individuals and 500 a year by Russian individuals, without any checks to see whether these people are sanctioned. So-called “burner” companies and of course bounce-back loan applicants, and more than 160 companies self-defining as banks have been started, many with addresses in Eaton Square, Belgravia—which seems unlikely—and as my noble friend Lord Clarke pointed out, this was without the knowledge or consent of the residents.

I know that this Bill has long been sought by many. As the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, pointed out, the debate in the other House was exemplary. I was struck by a few things: first, the lavish praise from all sides of the House for the Minister, Kevin Hollinrake, who has long championed this issue; secondly, the constructive amendments which were debated and, it seems to me, the willingness of the Government to listen. I note that another Minister on this Bill, Tom Tugendhat, pledged that His Majesty’s Government will introduce amendments through this House, so, like all of us, I look forward to seeing them as soon as possible, with as much notice as possible before Committee. In particular, Mr Tugendhat pledged to look at the concept of “failure to prevent”, and I am indebted to the indefatigable Dame Margaret Hodge for sharing her thoughts with me—unusually, I find myself persuaded by a Labour MP, albeit an exceptional one—and of course to Sir Robert Buckland, so there must be hope that we can all work together in this House on this Bill.

To date, on this Bill and related matters, in the former BEIS we have had, in the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, an experienced and knowledgeable Minister in this and other BEIS areas. I use this opportunity to pay tribute to all he has done in BEIS, particularly on Companies Act matters. His expertise will be missed enormously, but I am really pleased to welcome my noble friend Lord Johnson of Lainston to the Front Bench.

The issue of failure to prevent will be tricky for draftsmen and for us, but I hope that reforming the ID principle and direct liability for corporate officers will make it easier. My noble friend Lord Young of Cookham was kind enough to refer to Select Committees, so I will bring up the fact that I recently chaired the Finance Bill Sub-Committee which looked at R&D tax credits, where fraud is estimated to be some £400 million a year. Interestingly, HMRC is now requiring a senior corporate officer to personally sign off the application for the R&D tax credit, so we can move, and are moving, in the right direction.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, claimed to have limited legal knowledge on this matter. That puts me at a distinct disadvantage, as my legal knowledge was mostly gained from watching “Rumpole of the Bailey” as a child, and not much more, but I cannot help observing that the Bill does not expand the scope of conduct that constitutes sanctions evasion, so undisclosed frozen assets could potentially be recoverable as the proceeds of crime. There are other potential amendments floating around in addition to those the noble and learned Lord mentioned, and I look forward to seeing them in subsequent debates.

I also expect to see amendments that look to toughen up Companies House, which is the focus of the Bill: specifically, to ensure that beneficial ownership can be challenged and checked more rigorously, possibly on a risk-based approach, checking the status of persons with significant control and, in particular, identifying and verifying shareholder information.

I am reluctant to put more burdens on companies. Noble Lords will have seen the Quoted Companies Alliance report last week, which showed us that the published accounts for a quoted company contain on average 95,000 words; that is more than in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. We do not want to increase companies’ accounts; the work has to stay in Companies House. I am not persuaded by the arguments for a fixed incorporation fee to be in the Bill, at a level of £100 or whatever. My understanding is that at the moment the registrar can fix the fee herself through statutory instruments. That works, so she does not need extra power, and clearly she needs to address the ridiculously low £12 for incorporation. The primary issue for Companies House is not money but lack of powers to insist on high-quality, accurate filings.

Some say that Companies House in Cardiff is not as productive as we would like. According to the independent adjudicators of Companies House, who reported in June 2022, some 44,665 appeals against late filing penalties were still awaiting attention. I know that number is coming down, but that is what it was in June 2022. Just last week, noble Lords will be interested to know, I saw a job advertised—in the Guardian, of course—for the chief data officer at Companies House at a salary of £118,000. Fair enough, but the advert for the job offered the applicant the opportunity of a hybrid role and suggested home working. Is that going to solve the problem? Is the issue the location? Maybe we should be encouraging Companies House to outsource, despite the criticisms levelled by the noble Lord, Lord Sikka. More of its work could be outsourced and I am not convinced it has the capacity to accommodate all the changes in this Bill.

Finally, if you will forgive me, I have an important piece of detail. Company accounts, which used to be provided on paper or in a PDF, which is essentially a paper form, are now filed using digital formats which “tag” each item with a label so that it can be recognised by downstream processing systems. Unfortunately, there is no requirement in this Bill for internal consistency, so tagging errors will not be picked up, and that is needed to ensure that none of the data is self-contradictory or that it matches other data such as the previous year’s accounts, or tags internally to the document. This is perhaps best explained by way of an example. A director’s statement in Companies House may make some very upbeat statements about the condition of the company, but if you look in the actual accounts, it could be on the verge of collapse. However, the register is not able to reject those accounts because they are only internally inconsistent, not externally inconsistent. Perhaps we could have some amendments to change that.

If the accounts are properly tagged, it will be possible for SMART—automated, computer-based analysis—to identify both the financial condition of the company and any inappropriate statements made by the directors. With good quality tagging, this kind of analysis can be done quickly and accurately across the entire register; we are talking about 10 million to 20 million sets of financial statements.

I very much look forward to working with the Minister and colleagues on this very important Bill.

My Lords, like every noble Lord who has spoken so far, I support this clearly important Bill. I would like to a make one general point and three specific points. I apologise, as the specific points have all been made already but I will, I hope, expand them a little.

My general point goes back to something the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, mentioned, which is the impact of this area of life on our international reputation. To illustrate this, I refer back to the 12 May 2016 Anti-Corruption Summit, organised by Prime Minister David Cameron. Early in 2016 he took a close interest in corruption and decided that the UK had to lead the way, and officials came up with three compelling objectives for the summit. First, we should expose corruption so that there was no place to hide. Secondly, we should punish the perpetrators and support those afflicted by corruption. Thirdly, we should drive out the culture of corruption. All were estimable objectives. At this point, Mr Cameron’s Government were hit by the Gospel of St Matthew; in particular, the parable of the mote and the beam, from the Sermon on the Mount. Participants piled in and pointed out that the United Kingdom itself was guilty of many of the things it was liberally accusing others of doing.

Mr Cameron took the point but, unfortunately for him, his political career suffered a significant personal reverse the following month and this area of action was down-prioritised. One Prime Minister finds it very difficult to persuade a successor to take up the things he or she cares about. But it is good that, these years later, we are coming back to this issue because when we consider our international reputation, nothing is as damaging as a charge of hypocrisy that has substance.

The first of my three specific points concerns beneficial ownership. There is clearly an ambition to be more rigorous about this, and I agree very strongly with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Clarke of Nottingham: that the overseas territories need to be included explicitly. They hate it, they wriggle out of it, they delay, but they need to be included. They would not have the financial sectors they have if they did not have the very strong link with the United Kingdom. They must feel the heat of this, and maybe it will be chance for them to diversify their economies away from a sector which, in the end, provides a benefit for very few citizens of the overseas territories.

The second issue is the proper underpinning of Companies House. There has been lots of discussion about increasing the amount of money a new company has to pay to register. I can see that this does not need to be argued in the Bill, but as the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, said, it is going to be addressed somewhere, so let us be honest. It is amazing that last year, 800,000 companies were registered in the United Kingdom. It does not take the brains of an Archbishop to work out that they cannot all be legitimate, so subjecting that large number to greater scrutiny would, I suggest, be a good thing.

The third issue is freeze and then seize, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Browne. This is clearly a difficult area, but other countries are tackling it. I hope the Government will be in touch with, for example, Italy, which is making progress. One idea which has been floated is that when a person or entity is sanctioned, they have to give a full list of their assets. If authorities subsequently establish that the list is incomplete, then all their assets might be subject to seizure. That would focus minds.

This is an important Bill which can and must be improved and strengthened. It is very striking that tonight’s debate has shown cross-party agreement. Like others, I pay tribute to the work of Dame Margaret Hodge and Sir Robert Buckland in the House of Commons. I hope that, in Committee, this House can strengthen the Bill.

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord McDonald, not least because of his reference to the chronology of the Government’s attempts—and they are, I am afraid, attempts —to deal with the scourge of economic crime.

Let me begin with the positives. This Bill is a remarkable achievement in fundamentally altering the role of Companies House. Historically, it has been remarkably uninformative and provided very little, if any, protectio