UK Parliament / Open data

Finance (No. 2) Bill

I understand why the hon. Gentleman presses the matter, because there is obviously an issue that relates to his constituent. If the hon. Gentleman writes to me about those points, I will be very happy to take a look and pass over anything appropriate for HMRC to look at.

Let me go back to the points that the right hon. Member for Barking made. She was suggesting that our law enforcement is not sufficient. Of course there is always more we can do, of course people who want to do wrong work very hard at it, and of course we need to keep up with them—the Government are committed to doing so—but I point her to two figures. First, the Financial Conduct Authority has issued fines totalling £336 million since 2018, which does not suggest inactivity. Secondly, before I took on my Treasury role I was very proud to be a Law Officer overseeing and superintending the Serious Fraud Office, so I know how hard the SFO works to tackle fraud and crime. Since 2014, through deferred prosecution agreements, it has delivered £1.6 billion to the public purse.

The Bill will put on the statute book a number of measures to protect our economy from disruption and tackle economic crime. I hope that those hon. Members who have spoken so vociferously in favour of such action will support those measures in our Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 27 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

About this proceeding contribution

Reference

704 c1001 

Session

2021-22

Chamber / Committee

House of Commons chamber
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