My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 183, which I hope the Government may be willing to accept before Report.
Investor visas were introduced in 1994. They became tier 1 investor visas in 2008. Conditions were tightened under the coalition Government in 2011 and further in 2014. Successive Governments, from different parties, have allowed them to continue. Theresa May announced a review of the scheme in 2018, after the Salisbury poisonings raised concerns about the numbers of wealthy Russians resident in the UK, but so far that review has not been published.
The majority of investor visas have been given to wealthy people from Russia, China and central Asia—all countries with high levels of corruption and extreme inequality. Given the FCDO’s recognition that the greatest state threats to the UK come from Russia and China, this does not fit easily with the Prime Minister’s aspirations for “global Britain”. It has been reported that more than 6,000 golden visas—half of those ever issued—are now being reviewed for possible national security risks. Many of those who received them will by now have acquired full UK citizenship.
Two Court of Appeal judgments in the past year have thrown up new questions about the regulation of this scheme and the sources of the finance pledged by applicants. Paragraphs 49 to 52 of the Intelligence and Security Committee’s Russia report, now published over three years ago and to which the Government have been extremely slow to respond, let alone to implement its recommendations, say that
“the UK has been viewed as a particularly favourable destination for Russian oligarchs and their money. It is widely recognised that the key to London’s appeal was the … UK’s investor visa scheme
… The UK welcomed Russian money, and few questions—if any—were asked about the provenance of this considerable wealth … What is now clear is that it … offered ideal mechanisms by which illicit finance could be recycled through what has been referred to as the London ‘laundromat’. The money was also invested in extending patronage and building influence across a wide sphere of the British establishment … there are a lot of Russians with very close links to Putin who are well integrated into the UK business and social scene … This level of integration … means that any measures now being taken by the Government are not preventative but rather constitute damage limitation … It is not just the oligarchs either: the arrival of Russian money resulted in a growth industry of enablers—individuals and organisations who manage and lobby for the Russian elite in the UK. Lawyers, accountants, estate agents and PR professionals … To a certain extent, this cannot be untangled and the priority now must be to mitigate the risk”.
After warning about the extent of illicit Russian financial activity in the UK, including extensive donations to political parties, the report states in paragraph 56:
“One key measure would be an overhaul of the Tier 1 (Investor) visa programme—there needs to be a more robust approach to the approval process for these visas.”
So far, the Government’s published response to the ISC report makes no reference to this recommendation. If this has been true for Russians, it has also been true for Kazakhs, Azeris, Malaysians and Chinese. The Government recently made a great fuss about a British citizen with close links to the Chinese state and the funds she had donated to a Labour MP. It is surprising that they have so far made much less fuss about our resident Russian-linked community.
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In a Bill that is largely designed to make access to UK residence and settlement more difficult, this singles out the very wealthy, who are often also politically exposed people, for easy entry. Home Office records show that, between 2008 and 2020, some 9% of golden visa applications were refused. In comparison, 42% of asylum applications were rejected. The UK has been one of the top 10 to 15 most popular golden visa regimes in the world.
It is also reputed to have one of the fastest application turnarounds globally, with the Government promising a decision within three weeks to applicants. In comparison, the turnaround time for a UK asylum application is six months. It is perhaps ironic that a recent report suggests that the UK has now lost ground in comparison with Cyprus and Malta, since UK citizenship no longer provides easy access to other EU states, including the Riviera and southern Spain—another unintended consequence of Brexit, of course.
Peers will recall May and Johnson’s rhetoric about patriotic “somewheres” and unpatriotic “anywheres”. But these new citizens are the ultimate cosmopolitans, using London as a safe haven while maintaining much of their wealth and business connections offshore. Those who provide for their needs in London serve the ultra-rich without considering the implications for Britain’s sovereignty and reputation. Oliver Bullough’s new book labels British enablers “butlers to the world”. One of them is co-chairman of the Conservative Party.
If I were a conspiracy theorist, I would believe that the reason the Government have not published the report of the review they promised in 2018, now four years ago, is all of a piece with their reluctance to act
on the recommendations of the ISC’s Russia report: that they have something to hide; that Russian money flowed to the Conservative Party; and that the close links between property developers, other enablers and these wealthy people has become, as the ISC report put it, impossible to untangle. I hope that is not the case and that publication of the review will show that it is not so.
However, it is demeaning. A Government who claim to be proud to have restored British sovereignty are selling a fast track to citizenship to dodgy people from dodgy countries. It has distorted the London property market to an extraordinary degree. The Minister will remember Nigel Farage complaining that London commuters hear more Polish and Romanian on their trains home than English. He did not remark that there are parts of Belgravia and Hampstead where you now hear more Russian, Mandarin and Arabic than English. We have imported corruption and, with it, the danger that corrupt overseas wealth will in turn corrupt our own society and democracy.
My Amendment 183 asks the Government to publish this overdue review in full and, in the light of that report, to reconsider whether this scheme should be ended or restricted and policed more tightly.