My Lords, my Amendment 75 is in this group and I wish briefly to speak to it. Things have moved on a little with investor visas since Committee. The Government have at last moved to announce that they intend to suspend, or possibly abolish, the investor visa scheme. They have announced that they will replace it with a new scheme, about which we are not yet very well informed. I hope that, in replying, the Minister will be able to tell us a little more about it.
It is astonishing that the review of the scheme which was promised four years ago has not yet been published. It is difficult not to accept that there must have been some considerable embarrassment within the Government to account for the absence of its publication. I have now been told informally that it is well under way and in the last stages of preparation, and it will indeed be published not just in due course but, possibly, shortly. I would like to have a definite date for its publication if the Minister wishes to persuade us not to divide on this issue.
There are very good reasons for embarrassment here. One of the two chairmen of the Conservative Party at present has made his entire career out of servicing Russian oligarchs, Chinese people and others who have come in on the investor visa scheme. That ought to embarrass the Conservative Party deeply. The Intelligence and Security Committee’s Russia report referred to evidence of foreign interference in British politics. The Government’s response was to say that they knew of no evidence of successful interference in British politics, and they have therefore declined to publish what evidence there is. That also seems improper, and I hope the Minister will be able to say something about reconsidering whether the time has now come for the Government to accept the recommendation of the Intelligence and Security Committee to publish that evidence. There is a stain of potential corruption and foreign interference around investor visas, Russian oligarchs and others that affects this Government and the Conservative Party.
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What do we need now? First, we need a clear, definite and immediate date for publishing this report, and preferably some explanation as to why it has not been published in the last four years. The sort of excuses we were getting—“It is under way but not yet ready”—kept being repeated. Associated with that, we need a commitment now to publish information on what has happened since 2015 and in the four years since we were promised this report. For example, I understand that 200 investor visas have been extended to Russians entering the country since 2015. That is of some interest in the current circumstances. Therefore, a review ought to extend beyond the end date of 2015, which was announced in the original review.
Incidentally, it is not just Russians. The number of Chinese who have come in on investor visas has, throughout the life of the scheme, been larger than the
number of Russians. The Conservative press made quite a lot of noise about Chinese investor visas and Chinese influence on British politics because it was a Labour MP who had received a lot of money from the Chinese woman who was being fingered. That seems good partisan politics but not very good in terms of transparency or the probity of British politics as such.
Thirdly, I would like a public commitment to a consultation on the successor scheme, so that it is not simply jumped on us by the Government—as this Government like to do—but is one on which the Government consult widely with interested parties as to what the successor scheme, which I understand is intended to attract rich people who are prepared to invest in more productive enterprise in Britain, should look like, what form it will take and what those of us who for different reasons would want to be critical in the way we examine it might think.