§ Mr. CousinsTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what extra expenditure is planned this year, and in which Departments and agencies of Government, to tackle (a) money laundering and (b) the financial supports for terrorism. [45748]
§ Mr. Bob AinsworthI have been asked to reply.
A full answer is not available in the form requested, partly because expenditure on activities against money laundering and terrorist financing are not always separately identified and partly because budgets for 2002–03 are in some cases not yet finalised. I can however provide the following information. Information about expenditure for the National Criminal Intelligence Service has been included although it is not a Government agency.
The Government have made £18 million available this year and £21 million next year to meet the costs of establishing the Assets Recovery Agency expected to be created by the Proceeds of Crime Bill currently going through Parliament, and related costs. As part of the budget settlement for counter terrorism in 2002–03 £1 million has been provisionally earmarked for tracking terrorist finances. This will provide funding for a multi-agency unit based at the National Criminal Intelligence Service supported by additional investigative capacity at the Metropolitan police service.
The Crown Prosecution Service has obtained £85,000 from the Recovered Assets Fund for a project on the training of prosecutors across the criminal justice system in implementation of the Proceeds of Crime Bill, which includes new money laundering offences.
The Department for International Development is increasing support for anti-money laundering activities in 2002–03, including:
funding the Executive Secretary post of the Eastern and Southern Africa Anti-Money Laundering Group (£70,000 per year for three years):co-funding with the European Union an anti-money laundering technical assistance programme for 10 countries in east and south-east Asia (£700,000 over three years);funding the Secretariat of the Egmont Group of financial intelligence units (hosted by the United Kingdom National Criminal Intelligence Service) (£75.000 per year for two years). Department for International Development will supplement this support with funds for a training post at the National Criminal Intelligence Service dedicated to developing training materials relevant to developing countries and countries in transition (estimated £150,000 per year for three years).In financial year 2002–03 the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has ring-fenced £250,000 from its Drugs and Crime Fund to provide technical assistance to combat money laundering in countries which are the 185W greatest threat to the United Kingdom's financial system. This represents an increase of over 10 per cent. over the previous financial year.
The National Criminal Intelligence Service has increased the staffing of its Economic Crime Unit, which handles (inter alia) reports from financial and other institutions of transactions suspected to represent money laundering, from 44 staff in January 2001 to 66 staff in December 2001 with a further increase of up to 20 staff planned for 2002–03.
Customs and Excise will be implementing the new regulatory regime for money service businesses (bureaux de change, money transmission agents and third party cheque cashiers). This requires all affected businesses to register by 1 June this year. The resourcing levels for this regime are still to be finalised, but it is estimated to be about 40 staff years per annum.