STATEMENT: UK Anti-Corruption Coalition responds to investigations into City Minister Tulip Siddiq MP
The UK Anti-Corruption Coalition is today calling for HM Treasury minister Tulip Siddiq to hand over responsibilities for countering economic crime, money laundering and illicit finance to another government minister.
In light of an investigation launched last week by the Prime Minister’s independent advisor on ministerial interests, and developments in separate investigations in Bangladesh, the Coalition concludes that she currently has a serious conflict of interests. The Treasury minister is in charge of the UK’s framework on money laundering regulations and economic crime enforcement, while she also has direct family ties to a deposed regime that may be investigated under that framework.
This conflict stands regardless of the outcome of the investigation by the Independent Advisor into whether a breach of the Ministerial Code has occurred.
There are several urgent and important decisions for the international credibility and reputation of the UK which the government needs to make that currently fall within the minister’s current brief. These include issues such as what supervisory framework should be in place to tackle money laundering so that the UK can be rated as effective in the upcoming review by the Financial Action Task Force, and taking forward concrete actions on kleptocracy in a robust new Anti-Corruption Strategy. Some of these include manifesto commitments. It is not clear that the minister is now in a position to take these decisions given the conflict of interests that has arisen.
The people of Bangladesh have removed a regime which extensively abused human rights and against which there are very serious allegations of wide-scale theft and corruption. The UK has a historic responsibility to support the new interim government of Bangladesh, to ensure a democratic transition, and to recover stolen assets, not least because some of those assets may be hidden in the UK itself.
To that end, we urge the government to:
move swiftly to work with the interim government in Bangladesh to impose financial sanctions and asset freezes on members and associates of the former Hasina regime.
ensure UK law enforcement acts swiftly to work with Bangladeshi authorities to identify, freeze and start asset recovery proceedings.
ensure the regulated sector in the UK is put on red alert for suspicious movement of assets related to members and associates, including family members, of the ousted regime.
Further reading
Letter from NGOs on working with the new Bangladeshi government on sanctions.
Article: “Questions over deposed Bangladeshi elite’s £400m UK property empire”