Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)

My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to say that I agree entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Marks—not something I perhaps say terribly frequently in this Chamber. There is one material distinction between the proposed new clause the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, brought forward in Committee and the proposed new clause before the House today. That is in proposed new subsection (3), which requires that “The Secretary of State must conduct a public consultation on the review, … which must be published no later than 1 June 2026, and which must open on that date and close on 1 September 2026”. Members of the House might ask why that is so specific. The reason is a simple one: I know that the noble and learned Lord met the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Hanson, to discuss this issue, and was told a review was going to be conducted, but that it would not report until 2028. Given that this campaign has been going on for some time, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, had a justifiable point in trying to bring forward that date through this amendment. As he rightly said in his Second Reading speech and in Committee, it is important that the United Kingdom Government make it possible for victims of fraud, bribery and money-laundering offences, both here and overseas, to recover compensation from the offending person or company, rather than the fines simply going into the system here in the UK. There is one final point from the noble and learned Lord’s Second Reading speech that warrants repetition here: “The African Union estimated in 2015 that 25% of the continent’s gross domestic product was lost to corruption. Every company convicted of overseas corruption in this jurisdiction should be ordered to compensate the communities it has harmed”.—[Official Report, 16/12/25; col. 689.] Can any of us disagree with that?