Nigel Dodds – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nigel Dodds on 2015-10-28.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the implementation of the recommendations on money laundering and terrorism financing of the G7 Financial Action Task Force.

Harriett Baldwin

The international standards for anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing are set by the Financial Action Task Force of which the UK is a leading member. The UK has a comprehensive anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing regime, and we are committed to ensuring our financial system is a hostile environment for criminal finances. The UK was last assessed by the FATF in 2007 and our high level of compliance with the standards exempted us from the detailed follow-up most countries must complete. The UK will next be evaluated beginning in 2017 and the Treasury and Home Office are already making the necessary preparations for this assessment.

To this end, the Government recently published the UK’s first National Risk Assessment of money laundering and terrorist financing which is a requirement of the FATF standards. We are now preparing an Action Plan to address the findings of the NRA. The Action Plan will be a core component of our preparations for our FATF evaluation.

The FATF has now completed fourth round evaluations of Spain, Belgium, Norway, Australia, and Malaysia to assess both technical compliance and effectiveness. These reports, and those of the previous rounds, are publicly available on the FATF website (www.fatf-gafi.org).