Policing and Crime Bill

Part of Olympics – in the House of Commons at 7:41 pm on 19 January 2009.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Henry Bellingham Henry Bellingham Shadow Minister (Justice) 7:41, 19 January 2009

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, not least because he has given me some injury time for my speech. I could not agree more about Gary McKinnon. The offence that he committed is very serious in America, but not so serious here for a variety of reasons. If we were trying to secure an extradition from America of someone who had committed a similar offence, a prima facie case would have to be made in the American court by the extraditing country. In this case, no such requirement exists.

I am very concerned also about the Raoul Weil case. Very few people in this country will have heard about it. He is a 49-year-old Swiss national who lives and works in Switzerland, and he ran the global wealth management arm of UBS in Zurich and was also based in London for a time. He was involved in putting together a number of products for high net worth individuals, which were basically aimed at reducing their tax liability, and he fell foul of the US Internal Revenue Service. He was in charge of a private bank at the time of the alleged offences, so last November the Americans charged him with conspiracy to defraud the US through tax evasion. If convicted, he faces a long period in jail and a huge fine. He is considered a fugitive because he has not flown to the States to get himself arrested.

What is so worrying about that case is that although UBS has clearly upset the Americans, no one has charged Weil with doing anything to hurt his homeland or contravening any EU or Swiss law. The logic of the case is that any employee in any non-American tax jurisdiction is vulnerable unless they comply not just with their own laws but with American law. I hope that the relevant part of the Bill will be reconsidered carefully, and that protection will be given to people such as Raoul Weil, Gary McKinnon and the Enron three. Let us hope that this fag-end Bill will be examined in Committee and really improved.