Keith Vaz – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Keith Vaz on 2016-05-05.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with which public and private sector stakeholders her Department has (a) engaged and (b) plans to engage in the implementation of the Government’s proposed improvements to the SARs IT infrastructure.
Mr John Hayes
The Home Office ran a Call for Information on the operation of the Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) regime between 25 February and 25 March 2015. We received more than 60 responses from a wide range of stakeholders, including law enforcement agencies, the financial sector, and the legal and accountancy sectors. Subsequently, further discussions were held with private and public sector bodies through a series of workshops.
The Government published the Action Plan for Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist finance on 21 April 2016. The Action Plan sets out the Government’s programme to deliver a significantly improved anti-money laundering regime for the UK. This includes the replacement of the SARs IT infrastructure. A summary of the submissions received following the Call for Information is set out in the Action Plan at Annex B.
In the Action Plan, we announced our commitment to develop a stronger public private partnership to tackle money laundering and the financing of terrorism, and as part of that we will engage with public and private stakeholders to develop the replacement.
The stakeholders will include law enforcement agencies, government departments, and businesses in the ‘regulated sector’ including banks, the legal and accountancy sectors, and estate agents. We will also include regulatory and supervisory bodies, and public bodies for whom SARs are of value.
This engagement will enable us to ensure that the replacement of the SARs IT architecture will deliver significant benefits for all of the sectors involved in the SARs regime. As we set out in the Action Plan, we will reform the SARs regime, making the necessary legislative, operational and technical changes, by October 2018.
