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Abu Hamza

No, I will not. The Economic Secretary will have a chance to answer, and time is short. If the Government had got their act together, the property could have been frozen as part of a benefits investigation. The Minister has told us that his Department was aware of the transfer at the time, but was powerless to prevent it. That transfer happened in June 2003. Only in October 2006, it seems, was the loophole closed. On 18 October 2006, the Treasury Committee was told that the transfer could not have been stopped because the assets order affected only funds, not property. The permanent secretary to the Treasury told the Committee that"““the authorities were aware of this transaction””" at the time. Why, then, did it take more than three years to close the loophole? If we had discovered that we were powerless to prevent terrorist transfers, surely the Treasury’s reaction should have been, ““Let’s go get new powers.”” It should not have taken three years. Further to that, I put a question to the Economic Secretary: is that loophole now closed? Can an individual subject to an asset-freezing order transfer an asset at nil value to another individual? Despite all the assurances from the Chancellor, it seems to me that any Abu Hamza of the future, accused of terrorist offences, might not be prevented from transferring large assets at nil value to family members or other third parties. That loophole appears to me to be still open. If it is now closed, it still took more than three years to get there. The Prime Minister calls the Chancellor the ““clunking fist””, but in this context he seems to be more of a ham fist. I have outlined three areas in need of urgent attention: there should be an investigation of the funding of Hamza’s right-to-buy purchase in 1998 to 2000, an urgent investigation of the benefits paid to Abu Hamza and his family for many years, which continue today, and the closing of the terrorist finance loophole, along with the prevention of the transfer of fixed assets at nil value. Abu Hamza has inflicted 10 years of pain on this country. It should trouble us all greatly that he may be released next year. He is a very dangerous individual, linked to many different terror plots in the past nine years. Moreover, he has been living at our expense, and many of the matters that I have outlined to the House today deserve urgent investigation. I look forward to the Minister’s response.