Howard steps up attack over casinos
Conservative Party Leader Michael Howard has stepped up his attack on the Government over money laundering concessions for casino operators.
In a letter to the Prime Minister, he repeats claims he made during Prime Minister’s question time that Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell’s statement to Parliament on Monday was misleading.
She said during a debate on the Gambling Bill that discussions on “money laundering issues are … a matter for the Treasury; that is absolutely clear”.
Mr Howard says he has received a letter from Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell explaining that the culture department did discuss the money laundering directive and its implications directly with casino operators- not via the Treasury. He says this contradicts the statement she made on Monday.
On Wednesday, Mr Howard accused the Government of offering foreign casino operators concessions on money laundering legislation – and then seeking to cover this up.
Mr Blair denied the charge, describing it as “utterly absurd”. He said there had been “no concession on money laundering” and to suggest such was “completely ridiculous”. Money laundering regulations were a matter for the Treasury, not the DCMS, he added.
In his letter, the Conservative leader asks the Prime Minister to agree Ms Jowell’s statement was misleading and that he was wrong to defend it.
Mr Howard wrote: “The letter from Tessa Jowell directly contradicts this. She now admits that her Department has indeed been discussing this very directive and its possible implications, directly (not via the Treasury) with ‘companies who have expressed an interest in developing casinos here’.
“She goes on to say that such discussions relate to the form the controls might take, and ‘the appropriate level of transactions within casinos at which identification or other requirements should bite’ – in other words, whether the proposed rules should be relaxed.”
Mr Howard has also written a similar letter to Ms Jowell asking her why she “deliberately withheld this information from Parliament on Monday during the debate?”
