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Forty MPs have called on the Secretary of State to push for faster progress in tackling tax avoidance in the British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies, ahead of a ministerial summit this week.
The cross-party MPs, including former ministers Andrew Mitchell and Liam Byrne, have written to David Lammy demanding he push for faster establishment of public beneficial ownership registers in the areas and dependencies.
Their call comes ahead of the annual Joint Council of Ministers on November 19 – the first meeting since Crown Dependencies and overseas territories such as the Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands failed to meet the December 2023 target for implementing the registries.
Disclosure of the data was mutually agreed following a vote in the UK Parliament in 2018 calling for the data to be made public.
The parliamentarians argued in their letter that publishing the registers, which document who ultimately owns or controls a company, would allow journalists and researchers to track money held offshore to uncover economic crimes, rather than of relying on leaks like the Panama Papers.
Lammy campaigned on the issue in opposition and progress has been made since Labor came to power in July. Monserrat implemented a publicly accessible register last month and Saint Helena will follow suit next year.
Other overseas territories have agreed to introduce legitimate access registers, granting access to journalists and NGOs – a move the UK government sees as an intermediate step towards a fully public register.
A spokesperson for the Cayman Islands government said it would continue to work towards an “enhanced beneficial ownership framework” by the end of 2024, with Deputy Prime Minister André Ebanks adding that this was a clear step “towards a greater framework for economic property”. [financial] transparency”.
Natalio D Wheatley, Prime Minister and Minister of Financial Services of the British Virgin Islands, said it “continues to prepare to introduce public access to beneficial ownership information where there is a legitimate interest”.
However, Mitchell, the former deputy foreign secretary, said the missed deadlines “undermined British ministers and parliament.”
“The British family of nations and territories who enjoy our laws, flag and monarch must also accept our values,” he added.
In a speech to the International Public Policy Institute in May, Lammy, then the shadow foreign secretary, called for “a clear time-bound action plan” to bring all British Overseas Territories “fully compliant with all transparency requirements”.
The letter – which was co-ordinated by Joe Powell MP, chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Anti-Corruption and Responsible Tax – asks Lammy to “raise the issue of registers directly with ministers in the council”, in following through on his commitment to make Britain the world’s leading anti-corruption champion.
In 2018, Transparency International identified 237 cases of corruption, worth more than £250 billion, enabled by companies in the overseas territories.
TI has also linked £830 million worth of properties in Britain’s offshore financial centers to individuals with close links to Russian President Vladimir Putin or to Russians accused of corruption.
Margot Mollat, senior policy manager at TI, said trade secrecy in the territories “continues to play a crucial role in enabling corruption, money laundering and tax and sanctions evasion on a global scale”.
A spokesperson for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said the Government has made tackling illicit finance “a priority from day one”, adding: “As the Secretary of State has said, he is taking the issue of public registers of ultimate beneficiaries with full conviction. power.”