Public registers of beneficial ownership of companies in the British overseas territories

Part of Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords] – in a Public Bill Committee at 2:15 pm on 6 March 2018.

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[Dame Cheryl Gillan in the Chair]

I would like to draw parallels with the devolved Administrations and the Sewel convention. The hon. Member for Glasgow Central addressed the point on Second Reading:

“Much as I do not wish the House to legislate on Scottish matters, I do not want us to legislate for overseas territories or Crown dependencies without consent.”—[Official Report, 20 February 2018; Vol. 636, c. 92.]

I agree with her that that is the right approach.

The overseas territories and Crown dependencies have already made significant progress on beneficial ownership. Since we concluded our exchanges of notes with them in 2016, they have passed new primary legislation and delivered technological improvements to comply with the terms of the arrangements. They have committed to provide UK law enforcement authorities with automatic access to beneficial ownership information within 24 hours of a request being made, or within one hour in urgent cases. Those arrangements strengthen our law enforcement authorities’ ability to investigate serious organised crime, including money laundering and tax evasion.

The hon. Member for Oxford East asked about what are termed similarly effective systems. Some jurisdictions have opted under the bilateral arrangements concluded with the UK to establish an electronic search platform, allowing them to gain access to beneficial ownership information held by their authorities or by corporate service providers.

The exchanges of notes permit such similarly effective arrangements, provided that the following criteria are met. Law enforcement authorities can obtain beneficial ownership information without restrictions, and that information is available for use in both civil and criminal proceedings. Law enforcement authorities can also quickly identify all corporate and legal entities connected to a beneficial owner, without needing to submit multiple and repeated requests. Corporate and legal entities, or those to whom the beneficial ownership information relates, are not to be alerted to the fact that a request has been made or that an investigation is under way. We will monitor that arrangement to ensure that it does indeed provide the same results.

I hope that hon. Members agree that the overseas territories, in some cases in the most challenging circumstances, and the Crown dependencies have made significant efforts to move forward on this agenda. The effective implementation of the exchanges of notes will put them ahead of many G20 countries and many individual states of the USA, and demonstrates what can be achieved through working co-operatively.