States surprised at British-Irish Assembly’s cooperation criticism
AUTHORITIES in Guernsey have reacted with surprise to a report seeming to criticise cooperation in the sharing of information between the Crown Dependencies and the UK authorities.
The British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly has just published a report on post-Brexit UK-EU defence and security cooperation, which highlighted a need for improved information-sharing.
The report highlighted sanctions, cyber- security and financial intelligence as areas where future cooperation was needed.
The British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly encourages inter-parliamentary cooperation between Britain and Ireland. Guernsey became part of it in 2001.
The island has a good working relationship with the UK government, a Policy & Resources spokesman has said.
The spokesman said the States was grateful that BIPA was looking into post-Brexit cooperation in defence and security.
‘However, we were surprised to read the recommendation in the interim report relating to Crown Dependencies and cooperation with the UK,’ he said.
‘Guernsey already have a close and effective working relationship with the UK government on matters including sanctions, cyber security and financial crime.’
He said that with sanctions, Guernsey automatically applied UK sanctions at the same time as they were made in the UK.
‘We work very closely with the UK government in the development of new sanctions packages, and on implementation, licensing and enforcement.’
With cyber security, he said the States worked closely with the UK government, including the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, now the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, and the National Cyber Security Centre, to ensure the regimes are aligned on areas including telecoms security regulations and Guernsey’s approach to high-risk vendors.
With financial intelligence, Guernsey’s Financial Intelligence Unit has well-established working relationships with counterparts in the UK, the spokesman said.
‘The FIU also has a close working relationship with His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs on tax-related matters and the National Terrorist Financial Investigation Unit on terrorist financing related issues,’ he said.
‘We have established arrangements to review this process on an annual basis to ensure its effectiveness.’
The spokesman said that it was unfortunate that the BIPA report, which was commissioned by Committee B (European Affairs), had not considered these matters within the main body of the text.
