The UK government is energised on the topic as it builds up to taking on the presidency of the G20, the Financial Action Task Force and the Open Government Partnership next year, giving the country a unique platform to demonstrate global leadership where it believes the Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories make it more vulnerable.
It said that it wanted to generate the ‘strongest possible international commitments to drive impact at a time of heightened global economic and geopolitical tension’.
The summit will bring together a diverse coalition of governments, international organisations, civil society, and the private sector to tackle dirty money around the world and strengthen the UK’s national security, and plans to address issues including strengthening global enforcement against illicit finance, forging new partnerships on information sharing and asset recovery, and partnerships to tackle money laundering in the property sector, misuse of crypto-assets, and trading in illicit gold.
Foreign Office minister Stephen Doughty has responded to questions from Liberal Democrat Luke Taylor on pressure to introduce publicly accessible registers of beneficial ownership ‘without delay or dilution’.
‘Tackling illicit finance at home and internationally remains a key priority for this government,’ he said.
‘By driving greater transparency, stronger enforcement and higher global standards, we will also make it harder to hide or misuse money, including through tax evasion.’
He said expectations on registers of beneficial ownership continued to be raised with the Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies.
Joe Powell, MP for Kensington and Bayswater, has claimed that the value of ‘dirty money’ flowing through the UK each year doubled when the Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies were taken into account.
‘The UK has long had an interest in this problem because we are at the epicentre,’ he said.
‘The sums of money involved suggest an intractably large problem, but there are concrete steps that should be taken to restrict these financial flows and mitigate the harms they are causing.’
The States is set to debate creating more access to the island’s beneficial ownership register before the end of the year, but is still expected to be demanding several safeguards and limitations to access.