Government steers away the gunboat
TUCKED away in Room 14 of the Palace of Westminster a debate of much interest for the islands took place. Ostensibly, the MPs were gathered in the committee room to discuss the Criminal Finances Bill, in particular an amendment moved by Labour's shadow minister for the Home Office, Rupa Huq. It became instead a much wider examination of how much power Westminster should expect to wield over the Crown dependencies and the UK's overseas territories.
The amendment sought to instruct the Home Secretary to help, persuade and somehow force the 17 jurisdictions into accepting that any register of who owns companies should be open to the public and media and not just the police and other agencies.
Dr Huq clearly could not wait for Westminster to impose its will on places which, in her view, were helping with corruption, money laundering and tax evasion and was furious that the upstarts would not meekly comply.
Ignoring distinctions between overseas territories and Crown Dependencies the shadow minister railed against the slow progress and wanted the UK to make the miscreants 'toe the line'.
Thankfully, even the SNP recognised that Labour was barking up the wrong tree. 'If we do not have the jurisdiction, we simply do not have the jurisdiction,' said one MP.
Conservative minister Ben Wallace agreed. He had asked his civil servants to find one example of the UK imposing legislation on the Crown dependencies. They could find none.
While he, too, was frustrated the UK had not got everything its own way despite three years of 'cajoling, working together and peer pressure' Mr Wallace preferred that to gunboat diplomacy.
It was a heartening exchange. While it was clear that the thorn of a public register has not been removed – the UK will return to the matter if it does not believe the halfway house is working – the government not only recognises how far the Crown dependencies have come but is already turning its attention to more secretive systems in G20 countries such as the USA.
It was there, he suggested, that the real problem lies, allowing the Crown dependencies to breathe a collective sigh of relief.
