UK would overstep its powers legislating on a public register

While it has moved ahead of the global standard and introduced them, it followed the argument that this was a domestic matter for the Crown Dependencies and it could not force them to follow suit.

It has been pressed in both the House of Commons and House of Lords on the issue before, but the moves have amounted to little more than hot air.

Today, Labour MP Dame Margaret Hodge will try again.

She reportedly has significant cross-party support, too, enough to force action.

When our States debated setting up the private register, it came across as something of a rushed affair late one evening and one that minds had already been made up on.

No one stood to press the case for a public register, or even try to dissect why the UK has gone down that road.

The line has been consistent that only campaigners and the media are interested in public registers and we would be at a ‘competitive’ disadvantage going down that road.

Those campaigners are keen to point out that it is not only law enforcement officials that have the ability and wherewithal to analyse this data and join the dots and connections that uncover potential wrongdoing, or indeed the wrongdoing.

The UK has measures to protect the identities of those who might be at risk of harm.

One of the arguments for keeping things private is that opening up would mean money shifted into even darker parts of the global economy out of the reach of the law, which when you stand back and think about it for a second is a pretty weak position – put flippantly, dirty money is OK as long as it is here is not really a selling point.

Whatever your stance on the private/public register argument, any move by the UK government to directly legislate on this issue for the island would be overstepping its constitutional powers.

These were well set out following the work of the Justice Committee and government’s response to it since 2010.

There is even a handy briefing note for the MPs who seem to believe they should be able to impose their will on the Channel Islands because they somehow ‘own’ them.

In March 2014, the UK government put in plain language the position: ‘UK legislation rarely extends to the Crown Dependencies and should not be extended without first consulting the islands’ authorities and obtaining their consent.’

In the past, the attempts to compel a public register through the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill have used language about the UK working with the territories to bring them in by a certain date. But writing that into a bill oversteps the line.

No one has really addressed the point of what happens when there is no consent – and it is doubtful anyone really wants the expense, the bad publicity and risk of setting the wrong precedent that would happen if it all ended up going to court to be sorted out. But we may be about to find out.

In signing off the legislation that led to Guernsey’s private register, the UK recognised that it was both human rights compliant and, more importantly, met international obligations.

HM Government has put in writing before that it would take a most extreme circumstance, such as a fundamental breakdown in public order, to justify direct intervention by the UK in the running of the islands.

We are not there either.

Of course, there are political levers the UK could pull to exert pressure, one of the biggest being slowing down the progress of Guernsey laws through the Privy Council, which would in effect frustrate domestic policy making.

That is a tactic that some feel has been used before – and certainly there is more speed to things now than there was when Sark’s government structure was on the agenda of the Minister of Justice.

If the UK was on solid ground with its register, it would be making the case out on the international stage and winning the argument for a common standard that everyone would be obliged to follow.

The dependencies have said they will introduce public registers if there was a level playing field.

The UK has not been able to build an international consensus and on leaving Europe will probably find it even harder to do so.

Any attempts at bullying smaller territories into action seems entirely disproportionate, a throwback to its colonial past.

It is good politics domestically for those behind the move – they get to loosely throw around terms like ‘Britain’s tax havens’ and raise the spectre of Russia.

It is a threat that is being taken seriously.

The three ‘chief ministers’ were in Westminster yesterday ahead of the vote.

They will be working hard to head off what could become a constitutional crisis.