Rupa Huq MP, the Shadow Minister for the Home Office and Crime and Prevention had called for legislation to be drawn up which would require the UK Secretary of State to ensure that overseas territories and Crown Dependencies make central registers of beneficial ownership public.
However, she later withdrew her call for a clause to be inserted into proceeds of crime legislation after politicians heard that ‘in recent history’ there had never been an example of imposing UK legislation on Crown Dependencies without their consent and were told that the territories were ‘well ahead of most jurisdictions’.
During the debate Ms Huq read from the States Hansard in which Senator Gorst was asked a question about what steps were being taken in Jersey after the UK government said that it wanted to make its register of beneficial ownership public.
‘The answer is quite long, and I will bore people if I read it all out, but in essence it was: “We’re doing enough, and we’ve been told that it’s fine.” That is quite scandalous,’ Ms Huq said.
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