Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords]

Bambos Charalambous Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 20th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

As most hon. Members have stated in this debate, money laundering and corruption are huge issues worldwide. Although I welcome some of the measures in the Bill, I do not believe that it goes far enough.

The Minister for Europe and the Americas has already been made aware—it was mentioned in an intervention—that, as part of the recently agreed fifth EU anti-money laundering directive, all EU member states will be required to have public beneficial ownership registers by 2019. I am sure he will confirm that, whether or not the United Kingdom is part of the EU at the time of the directive’s implementation, the United Kingdom would not want any measures that are weaker than those in the directive.

This raises the question of what should happen in the overseas territories. The UK has made a start on a public beneficial ownership register, but more needs to be done in the overseas territories. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) pointed out, the problem is that many overseas territories are tax havens and as such they are home to many offshore companies willing to offer complete anonymity to their clientele, with very few questions asked.

We should note that, despite overseas territories having small populations, half of all global trade passes through them because they are tax havens, and the vast majority of the transactions are carried out by offshore companies. Let us, for example, take the British Virgin Islands. Despite having a population of only 28,000, it is home to an estimated 500,000 offshore companies, which is 40% of the total number of offshore companies in the world. Many of these offshore companies have complete anonymity and are shell companies working with nominees and powers of attorney to move around vast amounts of money. Most people faced with that information would conclude that there is something dodgy going on.

My right hon. Friend gave examples of corrupt and illegal practices that have occurred in overseas territories tax havens, all of which are because of the opaqueness of the systems that they operate. A fully functioning central, public beneficial ownership register in the overseas territories would be no cause of concern to companies carrying out legitimate business activity. As more and more countries agree to adopt a public beneficial ownership register, it is inevitable that the overseas territories should follow.

We need to make sure that money offshore in these tax havens is not being used for illegal purposes. If there is an issue, it is that overseas territories have built their wealth on secrecy. If that is the case, the Government should support the overseas territories to make sure activity is based on a legitimate and transparent model of business. The Government should give support to the overseas territories as they transition from financial secrecy to openness.

There is no reason why corporate ownership transparency should cause any problems in the provision of legitimate financial services, especially considering that many other countries will be adopting the principles of transparency registers. The people who are losing out the most are those in developing countries. They are in the greatest need and the billions being diverted away from them could literally be costing lives.

I will conclude by saying that a fully operational public beneficial ownership register in the overseas territories will greatly help to curtail money laundering, corruption and criminal activity, but much more needs to be done than is set out in this Bill.