Anti-corruption: Beneficial Ownership Registration

Debate between Lord Ashton of Hyde and Baroness Berridge

Thursday 26th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, about 100,000 properties in England and Wales out of 24 million titles are owned by foreign companies, and of those about 44,000 are in London. As I say, we will be the first country to insist on a public register of beneficial ownership by foreign companies for property and, as I said, that will apply to existing properties, not just new ones. We are leading the way in the world in opening this up to transparency.

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend made a distinction between Overseas Territories and Crown dependencies. Is it not the case that jurisdictions such as Jersey have had a beneficial ownership register for many years that is accessible by anybody with a legitimate interest, and that we should be careful to maintain these distinctions? Can my noble friend give some indication of how its benchmark compares with many states of the United States, and indeed with the United Kingdom?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I am not sure that I can answer my noble friend’s question on the distinction between Jersey and the other Crown dependencies. All Crown dependencies and all Overseas Territories will share information. It will be accessed, and most of them—not all—will also share it with an extra 40 countries outside the UK jurisdiction as well.