Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, when he plans to publish a timetable for those UK's Overseas Territories with financial centres producing credible plans to adopt public registers of beneficial ownership.

The Government is in discussion with the governments of the Overseas Territories on their plans to improve company transparency. The Territories have agreed to hold beneficial ownership information in central registers, or similarly effective systems, which need to meet the three criteria the UK set out in a letter to Territory leaders in March 2015. These are laid out in the answer my hon. Friend, the Member for South West Hertfordshire (David Gauke MP), gave on 16 October 2015 (PQ10437, PQ10438 and PQ10448).