Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps he plans to take to ensure that Overseas Territories adopt open and public registers of beneficial ownership.

Work is ongoing to improve beneficial ownership transparency in the Overseas Territories. At the Joint Ministerial Council (JMC) in November 2024, the Falkland Islands and Saint Helena committed to join Montserrat and Gibraltar in implementing fully public registers by April 2025. The British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Anguilla and Turks and Caicos Islands agreed to implement registers of beneficial ownership, accessible to those with a legitimate interest, by June 2025. It remains our expectation that the Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies will ultimately implement fully public registers.

Every Territory is making progress towards these commitments and FCDO officials are in regular contact with counterparts in the Overseas Territories on their proposals for registers to ensure they meet the agreement made at JMC. I have and will continue to raise this directly with elected leaders across the Overseas Territories, and have discussed with the leaders of a number of OTs including Bermuda and the British Virgin Islands in recent weeks.