Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he plans to take to ensure UK entities cannot be used as shell companies for money laundering in light of recent allegations against prominent Azerbaijanis.

The UK has implemented a series of reforms since 2015 aimed at increasing the transparency of UK incorporated legal persons and arrangements, and preventing their misuse for illicit purposes. These reforms include, but are not limited to, the introduction of the publicly accessible People with Significant Control Register; the abolition of bearer shares; the introduction of a register of trusts with tax generating consequences; the introduction of Unexplained Wealth Orders; and the introduction of the HMRC register of Trust or Company Service Providers. It is too early to measure the impact of many of these reforms, but we expect these measures to make a significant difference to the prevention of the misuse of companies and trusts, and assist law enforcement in their investigations where misuse does occur.