Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to prevent the use of Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories as safe havens for ultra-high net worth individuals with significant political exposure; and how they are enforcing any preventative efforts.

Corruption and illicit finance undermine effective governance in the UK and penalise legitimate UK businesses overseas.

While the Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories are distinct, largely self-governing jurisdictions with elected governments responsible for their own domestic affairs, the UK Government is committed to working with these international financial centres to tackle corruption and prevent money laundering.

The Home Office and the Foreign Office work with the Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories to help strengthen their approaches to beneficial ownership transparency. The Government’s ultimate expectation remains the introduction of publicly accessible registers of beneficial ownership registers; however, the steps they are taking to implement legitimate interest access to their registers are welcome. Minister Doughty recently met with the Overseas Territories at the Joint Ministerial Council; the communique, which was published on November 28 2025, outlines the Overseas Territories’ progress.

This remains a priority for the UK government, reflected in a commitment within the recently published 2025 Anti-Corruption Strategy to strengthen beneficial ownership transparency across the Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories.

The UK also supports the Crown Dependencies and all Overseas Territories with financial centres commitment to uphold international tax standards, including the tax transparency framework and the BEPS (Base Erosion and Profit Shifting) Framework.