The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of
Trafford) (Con):...The newly elected Premier of
the Turks
and Caicos Islands has confirmed that legislation
will be introduced on an urgent basis to establish a central
registry of beneficial ownership information in its existing
companies registry, and to determine access to such information.
She expects that the register can be established by the June 2017
deadline, albeit that it will take longer to populate the register
fully with data on corporate and legal entities incorporated in
their jurisdiction...
(Con):...However, I too am concerned about some of
the detail of this new clause. It is unfortunate that a clause of
this importance has appeared in the Marshalled List so late in the
process. Of course, I recognise that my noble friend on the Front
Bench is in some difficulty in that this is a major Bill and here
we are at the 11th hour having to look at an absolutely vital
amendment, and one has to make some allowance for that. But I share
the view of the noble Lord, , about exactly what
information is going to come from the UK and who on earth will
verify that information. The overseas territories have every right
to be told exactly what the information is and how it has been
verified. In addition, there seems to be a great rush to have this
work done in the next period so that it will all be based on one
year’s experience. This is a major step forward and I wonder
whether 12 months is enough. We have heard this evening from my
noble friend that the Turks
and Caicos Islands are hoping to get started
soon, but one year is really asking an awful lot, and not many
statisticians would work on the basis of one year’s information.
Nevertheless, we are where we are...
(CB):...I do not agree with Amendment 14. I was at the
meeting this morning where representatives from a number of
overseas territories explained to us what they were doing. We
have already heard about Bermuda and the Cayman Islands, the
British Virgin Islands, which are doing very good work, and from
Anguilla and Montserrat about the efforts they are making. We
have heard from the Minister about the Turks and Caicos Islands,
which with their new Government are now working to get this
through. So the areas contained within Amendment 14 are already
on the way, if not ahead of us in some cases, and it is not
necessary that they should be referred to specifically in it. I
do not want to hold everyone up. I support Amendment 8 and I do
not think Amendment 14 is really necessary now...
To read the whole debate, CLICK
HERE
