Paul Flynn – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Flynn on 2016-04-08.
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, whether he plans to require companies registered in the British Virgin Islands to publish details of all significant and beneficial owners and to place all such information on an online searchable register.
James Duddridge
Our priority for all the Overseas Territories that function with financial centres such as the British Virgin Islands has been for them to hold accurate and current beneficial ownership information on island in central registers or the equivalent, where they do not already do so, and to allow for UK law enforcement to access that information. The arrangement signed with the British Virgin Islands achieves this and represents a significant step forward in our ability to counter criminal activity and should be welcomed.
As the Prime Minister, the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron) said in the House on 11 April, only about three countries in the world, including Britain, are implementing publically accessible central registers of company beneficial ownership information. If we had tried to push that on to the British Virgin Islands and other Overseas Territories straightaway, we would not have got nearly as far as we have. The actions taken by the British Virgin Islands and the other Overseas Territories puts them well ahead of many of our international partners.
