Joe Powell

Joe Powell

Labour — Kensington and Bayswater

Speaking in the House of Commons on 5 February 2025

Debate

Overseas Territories: Tax Transparency

Contribution

I thank my co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on anti-corruption and responsible tax, where we talk about this a lot. Exhibit A is the UK public register of company ownership—when introduced, we were told that there would be all sorts of capital flight and that people would not come here to buy properties and invest, but that has simply not been the case. The register has now been in existence for several years. In fact, many of the countries that were the source of corruption and dirty money are now implementing public registries: Nigeria, Indonesia and Kenya, to name but a few. We know action is possible—Gibraltar and others among the overseas territories have already done it—and it is now incumbent on the others to follow suit. I implore the Government to keep the pressure on so that we do not have to come back too many more times to debates such as this to re-analyse the same problem that we all agree is there, when we know the policy solution is within our grasp. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered tax transparency in the Overseas Territories.

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