Steff Aquarone

I wholeheartedly agree. In fact, a past Government wrote to all those revealed by the Panama papers to ask them about their financial affairs. Might the Minister perhaps commit to doing the same for those shown not to be fully complying with beneficial ownership registration? Speaking of getting our own house in order, naturally, I must turn to the overseas territories. When looking into opaque property ownership in my own area, I was sadly unsurprised to see that the British Virgin Islands were partly culpable for obscuring true beneficiaries. It is all well and good running a big international summit and talking a big game on transparency and fair taxation, but when we are allowing hundreds of billions in illicit finance to keep rolling through countries that fly our flag, rely on our defence and are citizens of our King, it looks as though we are not taking this issue seriously. The overseas territories and Crown dependencies are part of our British family, but part of being a family is calling them out when they are doing wrong. So many are taking positive steps towards financial transparency, and their work will allow us to fight corruption and illicit finance more effectively, but there remain bad actors who are letting the side down. Their progress has been achingly slow, with deadlines missed, promises broken and beneficial ownership registers half delivered. The Government’s own anti-corruption champion recently said: “I think we’re coming to the end of the road trying to do this through agreement”. Such registers need to be free and publicly accessible. Restricting registers, or those behind payrolls with claims of legitimate interest, prevents journalists or non-governmental organisations—or even the interested public—from seeing who is truly behind these companies. We know that, in corruption and tax abuse, sunlight is the best disinfectant. For those malign actors who want to use existing secrecy to hide their ill-gotten gains, we have to smash that ability by ensuring that this information is freely available, just as is expected of anyone setting up or holding significant control in a company in this country. I hope that the Minister can build on what Baroness Hodge has said and give a clear signal to us of the next steps that he is expecting to take if he has also, finally, run out of patience with these regimes. I can tell him and the House that most people ran out of patience long ago—hard-working, honest people who pay their way in what feels like an ever increasing tax burden. All the while, criminals, billionaires and dictators are seeing their dirty money flowing and growing, letting them live a life of luxury while we cobble together any penny that the Treasury can find to keep our public services afloat. For those of us who are supporting the brave Ukrainians in their fight against Putin and his illegal war, we should be sickened that hundreds of private yacht transactions went on in overseas territories since the war began. Putin’s cronies, awash with blood money, are sunning themselves while Ukrainian people fight for their very future as a nation. While the Iranian regime represses protests and attacks our allies in the Gulf, the new Ayatollah has a multimillion pound mansion by Kensington Palace Gardens, just a short tube ride from here, which is one of the many ways he can launder wealth plundered from the people of Iran. Illicit finance is a poison and cancer spreading through our country, infecting everything it touches. We have to get serious on this, and fast.