My Lords, I became alarmed when I saw Amendment 167, and I then received a joint briefing on this specific amendment from groups such as Christian Aid, Oxfam and Save the Children—all great charities doing tremendously important work around the world.
What is clear is that this group of NGOs believes that countries like Bermuda cannot be trusted to run their own affairs and need orders from legislators in Britain. Noble Lords will know that Bermuda started its central register of beneficial ownership some 70 years ago—long before it was started in Britain. It is therefore offensive to believe that it is only the great parties here, and a bunch of patronising charities, that
can help them. In fact, according to the IFC Forum, information on beneficial ownership of companies will be centrally held by all overseas territories from next year.
Data can be provided to the relevant authorities on the same day that it is requested. So Bermuda is actually ahead of other jurisdictions in this area. Targeting them, as has been done in this amendment, is especially misguided. In fact, the UK is the outlier. International standards do not require that we adopt a public register—and, unsurprisingly, most other countries are not adopting public registers. Our competitors in the US, Hong Kong and elsewhere will not be doing so.
We should consider what we risk losing. Reinsurance provision from Bermuda covered over 20% of flooding losses from the 2015 winter. It supports around 70,000 jobs in the UK and has provided our economy with £10 billion of capital since 2008. Forcing the overseas territories to go beyond what is required will simply mean that business moves elsewhere. It will move to financial centres that are less well regulated than ours—centres that will not co-operate with UK authorities—which is surely the opposite of what noble Lords are trying to achieve with this amendment.
Most politicians and civil servants simply do not understand the rule of unintended consequences. They think in straight lines, but the real world works differently. There are a large number of urgent problems in the world to be solved, and the efforts of these NGOs to create the ability for self-selecting, worldwide tax collectors to examine registers is unwise. Have these charities really decided that they have not got anything better to do?
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