My Lords, first, I declare an interest as chairman of the Jersey Financial Services Commission and therefore the person responsible for the beneficial ownership register in Jersey. The question addressed in Amendment 14, of public access to registers of beneficial ownership, is not one for me, and I will not address the value or otherwise of making a register public—that is a political issue. The regulator in Jersey is independent, and I therefore have no role in those political decisions, but I am concerned about whether a register of beneficial ownership is accurate and therefore useful.
A number of speakers have referred to the public availability of the register of beneficial ownership here in the UK—essentially the Companies House register. As I pointed out in Committee, that register is not a useful one, since it is not verified and, because of that, the information in it can be seriously misleading. Indeed, because it is not verified, the people in developing countries and indeed civil society as a whole are on their own with respect to attempting to identify wrongdoing through the structure of the register. The register does not do the job. Regrettably, the UK is not a leader in providing verified, accurate information about beneficial ownership.
I want to address two issues with respect to the amendments. First, what I have just said will make clear why I regard Amendment 14 as seriously defective in not including the word “verified”. The characterisation of the information in proposed new subsection (4) is of a,
“publicly accessible register of beneficial ownership”,
with information “equivalent” to that under the Companies Act. The word “verified” does not appear. Therefore, the information can be inaccurate and misleading, with nobody required here to check it.
For the second point, I go back to the Minister’s amendment. Amendment 8, which has not been discussed very much up until now, says not only that “relevant” territories will provide information to the UK and we will have a report on how that information is provided but that the UK will provide “beneficial ownership information” to the relevant territories. I presume that includes my registry in Jersey. But I would like to know what information is going to be provided. If it is the Companies House information, we should really not bother; if it is some verified information, I will be very pleased to receive it. I would be grateful if the Minister, when she sums up, could tell us exactly what information is going to be provided by the UK, whether it is going
to be verified and, if so, by what authority. Only if we have accurate information will the objective of those supporting Amendment 14—the revelation of wrongdoing —be achieved. If information is not verified, that goal is not achieved. Amendment 14 is defective in that respect, and I would be grateful if the Minister, when summing up, would tell me exactly what sort of information will be provided by the UK to my registry in Jersey and by whom it will be verified.
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