Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, with reference to the communique form the Anti-Corruption Summit held in London in May 2016, whether he asked the Financial Action Task Force, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes to develop initial proposals on ways to improve the implementation of the international standards on transparency, including on the availability of beneficial ownership information and its international exchange.

This Government is committed to being the most transparent in the world. The UK launched an initiative with the EU G5 for the systematic exchange of beneficial ownership information last year. Since then more than 50 jurisdictions have indicated their support for this initiative. The OECD, Global Forum and FATF have been asked by the G20 to examine how improvements can be made to improve international access to beneficial ownership information as part of the Government’s wider transparency agenda.