Financial Services: Crime

(asked on 14th December 2021) - View Source

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, with reference to her Department’s newsletter for parliamentarians circulated by email on 14 December 2021, how clean finance is defined; and what recent discussions she has held with Cabinet colleagues on the role of entities registered in the UK and its overseas territories and dependencies on global financial crime.


Answered by
Amanda Milling Portrait
Amanda Milling
Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
This question was answered on 5th January 2022

The UK's work to promote honest investment in low income and emerging economies will be characterised by high environmental, social and governance standards, including anti-bribery and high transparency standards. It will also support the UK's Clean Green Initiative, including to support energy transition in high emitting economies. All UK Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) will be aligned with the Paris agreement and a high proportion will contribute to the UK's International Climate Finance (ICF) commitment.

The Foreign Secretary's Department is in close contact with relevant other Government Departments on tackling global financial crime. The Government's public-private Economic Crime Plan, published in 2019, guides Government Departments' work to crack down on dirty money. One strand of the Plan is focused on improving transparency of ownership of corporate structures. Although the Overseas Territories (OTs) and the Crown Dependencies (CDs) already share confidential information on company beneficial ownership and tax information with UK law enforcement bodies under the Exchange of Notes Arrangements, they have also agreed to introduce publicly accessible registers of beneficial ownership. This is a major step forward and will further strengthen the valuable cooperation between the UK and the OTs and CDs.

More recently at the first US-hosted Summit for Democracy, the Prime Minister confirmed that the UK would focus attention on increasing transparency over the purchase of real estate by overseas legal entities to tackle the exploitation of UK corporate vehicles by criminals.

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