The Chief Minister and his Channel Island counterparts have been in London meeting UK politicians over the plans to create a public register of beneficial ownership.

Howard Quayle says that the island is aiming to have an open register by the end of 2023.

Mr Quayle and Guernsey’s political leader, Deputy Gavin St Pier and Jersey’s Minister for External Relations, Senator Ian Gorst, met with a number of politicians from across the spectrum of British politics including leader of the SNP in Westminster Ian Blackford MP.

They also met with representatives of Labour, the Conservatives and the DUP.

The change in policy towards an open register, in order to comply with the fifth EU Anti-Money Laundering Directive, due in 2022, was the focus of a question during Prime Minister’s Questions where outgoing PM Theresa May welcomed the announcement.

Mrs May (pictured) said: ’I’m very pleased to see the announcement today from Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man and indeed we continue to work with the Overseas Territories to ensure that they do follow those standards and open those books, so that people can see who is actually owning those companies.’

statement

Following the meetings in London, Mr Quayle, Mr St Pier and Mr Gorst released a joint statement:’Our joint commitment was broadly welcomed by the parliamentarians we met with today and generally accepted as a proactive step to ensure that the Crown Dependencies remain among global leaders in matters of transparency and financial services regulation.

’We had frank and constructive discussions about the implementation of the commitment and the indicative timetable we have outlined.

’We will continue to engage with a broad range of stakeholders, including local industry, UK parliamentarians, and European partners.’

However, there was one meeting that was arguably most important during the trip, as the three leaders met with Labour MP Dame Margaret Hodge and Tory MP Andrew Mitchell.

Dame Margaret tweeted after the meeting: ’I still have concerns over how they will implement truly open public registers and their time frame.

’But this is a big step in the right direction for greater transparency.’

While Mr Mitchell is quoted in the Financial Times as saying that ’the action plan contains a number of get out clauses’ and had an ’unacceptably long’ timetable.

He added: ’That will not do. We need to see a clear and unambiguous commitment to public registers.’

The pair are believed to want the registers open by 2020.

However, Mr Quayle said that the Crown Dependencies wanted a system that works properly.

The United Kingdom’s public register has come under numerous attacks for having, among others, Donald Duck listed as a director of several companies.

â?¢To read more about this issue, see this week’s Manx Independent.