TOP UK ANTI-CORRUPTION OFFICIAL ‘PROMOTES’ TOURISM FOR OTs

By Michael Jarvis, Staff Writer

A senior British government advisor is suggesting a greater emphasis on tourism for the UK’s Overseas Territories, as she continues to scrutinise the financial services sector of the islands.

Pushing the tourism angle is Baroness Margaret Hodge, the British government’s chief anti-corruption advisor. With a job title of Anti-Corruption Champion, she was appointed in 2024 to lead the drive by the UK to have the OTs fully implement the hotly debated Public Access to Registers of Beneficial Ownership (PARBO) legislation.

In a recent interview with the UK’s influential Financial Times newspaper, she suggested that the OTs should place a greater emphasis on tourism as a means of diversifying their economies.

“I’m absolutely convinced that they have the potential for massively expanded tourism,” Baroness Hodge is reported as saying.

The tourism ‘promotion’ comes with a suggestion that the UK, as the administrative authority for the OTs, could also offer them support to further develop the sector. This is seen as linked to concerns about possible loss of earnings from financial services, as scrutiny and oversight are tightened even further.

Her comments follow a visit to the British Virgin Islands (BVI) last year in a bid to nudge that territory towards full implementation of the PARBO and to discuss related issues surrounding the operations of its financial services sector.

“I’m sure there is a way in which we can help them move from being a secrecy jurisdiction to being an open jurisdiction, and still having a financial services sector, if we could help them build a proper runway,” she is quoted as saying regarding the BVI.

Coming out of that visit, BVI Premier Natalio Wheatley had issued a statement saying: “ I reaffirmed our shared commitment to transparency, accountability, and combating illicit finance. We also highlighted the substantial reforms that have already been implemented in the Virgin Islands to strengthen our financial services framework.”

Tourism already accounts for a significant proportion of the revenues of the BVI, Cayman Islands and the UK’s other OTs in the area. The sector is already the top income generator for several and the second-tier economic pillar for others after financial services.

Many of the OTs, including the Cayman Islands, are global leaders in the lucrative financial services industry, which has significantly boosted their economies. However, pressure is being intensified on them for more openness and transparency in the sector, which prides itself on confidentiality.

The UK is insisting that the OTs fully implement the much-debated, long-pending PARBO legislation by the middle of this year or risk having it imposed by decree from London.

Baroness Margaret Hodge, a former Labour Party MP and ex-chair of the powerful Public Accounts Committee, now sits in the House of Lords and leads the current Labour Party government’s anti-corruption drive.