My Lords, this brings me to another of my special interests, and one that I have been pursuing for some time. Amendments 14 and 15 concern the Isle of Man, the Channel Islands—namely Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney and Sark—and the dependent territories. I will not mention all of the dependent territories, because those such as the Falklands are not quite so relevant in this context, but they include Gibraltar, the Cayman Islands, Turks and Caicos, the British Virgin Islands and Bermuda. I mention those particularly and not by chance, because many are well known as tax havens and the offshore basis for companies whose principal trade and activities are elsewhere, and not on those islands.
My first question is this. In an earlier intervention, the Minister indicated that there has been consultation with the islands’ authorities, and that they had approved the provisions in the Bill. But with whom were these consultations? Were they with just the governor, or were they with the directly elected councils and parliaments of the various overseas territories and Crown dependencies? It is important that the elected representatives were involved in these discussions. Secondly, what response has there been? I understand from what the Minister said that the islands have all agreed, but was that agreement conditional in any way?
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As I said in respect of the earlier amendment, the Bill deals among other things with global contract law. The very helpful background briefing that the Ministry of Justice has produced states that
“the Crown Dependencies may be authorised to conclude their own international agreements by a process of entrustment.”
It would be helpful if the Minister could explain this. The briefing goes on to say that
“the UK retains responsibility at international law for all of their international obligations.”
It is therefore the British Government who have responsibility for ensuring that all these territories maintain their international obligations. How is this done? What monitoring takes place? Who is responsible for it? The Government of the Turks and Caicos Islands have had to be suspended not once but twice. Interestingly, that was by a Conservative Government. I was the opposition spokesman on foreign affairs the first time that the constitution was suspended. The then Minister, Tim Eggar, came to me and asked whether the Opposition would agree. Of course, we did so because of some of the things that were going on in the islands. There has to be very careful monitoring of this.
I turn finally to the choice of court of arbitration. If there is a choice of court of arbitration, could some people—there are the tax dodgers, let us face it; we have seen a lot of it recently—choose the jurisdiction in which their matters were dealt with and the judgments made? I imagine that some of them would love to go to Jersey or to Cayman—just to name a couple arbitrarily.
Some matters here need careful scrutiny. I hope we will get a clear response and undertaking from the Minister that they are being kept under careful and constant review. I beg to move.