Strong words as Westminster threat persists

Wednesday 06 March 2019

As the threat of interference from the UK Government looks likely to resurface in the near future, Guernsey's senior politicians remain on the offensive, with offers of educating others on how we do things here.

The States of Guernsey and the island’s financial services industry both welcomed the late withdrawal of the Bill earlier this week, which, if amendments had been successful in Parliament, could have damaged the relationship between Guernsey and its fellow Crown Dependencies and the UK.

Guernsey Finance says, 'the constitutional position of the Crown Dependencies with the UK Government needs to be better understood by Parliamentarians following the UK Government’s decision to defer debate on its Financial Services (Implementation of Legislation) Bill' with its Chairman, Deputy Lyndon Trott, going further to say:

“We are pleased that the UK Government has made this sensible decision, but are fully aware that although our constitutional position is clear and has been respected, it obviously needs to be better understood by MPs, as does our exemplary record on tax transparency. 

“This delay now gives us an opportunity to explain exactly why I described this political move as ‘misguided and wrong’.

“It is misguided as our track record on tackling money laundering and financial crime have been rightly lauded by regulators, and our standards of regulation and private register of beneficial ownership works.

“It is wrong because the move was counter to the centuries-old relationship between the UK and the Crown Dependencies, and that is not helpful at all.

“We cannot allow anything to undermine our position of stability and security in self-government and in the delivery of financial services.”

His political colleague, Chief Minister Deputy Gavin St Pier, has been spending his time since the Bill was withdrawn debating the issue on social media. 

Our position is clear/consistent: we adopt emerging international standards; this isn’t one - it’s UK policy/emerging regional (EU) standard; we’re willing to lead development/implementation of an international standard given our 20 years’ experience of regulation in this area. https://t.co/1dBL5HUGo0

— Gavin St Pier (@gavinstpier) March 5, 2019

Deputy St Pier has been persistent with his message - he thinks Guernsey can teach the UK a few things about transparency and international standards.

He has also said that the UK Government had little choice but to pull the Bill earlier this week - and repeated that Guernsey is "committed to (the) same policy objectives; we want to use our regulatory experience to help lead development/implementation of international standard."

He is expecting to be back in Westminster/Whitehall before long to discuss this issue further but he says, "with some time/dialogue, I hope commonsense will prevail and a solution can be found respecting constitutional boundaries."

Pictured top: Deputy Lyndon Trott.