– Direct rule option –
The leak of 11.5 million confidential documents from Mossack Fonseca, which specialises in creating offshore shell companies, shone the spotlight on tax havens as well as wealthy individuals.
Among them is the British Virgin Islands, a tiny British overseas territory in the Caribbean which is among the top five investors in Russia and China, according to a 2014 report by the OECD.
Cameron said Britain had made “huge progress” in pressing its overseas territories and crown dependencies to share tax information and make it harder for companies and individuals to hide their financial affairs.
But it has yet to persuade them to sign up to the company ownership law, and Corbyn said the government should consider imposing direct rule to resolve the issue.
“If they’ve become a place for systemic evasion and short-changing of the public in this country, then something has to be done about it,” he told the BBC.
Robert Palmer, campaigner at advocacy group Global Witness, echoed Corbyn’s call, saying: “We have to clean up our own back yard first.”
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