LONDON, England (CMC) — United Kingdom legislators yesterday backed the amendment to the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill that the 15-member regional integration grouping, Caricom, said could negatively impact the economies of some of its associate members.

Foreign Office Minister Sir Alan Duncan said the Theresa May Government had not wanted to damage the overseas territories’ autonomy by legislating directly.

“We’ve listened to the strength of feeling in the House on this issue and accept that it is without a doubt the majority view of this House that the overseas territories should have public registers,” he added.

Sir Alan said that the Government would “respect the will of the House” and not vote against the amendment put forward by Conservative MP Andrew Mitchell and Labour’s Dame Margaret Hodge.

The amendment would require the UK Government to take steps to provide that British Overseas Territories establish publicly accessible registers of the beneficial ownership of companies. It does not include Britain’s crown dependencies, Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man.

In a statement prior to the debate, the 15-member Caribbean Community (Caricom) grouping, said while it recognises that global security and financial crime are increasingly intertwined it supports the work of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and its regional bodies in developing international Anti-Money Laundering/Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) standards to combat money laundering and terrorist financing.

Caricom said the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill will have an effect on the financial services of the overseas countries and territories including Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands and Turks & Caicos Islands.

The sub-regional organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) had also put forward a similar argument and earlier yesterday, the British Virgin Islands (BVI) Government appealed to United Kingdom legislators to re-think their positions regarding the new legislation that could seriously affect the future socio-economic development of the British Overseas Territory (BOT).

BVI chief diplomat Benito Wheatley said the United Kingdom’s current and future relationship with the Overseas Territories (OTs) “should be based on mutual respect and prosperity, particularly as Britain prepares to leave the European Union (EU) in March 2019.

“The UK Parliament will decide on whether it wants the Overseas Territories as economic partners or financial liabilities to the UK Treasury going forward. Choosing to arbitrarily damage the economies of the OT Financial Centres that are well run jurisdictions would be a mistake. The territories should be seen as economic assets to the UK that will help to keep Britain competitive after Brexit,” Wheatley said.

But political observers said that the British Government had little choice but to agree to the amendment aimed at increasing transparency in offshore tax havens.

They said that the Government faced a possible defeat in the Parliament with no Conservative majority in the House of Commons and the fact that 19 Government legislators had backed the amendment on company ownership registers.

The Government has also agreed to new laws to sanction people suspected of gross human rights abuses.

Dame Margaret said the move was “a remarkable, important and really world-changing measure in relation to the fight against corruption”, while Mitchell said, “the overseas territories share our freedom. “They travel under our flag, and they should also share our values,” he added.