Interview
As far as the City is concerned, there’s more than a negligible chance that Britain will be a third country from March next year, so City institutions are preparing for that – and they’ll do whatever they need to do to continue providing the service they want to post-Brexit. They will take longer-term decisions about location when everything settles down and the relationship between Britain and the EU is clear. I doubt it will finish up as a straight, third-country relationship – such as Peru or South Africa – but on the other hand, it will clearly be very different from the current arrangement. What’s your view on registers of beneficial ownership and the different treatment of the overseas territories and the Crown Dependencies? When you’re dealing with public policy issues, logic goes out of the window, or at least takes second place. The Channel Islands know they have to be squeaky clean on everything, and squeakier than everybody else because they’re offshore finance centres – even if there are onshore jurisdictions with laxer regulations. Jersey and Guernsey have to be prepared to deal with issues that are thrown at them, where they can legitimately point to any number of international studies and say their arrangements on money laundering and the sharing of information are among the best in the world – and in many cases better than Britain and America. However, that doesn’t alter the fact that they’re going to be a target – people do tend to lump together the overseas territories and the Crown Dependencies, yet they’re very different in the nature of their business, and the nature of their relationship with the British government. When David Cameron was Prime Minister, he said the Crown Dependencies could no longer be considered as tax havens – and I think that applied when this issue went through Parliament recently. The politicians who led it understood this point after representations, and Jersey did a good job of explaining that there’s a difference. It doesn’t alter the fact that there may be another go at Jersey and Guernsey. And people currently using the islands may take the view that this is all going to change – therefore they might want to look somewhere else. So far, the islands have handled it very well and I know they’ve got a favourable outcome for the time being. You mention the Channel Islands being lumped in with the overseas territories, indeed all other offshore jurisdictions, especially since the Panama and Paradise Papers. What can be done about that? Geoff [Cook, CEO of Jersey Finance] does a very good job. I’ve attended meetings in the City where either Jersey
26 july/august 2018
FACT FILE Name: Mark Boleat Age: 59 Position: Chairman of Link Scheme, Chairman of the Housing and Finance Institute Married to: Elizabeth Children: Jonathan Hobbies: Golf, cycling, family history and watching rugby Interesting fact: Established and ran a trade association for ‘gangmasters’ – the Association of Labour Providers Website: www.boleat.com was attacked and he’s responded, or where Jersey wasn’t openly attacked but he’s contributed usefully to the discussion. And I did the same when I was political leader of the City. The thing is, you can’t simply put people in the black and white categories of those who want to listen and those who don’t, because there are people in the middle. You can shift people from being a vocal critic to being a silent critic, and you can push some people from being neutral to understanding the Channel Island position. The islands have done very well in achieving that. In light of Brexit, talk of the islands becoming independent has reared its head again. What’s your view on that? I think it would be a disaster for the islands and I’ve said that publicly many times. The reality is that there is no rich independent island in the world. Full stop. They just don’t exist. Every rich, small territory of under half-a-million people is ‘semidetached’ – that’s Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, Bermuda, Gibraltar and so on. The richest independent small island
is the Bahamas, which is roughly half as wealthy as Bermuda. When businesses and individuals deal with the Channel Islands, they do so in the knowledge that they’re dealing with British territories and that ultimately nothing disastrous can happen. Jersey isn’t going to be taken over by a bunch of radicals that are going to nationalise the banks and impose military rule. Independence sounds great – we can be masters of our own destiny and not subject to anything the UK does. Fine, you can have that – as long as you’re happy not having access to UK universities or hospitals. It’s a nice thought to have total control, but we can’t have that if we want to interact with other people. Look at it from the perspective of financial regulation, which the islands have managed very well – this isn’t done in isolation, it’s done in accordance with international norms and close working relationships with other regulators. And if they didn’t do that, they would have a tiny finance industry. Looking forward, is there anything you think the islands should be doing that they aren’t – or is there something they should be doing better? We often hear talk of the ‘next big thing’, but is that just an elusive Holy Grail? I’m very sceptical of governments that think they can bring in the next big thing. Jersey has tried lots of things, like gambling, for instance, or the aircraft registry, which hasn’t really worked. For those who say that the Channel Islands are too dependent on finance, there’s no
The Channel Islands know they have to be squeaky clean on everything, and squeakier than everybody else because they’re offshore finance centres
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