Bermuda is the most secretive UK offshore territory, according to an influential British think tank on tax.

Now the Tax Justice Network (TJN) has written to the Queen asking her to intervene to tackle “tax havens and secrecy jurisdictions” where she is Head of State.

But last night Finance Minister Bob Richards blasted the survey — and said it was riddled with inaccuracies and “total nonsense”.

A letter from Tax Justice Network chairman John Christensen to the Queen said she should “exert all possible influence” to tackle “harmful faultlines in the global economy”.

Bermuda comes top of the ten Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies reviewed in the biannual TJN financial secrecy index with a score of 80 — one point ahead of Gibraltar and two points ahead of the scandal-hit Turks & Caicos Islands.

But Mr Richards said: “I guess you just can’t believe everything you see — this article is sheer nonsense as far as Bermuda is concerned.”

Mr Richards singled out Bermuda being marked as “wholly uncompliant” on obtaining and updating beneficial ownership information.

But he said: “That is total nonsense. Bermuda has obtained beneficial ownership information on all international clients since soon after Second World War. We are one of the few places that does collect the information.”

The Island is also marked down on whether it requires company accounts to be publicly available.

But Mr Richards said private company accounts are not required to be made public in most jurisdictions.

He added: “I don’t know of any G8 country that publicly reveals accounts unless they are a public company on the stock exchange. It’s really hypocritical. It’s not required in the US or UK.”

Mr Richards also pointed out that the island had signed almost 40 tax information exchange agreements — including ones with almost all G8 countries and 75 percent of G20 countries.

He added Bermuda had also signed up to the OECD/Council of Europe multilateral tax agreement and the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FACTA).

Mr Richards said: “This report is riddled with deception or a political agenda — I don’t know which it is.”

TJN founder, accountant and economist Richard Murphy, said: “This unique index combines a secrecy score with a weighting to create a ranking of the countries that most actively and aggressively promote secrecy in global finance.”

Of 15 key secrecy indicators singled out by TJN, the island is listed as “wholly uncompliant” on nine of them.

Worldwide, Switzerland topped the league table of 82 countries.

Mr Murphy said: “This new edition of the financial secrecy index shows that the United Kingdom is the most important player in the financial secrecy world.

“While the UK itself ranks only in 21st place, it supports and partly controls a web of secrecy jurisdictions around the world from Cayman and Bermuda to Jersey and Gibraltar.

“Had we aggregated the entire British network it would easily top the index, far above Switzerland.”

Mr Murphy added: “Claims in September by British Prime Minister David Cameron that the UK havens are no longer a concern are baseless.”

And he said: “Our index, now expanded to cover 82 jurisdictions, also reveals how broader claims by the G20 and leading powers to have cracked down effectively on tax havens are bogus.

“While some welcome promises have been made and modest improvements seen, we remain light years away from seeing the transformative changes the world so urgently needs.”

Mr Cameron told a meeting of the powerful G8 group of nations in June that he would use Britain’s presidency of the forum to “rewrite the rules on tax and transparency for the benefit of countries right across the world.”

He was praised last week when he announced at the Open Government Partnership in London that companies registered in the UK would have to list their real owners in public filings.

But tax campaigners said that the move was a token gesture unless it also included trusts and foundations and countries linked to Britain.

Mr Christensen, who worked in the trust industry in Jersey and as an economic adviser to the Jersey government before quitting to become a tax transparency campaigner, said: “None of the Overseas Territories or Crown Dependencies operate a properly transparent public register of offshore companies, trusts and foundations.

“None obtain information on beneficial ownership and make this publicly available. Not one requires that all company financial accounts are made publicly available.”

Mr Christensen added that the use of offshore jurisdictions also hit countries who are members of the Commonwealth, which is headed by the Queen, and contributed to poverty in developing nations.

He said: “The victims of this secrecy include, among others, a billion Commonwealth citizens. A recent study of 33 African countries found that they lost over $11 trillion in capital flight since the 1970s, of which $640 billion came from 16 Commonwealth countries.

“These losses dwarf the external debts of just $190 billion for the 33 countries.”