The House of Lords has voted down an attempt to force Bermuda and other UK Overseas Territories to adopt a public register of company ownership.

The proposal came last week in the form of an amendment to the UK’s Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill, and was rejected by Britain’s upper chamber by 211 votes to 201.

Amendment 73, moved by Baroness Stern, named Bermuda and five other territories — Anguilla, the Cayman Islands, Montserrat, Turks & Caicos Islands and the British Virgin Islands.

The proposal said that Britain should order any of these territories that failed to establish a publicly accessible beneficial ownership register by January 1, 2020 to do so through an Order in Council — effectively a decree from the UK.

The Lords voted down a similar proposal in April last year, presented as an amendment to the Criminal Finances Bill.

Beneficial owners include those who have the benefits of ownership of a company, even when the title of the company is listed under another name.

Bermuda has had a central beneficial ownership registry for about 70 years and has argued that making it public when few other countries do would be damaging to the island’s international business sector.

Under tax transparency agreements, Bermuda is obliged to share such information with the UK and many other countries.

The UK will monitor the effectiveness of those arrangements through the end of this year and file a report in Britain’s Parliament by July 2019.

Lord Ahmad, Britain’s Minister for the Commonwealth and United Nations, who is responsible for the Overseas Territories, said Bermuda and the other islands mentioned had made good progress with transparency and warned that forcing them to go public with ownership registers could be counterproductive.

“Imposing public registers of company beneficial ownership on the Overseas Territories against their wishes and not including their legislative bodies and elected representatives is something that the territories will not take lightly,” Lord Ahmad said.

“It will set back progress we have already made and have a negative impact on the ability of UK law enforcement and tax authorities to access beneficial ownership information held across the territories.”

And he asked the Lords if they were talking about Wales and Scotland, rather than Anguilla and Bermuda, whether they “would be so keen to disenfranchise their elected representatives”.