TWO senior UK parliamentarians have urged finance centres like Jersey to do more to defend themselves from attacks that they are nothing more than havens for tax cheats.

Former Tory chief whip Lord Blencathra and the MP for the Cities of London and Westminster, Mark Field, both argued that international finance centres needed to be more forceful in presenting arguments as to why they act as a force for good for the UK and European economies.

They said that the offshore centres now needed to be prepared to publicly fight the misconception that they merely existed to allow the wealthy to avoid their tax obligations at home.