The ‘Panama Papers’, documents leaked to the investigative journalists, show that the British Virgin Islands is the most popular location for banks and law firms to facilitate corrupt and criminal business. The UK is second only to Hong Kong as the largest host of illicit trade. One aspect of financial secrecy that is overlooked is the impact on people in the poorest countries. A Christian Aid and Financial Transparency Coalition review of the leaks from the Swiss branch of HSBC showed that poorer countries lose far more to tax evasion than rich ones. Christian Aid said, ‘The Panama Papers have exploded any remaining excuses the UK had for allowing secrecy in its tax havens. This leak exposes the extent to which UK tax havens and UK-based intermediaries are at the very heart of this rotten system.’ See also article 1 in this week’s World section.

Last October Channel 4 aired a documentary on ‘The Secret Life of Four Year Olds’; four is the age most crucial in a child’s development as they cross the threshold from family life into school. The tools of social interaction the children learn at this stage lay the foundations for relationships they will form across their adult lives. Dr Elizabeth Kilbey took part in the programme and recognises the need for the government to invest in better quality early learning. She is petitioning the government to ensure that there is an early years teacher in every nursery in England by 2020. Save the Children’s research has found that 1 in 5 children start primary school behind in basic language skills (1 in 3 of the poorest children). If a child starts school behind, they struggle to keep up and don’t achieve their potential. See also:

A British father was banned from taking his son to church after the boy's Muslim mother won a court order at Derby Crown Court preventing the boy from attending. The father, a non-practising Muslim, has close connections to his local Christian community. He is divorced from the boy's mother and was warned he could be denied access to the nine-year-old if he takes him to church or a Christian leisure centre. The father, born in England to Pakistani parents, has lodged an appeal with the High Court to have this order overturned. 'This judge is simply scared of being branded Islamophobic,' he said. 'I want my son to have a balanced life in which he is exposed to different faiths and can make up his own mind about religion.’ The boy sees his father every other weekend. The order also decrees that he must provide only Halal food.

Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC) will monitor the case of a British father held in Ethiopia, among other cases, amid concerns that the government has lessened its commitment to ending human rights abuses abroad. The FAC said that there was ‘plainly a perception’ that the government had recently downgraded its commitment to the promotion of human rights, following news last August that the Foreign Office would no longer use the longstanding designation ‘countries of concern’ to denote countries associated with human rights abuses. Later an FCO official said that human rights were ‘not one of our top priorities’. Now the FAC will monitor the situation of several individuals facing abuses abroad, including Andy Tsege, a British father of three who was kidnapped at an airport in 2014 and taken to Ethiopia; he is being held under sentence of death.