Westminster’s cross-party group for the Cayman Islands has restarted after a gap of a year, the government’s London office confirmed on Wednesday.
The All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG), designed to foster good relations between the UK Parliament and Cayman, was dissolved when a UK general election was called last May, but did not restart when the new Labour government took office in July.
New Cayman Islands Premier André Ebanks, said, “I am very pleased to see that the All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Cayman Islands has been re-established in the new UK Parliament.”
Ebanks, a former head of the London office, said, “It will provide a valuable forum to bring together parliamentarians from different political parties to discuss issues of shared interest, and an important platform to inform policymakers about developments in the Cayman Islands.”
The reconstituted committee will be headed by Sarah Champion, a veteran Labour MP who represents the Rotherham constituency in the north of England.
“The Cayman Islands has a unique and valued relationship with the UK built on mutual respect and a shared British heritage,” Champion said.
“I look forward to working with colleagues across Parliament to deepen our understanding of the issues that matter most to Caymanians and to support our special and productive relationship.”
The government’s London office said the announcement marked “the culmination of months of strategic engagement by the Cayman Islands Government Office in the UK with newly-elected Members of Parliament”.
It added the APPG said the group would be a “cross-party platform for parliamentarians with an interest in the Cayman Islands, its people, economy, and shared democratic values”.
The London office said, “It will also play an important role in strengthening the longstanding relationship between the Cayman Islands and the United Kingdom.”
Groups for other UK overseas territories, such as Gibraltar, the Falkland Islands and Chagos, as well as the Channel Islands, which are Crown Dependencies, had restarted and were on the Westminster register by the end of March.
Separate Crown Dependencies and British Overseas Territories groups have also been reconstituted.
The London office said Cayman was the first Caribbean overseas territory and the third of the UK’s 12 inhabited overseas territories to re-establish an APPG.
The announcement came after the Compass reported last month that the group had not restarted after a landslide Labour victory unseated the long-standing Conservative government.
The London office said that a series of meetings, including one between between the Cayman Islands’ then Premier Juliana O’Connor-Connolly and UK parliamentarians, including the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, the Shadow Foreign Secretary and the Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs spokesman, had also taken place in the run-up to the group’s reboot.
Tasha Ebanks Garcia, head of Cayman’s London office, said, “The re-establishment of the APPG is an important and exciting milestone and we look forward to working collaboratively with the new APPG as we continue to foster constructive relations between UK Parliamentarians and the Cayman Islands.
“I am truly humbled by the interest shown in the Cayman Islands. On behalf of the Government and people of the Cayman Islands, I wish to express sincere gratitude to each member of our newly formed APPG.”