Saudi Arabia and other Arab regimes should do more to ensure their ruling families are not secretly funding ISIL, a British parliamentary committee has recommended.

Saudi Arabia and other Arab regimes should do more to ensure their ruling families are not secretly funding ISIL, a British parliamentary committee has recommended.

The Guardian quoted a report on the state of ISIL finances in which the foreign affairs select committee says the terrorist organization based in Iraq and Syria is increasingly desperate for more money, and is resorting to “gangsterism and protection rackets” disguised as taxation.

The British newspaper added that It also suggests ISIL funding has declined because of the collapse in the oil price, airstrikes on its key financial experts and a squeeze on its ability to operate inside the formal and informal Iraqi banking system.

But in its most controversial passage, the committee points out that the interior ministry of Saudi Arabia only passed laws as late as March 2015 to make it illegal for Saudi residents to provide support to ISIL.

By contrast, the committee points out that the UK designated Isis as a distinct terrorist organization in June 2014.

The paper noted that the committee quoted the Foreign Office minister Tobias Ellwood admitting it was hard to know how the royal families operated in some of the Gulf states.

Discussing the likelihood of donations by members of royal families, he told the committee: “It is very opaque. When somebody who is close to the top of a royal family is a very rich individual donor … that is very likely to happen.”