Company Directors: Identification
Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts(6 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for his question and his extremely collaborative input in the ECCT Bill over the past year or so. The statutory instrument that we are introducing today looks at the identity verification checks that ACSPs will have to undertake. As he will know, ACSPs are well covered by their various industry bodies, and, as I said, we have done an enormous amount to ensure that information on the register in Companies House is now true and verifiable. He will also know that we have gone even further to ensure that people with significant control are caught by the new regulations.
Lord Clarke of Nottingham (Con)
My Lords, the previous Parliament passed an amendment to extend to the overseas territories of the United Kingdom the legal obligation to have a company register show beneficial ownership and to make that register open to public inspection. Can the Minister let the House know what progress there has been in making the British Overseas Territories, such as the Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands, comply with our obligations and open a register of beneficial ownership?
Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)
I thank my noble friend for that point. We are making very good progress and we collaborate with all such jurisdictions. There is more work to be done. A consultation on how much identity can be published has concluded recently, and we will report back to the House when we have our own findings that are appropriate for these measures.
Brexit: Benefits to Economy and Society
Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts(8 months, 3 weeks ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
I thank the noble Lord. I can give some detail on that. If you take out inflation and things such as precious metals, our exports today are in real terms 1% ahead of 2018. After a very difficult five years of world contraction, our exports are, in effect, £870 billion. Interestingly, our economy is 80% services and 20% goods, but our exports are 50/50 because our goods are good and go around the world. The direction of travel is that our exports will be two-thirds services and one-third goods. Our services have gone up by 15% and our manufactured goods have gone down by 12%. Therefore, our services are more than making up for goods. The killer stat is that if you look at our exports, our manufactured goods to the EU are down 13% and to non-EU down 12%, so there is no difference. Brexit is a red herring.
Lord Clarke of Nottingham (Con)
My Lords, has my noble friend seen the estimate by Goldman Sachs that British GDP is 5% smaller than it would have been had we not left the single market? The OBR’s figure is 4%. Are the Government contemplating resuming discussions with the European Union to improve our trading relationships with that huge and prosperous free trade area, perhaps in order to get nearer to the arrangements that Norway has with the EU on trading matters, Norway not being a member of the EU either? Our present position is continuing to cost us a considerable amount of economic activity in this country.
Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
As I said, in the last five years we have obviously had Brexit, but also there has been Covid, massive disruption to the supply chain in China and massive contraction in manufacturing around the world. We have Ukraine, energy prices; it has been an extraordinarily difficult period of contraction in all global economies, whether in Germany, France, Australia or the USA. Our economy is now set fair to grow fast. Like my colleague Minister Hands in the other place, I will be working very closely with individual EU countries. We are signing co-operation deals on financial services, we have resumed participation in the North Seas Energy Cooperation, the UK has rejoined Horizon Europe and Copernicus, and we have agreed to extend zero-tariff trade on electric vehicles. There is a whole list of co-operations with the EU that we continue to push through.