Company Directors: Identification

Debate between Lord Johnson of Lainston and Lord Mann

Wednesday 22nd May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mann]

To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they plan to introduce legislation to require company directors to provide identification of who they are and where they live.

[The Minister of State, Department for Business and Trade (Lord Johnson of Lainston) (Con)]

The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act will require that directors, people with significant control and the majority of those who file information with Companies House verify their identity. As part of that process, individuals will be required to provide their usual residential address. Today, we have laid regulations that establish the procedure for identity verification. The new requirements will be introduced in phases, beginning in spring next year.

[Lord Mann (Non-Afl)]

Before spring next year, 700 new Chinese fake companies will be registered every day. There are streets that have been targeted literally hundreds of times—dozens of times per property. People who have never dealt with this kind of thing before are being threatened with fake invoices. Credit referencing by the credit reference agencies has been impaired, as has the ability to sell houses. Can we have a simple, fast-track system so that householders who are being deluged by this horrendous onslaught of fake companies can remedy it with Companies House and cleanse their records immediately—within days—rather than in the six or eight months that it currently takes?

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for making those points. As I said, today we have introduced the statutory instrument that will enable us to clean up the register, but since 4 March we have already removed details that we thought were erroneous to the tune of 12,600, which is slightly more than we thought. If you are called, for instance, Jack Hanson and your name is being erroneously used from your address in Worcestershire, that is now being corrected by the registrar of Companies House. I have communicated with Companies House today and it is progressing extremely rapidly in solving this problem.

Since 1904, no such significant reform of Companies House and how people register their companies, their addresses and their verifications has been undertaken. The Government have done more than any other for over 120 years to make sure that we crack down on fraud and corporate crime and ensure that our companies register is indeed verifiable.