Company Directors: Identification
Lord Mann Excerpts(5 months, 2 weeks ago)
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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.
Post Office Governance and Horizon Compensation Schemes
Lord Mann Excerpts(8 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
I absolutely agree that the Staunton issue is a distraction that none of us needs; it is certainly not in the interests of the postmasters and postmistresses, who want to see compensation paid and convictions overturned. As I said, the Ministry of Justice is working expeditiously to sort the overturning of convictions. As I have also said before in this Chamber, there will be serious ramifications regarding a number of matters that will come from the inquiry when it is finally published. I imagine that the matter about which the noble Lord has deep knowledge, the presumption that the computer is always right, will be one such. I imagine that will be taken forward following the inquiry.
Lord Mann (Non-Afl)
My Lords, there is an additional group of sub-postmasters affected by this scandal: those who paid the money back because of the potential or actual reality of dishonour in the communities in which they lived and worked. A significant number did nothing about it and simply paid the money back. Under the coal miners’ compensation scheme in previous years, government ensured that every former coal miner was invited to claim back money they were owed. Will government ensure that every single postmaster and postmistress, or their family if they are no longer with us, has the opportunity to make the claim that they wrongly had to pay back money and felt obliged to do so to avoid what they saw as the shame and dishonour of being seen to be dishonest in their local community?
Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
I can assure the noble Lord that that is exactly the objective. The words that have been used are about restoring all postmasters and postmistresses to the position they were in before this sorry saga happened. The Government will make full compensation when all claims are received. We rely on the postmasters and postmistresses to come forward with their claims and cases. As we stand right now, the cases of 78% of the cohort of victims—more than 2,000—have been settled in full. There is a process to allow further claims to come through and an appeal process designed by the advisory committee to do that. The objective is to leave no stone unturned and to make sure that all compensation is paid as quickly and timeously as possible.