Companies, Limited Liability Partnerships and Partnerships (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Fox, and my noble friend Lord Adonis are very important and I hope that the Minister will be able to respond to them. I have a couple more questions to add that the Minister might wish to respond to when he sums up. To add to the comments made by my noble friend Lord Adonis about the consultation, will the Minister also confirm that, if the Law Society was the only body consulted, why were the CBI and the FSB and others not consulted and can he give adequate reasons for that?

Paragraph 7.22 of the Explanatory Memorandum refers to,

“permitted disclosures to credit reference agencies, credit institutions, financial institutions”,

and the current legislation giving “preferential treatment” to EEA agencies. I take the point made in the Explanatory Memorandum that there seems to be no particular reason for that, but will the Minister comment on whether that raises an issue about data protection adequacy? The Government are on record as saying that they want to ensure that movement of personal data between the UK and the EEA is uninterrupted. If a distinction is to be made in terms of access, does that not bear on adequacy? If so, will the Minister comment?

Secondly, paragraph 7.24 refers to political parties and expenditure. My understanding—I may be wrong and I look forward to the Minister’s comments—is that shareholder authorisation is required for donations to political parties, organisations and candidates by any companies established in the UK to ensure that their intentions in relation to those activities are transparent. I take the point that, if we are crashing out of the EU and becoming an independent body, there is a question about the relevance of payments made to political bodies operating in the EU, but that does not take the trick in relation to transparency. Surely, shareholders of UK companies should know whether their companies are making payments to political parties whether or not they are in the UK, particularly if they are operating in the EU. I would have thought that was of interest to shareholders.

I am not in any sense saying that there is anything wrong with what the Government are doing, but it would be helpful if the Minister could explain their rationale. If it is a transparency measure, it is not relevant to exclude payments made to political parties and organisations for referendums and other things, wherever they take place, simply because we are no longer in the EU. That information would be of value to shareholders. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I thank all three noble Lords for their contributions. I was not surprised that there was comment about the consultation. I repeat that, as we made clear in the Explanatory Memorandum, we were unable formally to consult on the provisions in the statutory instrument. But as my honourable friend Kelly Tolhurst said in the other place:

“On consultation, as I outlined, we have consulted, worked with and used the expertise of Companies House to ensure that we are making the best provisions to enable UK companies to implement the regulations that we require for them to be legal if we leave the European Union without a deal”.—[Official Report, Commons, Delegated Legislation Committee, 4/2/19; col. 8.]


We extensively engaged with Companies House—I think it is the right place, initially—on the changes that will impact EEA and UK businesses. In addition, impacted businesses—I will get on to numbers in due course—were notified of many of the changes in this instrument through the publication of the Structuring Your Business If There’s No Brexit Deal technical notice published in October, including filing changes, the route of access to BRIS and the revocation of the cross-border merger regime.

The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, seems to think that we did not consult the CBI, the FSB and other similar bodies. I shall give him an assurance that applies not just to this order but to a range of other orders and orders that will cover other departments. The CBI, the FSB and others—I could go through a whole list of them—are in the department on a weekly basis seeing the Secretary of State. The noble Lord will find that they are also in the department on a regular basis seeing officials and making officials aware of their concerns. I can give a cast-iron guarantee that any concerns they have will have been noted and we will have been made aware of them. As I said, this applies not just to this order but to a range of orders. We are the Business Department. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State has made it clear that his door is always open to representative organisations, just as I made clear last week when dealing with the intellectual property regulations how recently I saw, for example, the ABPI and the BIA. Irrespective of Brexit or whatever, it is important to us to have regulations. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, is an old hand and has been a Minister. He will have done that in the various departments in which he served, and he knows that those engagements go on with great regularity.

I shall now start working through the various points and questions that the noble Lord, Lord Fox, put. I shall start with his concerns about BRIS. It will continue to be open to scrutiny by all non-UK interests after exit. In addition, most EEA registries are open and can be accessed through the relevant websites in the EEA states, but that will have to be a matter for where the company is based. GOV.UK lists those websites for the EEA and the rest of the world. There are no changes in the information available.

The noble Lord then asked how many would be affected and whether Companies House has the capacity to deal with these matters. I can assure him that we are in constant touch with Companies House and it assures us that all is well. The impact will be small. For example, there are only five companies in scope of the change around intermediaries being a member of their holding companies and we found no companies in scope of the change to investment in companies’ distribution of profits. Going a bit further, in relation to the filing changes, we reckon there are about 1,900 companies in scope of the changes which will have three months to update their information. Again, I am assured that there are no problems in that area.

The third point made by the noble Lord was about technical changes in relation to cross holding. He asked what analysis we have done. We have made only two changes, which relate to intermediaries dealing in securities being a member of their parent holding company and how investment companies can distribute profits. The regulations will ensure that, after exit, only intermediaries that are members of or have access to a UK-regulated market will benefit from this exemption, and certain investment companies will no longer benefit from some relaxations on controls of their distribution of profits unless they are listed on the UK market.

The noble Lord’s final point was on cross-border mergers. I have a note on that which has been temporarily misplaced. I apologise to the noble Lord; I might have to write to him on that.

I turn to the concerns relating to political parties raised by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson. The regulations amend Part 14 of the Companies Act, which sets out the shareholder authorisation required for a company’s donations to political parties, organisations or candidates for electoral office. Under the current legislation, that reflects that the UK is part of an integrated European political system. In practice, that means that the same authorisations are required whether the political expenditure relates to the UK or other member states. After exit, these authorisations will apply only to donations and expenditure relating to UK-based political parties, organisations and candidates for electoral office. We are making these changes because, after exit, it will no longer be appropriate for the UK to set shareholder authorisations on donations outside the UK, as the UK will no longer form part of the wider EU political system.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

It was very helpful of the Minister to read out what is already in the Explanatory Memorandum. However, that was not my point; I was asking why the Government are making the change. If the regulations are there in the first place for reasons of transparency of political contributions, it does not really matter where they are.

[Lord Henley]

As I said, we have to get the statute book in the right place in the event of no deal, and therefore that small change had to be made. I do not think that I need go any further than that, unless I have misunderstood the noble Lord. I will look carefully at what he has said and will possibly write to him.

The final point that I wanted to deal with related to cross-border mergers. The noble Lord, Lord Fox, asked what happens to mergers that are in progress now. Mergers between UK and EEA companies may not be recognised by the destination member state after exit. We informed stakeholders of the change via the Structuring Your Business If There’s No Brexit Deal technical notice, which was published in October and to which I referred earlier. In that, we told them what they ought to do and what advice the impacted companies ought to take.

I believe that I have answered all the points. I will write to the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, if I have misunderstood him.