Draft Register of Overseas Entities (Protection and Trusts) and Limited Liability Partnerships (Application of Company Law) (Amendment) Regulations 2026

Gareth Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2026 General Committees

[Gareth Davies (Grantham and Bourne) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve on the Committee and to see you in the Chair, Mr Efford, and of course to see the Minister. I refer Committee members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, particularly my prior career in asset management, which involves some of the structures we are debating today.

I thank the Minister for providing such a thorough and clear explanation of the Government’s intentions with the regulations before us today. Whenever we debate regulations, we should always remember that it is essentially a balancing act—in this case between privacy in business and ensuring fairness, governance and transparency. Those aims are not mutually exclusive. It is our job to ensure that we get that balance right as often as we can.

I have a couple of questions for the Minister. First, he said that the regulations remove the requirement to provide trust names for applications looking to access unpublished information through the trust disclosure service. Paragraph 5.3 of the explanatory memorandum states that that is because many applicants have been found

“unlikely to have this information”,

resulting in their request being rejected. The Minister said that just moments ago. Can he therefore tell us how many applications have been made to the trust disclosure service since it was launched in August 2025? How many were rejected for that reason? That would help us understand the basis for the regulatory changes today.

By lowering the bar for applications and applicants, Withers law firm has warned that the change could open the door to speculative fishing expeditions. The Minister will be aware of that challenge from Withers, so I wonder what his response is to that specific challenge and concern.

Secondly, the regulations seek to introduce a requirement in most cases for the provision of a replacement address for individuals who submit a suppression application to remove their home address from the register of overseas entities. Can the Minister clarify whether those who have already successfully secured suppression of their home address from the public register will now be required to provide a replacement address, and whether it will be retrospective? If so, will they be informed, how will they be informed and what is the timeline for that information to be provided?

Finally, on the measures relating to LLPs, which the Minister discussed at the end of his remarks, page 3 of the explanatory memorandum states that these regulations are required because legislation was brought forward and passed in error by the Government last year, before adequate

“Companies House systems had been developed”.

I understand that the Government intend to bring the service requirement back, so when does the Minister expect Companies House to have the systems up and running so that they can process what they originally intended to last year? When will the reinstating regulations be laid before the House?