Draft Protection and Disclosure of Personal Information (Amendment) Regulations 2025

Harriett Baldwin Excerpts

Tuesday 24th June 2025 General Committees

[Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mrs Hobhouse.

We are scrutinising the draft Protection and Disclosure of Personal Information (Amendment) Regulations. That may sound dry, but I imagine that every colleague here has come across a case in which someone’s identity has been stolen because of the information about them that is available on the Companies House register. I am pleased that these regulations show this Government building on the good work of the previous Government. I therefore certainly will not object to their passage this afternoon, but I have a few questions for the Minister, in the interests of parliamentary scrutiny.

First, I could not see any mention in the explanatory memorandum of how long it will take for individuals to have their application actioned. Will the Minister shed some light on how quickly Companies House thinks that it will be able to process applications and, from approval, how long it will take to have the information removed from the register? Secondly, what are the Government doing to ensure that the application process at Companies House for removing details is straightforward? Thirdly, what is the administrative cost of these regulations to Companies House, and will those costs be recouped through any planned changes to the fees for registering a company?

Fourthly, how many individuals are expected to make use of these regulations? I note that an impact assessment has not been published, and given the limited financial implications, I can understand why. However, given that the intention of this statutory instrument is to remove information from the register that puts individuals at risk of theft and fraud, will the Minister please inform us how many people are thought to be the victims of crime as a result of the information that is currently publicly available in Companies House? How many cases are estimated to be prevented as a result of the statutory instrument that we are considering today?

Finally, given that the statutory instrument is intended to reduce the risk of theft and fraud by removing personal details from a public register, how does Companies House plan to publicly let people know about this change and its effective date? Has Companies House explored a more proactive approach, and has it thought about using artificial intelligence to remove this information automatically? I look forward to the Minister’s answers to those questions.