Draft Companies (Disclosure of Address) (Amendment) Regulations 2018

John Whittingdale Excerpts

Thursday 29th March 2018 General Committees

[Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)]

I of course support the regulations. Indeed, I recall that there was a serious risk particularly from animal rights protesters who threatened serious violence to company directors engaged in entirely legal activities. It is right that those directors should have protection.

I have a couple of questions. First, one might think that the number of those on the register before the restrictions came in, whose addresses therefore cannot be suppressed, would be declining as time moves on. However the explanatory memorandum says that there have been

“an increasing number of serious and concerning complaints”.

Will the Minister say what “serious and concerning” means? Is that just fraud, or are an increasing number of threats of violence being made?

The Minister referred to identity fraud being a serious risk to all those with their name on the register. Presumably that applies to every single company director. Is there any restriction on any company director saying he is worried that his identity may be stolen and who therefore wishes to have his name removed from the register? If he goes behind a service address, can we be sure that it is not one of these boxes somewhere in the backstreets of Victoria, where 200 companies can be registered behind small letterboxes and be almost impossible to trace? Can we be sure that the regulations will not allow directors who are perhaps dodgy to conceal their addresses and give their customers less opportunity to identify and find them to take action against them?