Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill

Lord Callanan Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 14th March 2022 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Callanan]

1: Clause 4, page 2, line 19, at end insert “and, where applicable, the statement and information mentioned in subsection (2A)”
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment requires an application for registration as an overseas entity to include the information and statement required by subsection (2A) (information about trusts).

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Lord Callanan) (Con)]

My Lords, we start with a group of government amendments to collect more information about trusts and overseas trust-like arrangements. These amendments address both the concerns raised in the other place by noble Lords on Second Reading in this House. I pay particular tribute to my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier, the noble Lords, Lord Vaux of Harrowden, Lord Faulks and Lord Fox, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, all of whom drew attention to this important issue in their speeches.

As highlighted by those noble Lords, there is a particular difficulty with the availability of information about some trusts, including so-called discretionary trusts. This is where the assets are held in trusts to be used at the discretion of the trustees, because the beneficiaries can change. So we need to have some further information captured on trusts in this register, over and above what Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs already captures on the TRS—trust registration service.

Both Houses can rest assured that this issue was not overlooked by the Government. Officials had already been working on amendments to the Bill, but it was important to table amendments only when we were sure that proposals were workable in practice and that the drafting fully achieved the policy intent. I have had a number of discussions with noble Lords, so I think everybody appreciates this is a complicated technical area.

These amendments set out that where a trustee of a trust—or of an equivalent arrangement that under the law of a country or territory outside the United Kingdom is of a similar character to a trust—is a registrable beneficial owner, the overseas entity must give them an information notice. That notice requires the recipient to provide information about the settlor, beneficiaries and other persons who have rights to appoint or remove trustees or rights over the exercise of the trustees’ functions—sometimes referred to as protectors.

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[Lord Cormack (Con)]

I just make a very brief point to my noble friend. Because of migraine, I was unable to take part in Second Reading; I had to go home. I was going to make the point then that, if ever a Bill needed continuous post-legislative scrutiny, it is this one. Can my noble friend give an assurance that he will try to set up a special sort of post-legislative scrutiny to look continuously at how the Bill comes into force, what effect it has and where it fails?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

First, I thank noble Lords for their comments. I do not disagree with the sentiments of a lot of what has been said. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, that I absolutely appreciate the points that he has made. This is a very complicated and technical area of law, and I assure noble Lords that we have gone into it in great detail. This morning, I met my noble friend Lord Wolfson, who is a trusts expert, to go through the provisions, and I have examined them closely with Treasury and BEIS officials.

We are doing this to close potential loopholes in trusts; the Government have no other agenda here. This is a difficult area. HMRC has recently established a trusts register for UK trusts, and we want to try to make sure that the same visibility exists for overseas trusts. If an overseas trust buys UK property, its interest is clearly covered and will need to be declared, but there is a potential problem with an overseas entity holding a property, and then that being owned by a trust. It is an attempt to control and close those particular loopholes in this complicated area of law, and what I totally accept are complicated amendments have been worked on at great pace to try to do that. So there is no difficulty and no difference between any of us in what we are trying to achieve with this legislation.

I also happily concede that we may not have got every last dot and comma absolutely accurate and right. One point that my noble friend made to me this morning was that we are if not the first then possibly the second in the world to attempt to do something like this, and it will be an iterative process—it is fair to accept that. A lot of international lawyers and others will be carefully studying this legislation and trying to find ways around it. I can certainly say that, if there are loopholes and if something is presented that we think needs closing, we will absolutely do that, if necessary, in the next Bill—although the full extent of the legislation may not be visible at that stage. But we are committed to doing this, providing that information and giving law enforcement the opportunity carefully to scrutinise many of these arrangements.

In particular, I give the assurance that the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, and possibly my noble friend Lord Cormack, were looking for: the further economic crime Bill, which the Government intend to introduce in the next Session, will be broad. We will, of course, carefully examine and consider any amendments proposed in either House that serve to strengthen our framework for tackling economic crime. I know from my long experience in this House that noble Lords will not be shy in coming forward where they can see improvements that could be made to legislation and where they identify any potential loopholes. There are some fine minds in this House and I am sure that they, along with some of our excellent officials, will turn their attention to doing just that.

I agree with the sentiments; there is no difference between us and what we want to try to achieve, and I am grateful in particular to the opposition parties’ Front Benches, with whom I have had extensive discussions, for their forbearance. I will happily concede that this is not necessarily emergency legislation; we have been trying to introduce this register for a while but until now it has not managed to get the prominence in the public sphere and sufficient priority in the legislative programme to allow it to be brought before this House. As the Minister responsible for it in the House and in my department, I am grateful that we have now managed finally to bring it forward. It will be a useful tool of transparency and of benefit to, first of all, the public, and then to the law enforcement community in attempting to target the small minority of overseas entities that hold property in the UK. Something like 59,000 overseas entities hold property, and the vast majority do so for perfectly legitimate, lawful and legal reasons—but within that there is, of course, a tiny minority we all want to target, and this is our transparency contribution to an attempt to do just that.

I move on to look at the amendments in detail. I thank the noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Fox, and my noble friend Lord Agnew, for their Amendment 17. I am grateful for the meeting that I was able to have with my noble friend Lord Agnew earlier to talk about this issue. As I said, I can see the good intent behind this amendment, but it would be ineffective as tabled—and I shall explain why.

It does not fit within the legislative scheme of the Bill. For example, the Bill provides five conditions for “beneficial owner” in Part 2 of Schedule 2. These five conditions, in general terms, relate to shareholdings, rights or control over legal entities, or other arrangements. Amendment 17 seeks to apply the term “beneficial owner” in the context of a qualifying estate—that is, the land itself—which would not work. Further, the amendment fails to empower overseas entities to obtain the information required which, for the most part, remains undefined.

To be clear, this Bill was designed specifically to capture the beneficial owners of overseas entities. This is because, if the land is held in the name of an overseas entity registered in a jurisdiction with poor levels of corporate transparency, law enforcement agencies here may struggle when investigating the affairs of someone of interest. If they cannot obtain information about the entity itself, they will almost certainly never be able to identify any ultimate economic beneficiary of the land. This register aims to ensure that investigators can find out about the overseas entity to further their investigations. There may be a wider policy debate to be had about capturing ultimate economic beneficiaries of land, but this register, focused as it is on overseas entities and not on land held by individuals or UK companies, would not be the appropriate vehicle.

The government amendments provide robust provisions to ensure that overseas entities provide information about beneficiaries, settlors and other persons who can appoint or remove trustees or have rights over the exercise of trustees’ functions, which some may refer to as protectors, where there is a trustee who is a registrable beneficial owner. These amendments go one step further and also apply where there are overseas arrangements with similar characteristics to a trust and those arrangements’ trustee equivalents are registrable beneficial owners.

The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, suggested that nominees will be used to hide true beneficial owners of property. I point out to the noble Lord that there are regulation-making powers within the Bill allowing for amendments to prevent such abuse, if that is needed. I therefore hope that, with the information that I have provided, the noble Lord and his supporters will feel able not to press Amendment 17.

I turn to Amendments 1A, 22A and 29A, which seek to require a director who is acting as a nominee to provide a statement that they are satisfied by the legitimacy of the financial affairs of the beneficial owner and that the nominee will cease to act if information validating legitimacy is not forthcoming on a timely basis. I appreciate the intent of my noble friend Lord Agnew in tabling these amendments, and I understand that his intention is to further verify the legitimacy of the beneficial owner, to create an obligation for a nominee director to have regard to the financial affairs of those they are acting for, and to validate this legitimacy on a timely basis.

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[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, perhaps I could just add to what the noble Lord has just said. The Minister mentioned the regulations which are possible post the passing of the Bill. Will he undertake to review some of the points made during the passage of this Bill and consider whether or not regulations might be needed to fill certain gaps?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

Indeed, I am happy to provide the reassurances that both noble Lords have asked for—in the case of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, in terms of the regulations, and in the case of the noble Lord, Lord Empey, that we see this as an iterative process. As I mentioned, this is fairly unique legislation in the world; we are aware of only one other country, possibly, that has attempted to do something similar. When we introduced the provisions on PSCs—persons with significant control—in relation to UK companies, we had to make some iterative changes to that, as it became evident over time that aspects were not working as effectively as we had hoped. I hope that we have thought of everything on this one, and I hope that we have all of the details correct, but a lot of it—some of it anyway—has been drafted in haste and it is possible that we will have missed one or two complicated international devices. But, the noble Lord can be assured that we will keep it regularly under review, and if there are—I hesitate to use the word “loopholes”, although it is probably appropriate—devices that clever lawyers, of which there are several in this House, find to get around the provisions, we will not hesitate to close them if we need to.

Amendment 1 withdrawn.

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[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, this is yet another group of amendments with contributions from across the Chamber that signifies some of the problems we have in fast-tracking this part of the Bill. Many noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Sikka, have put forward sensible amendments that would improve the Bill, but we cannot accept them because we are in a rush to get it through. They are common-sense amendments. I take very much the point that the noble Lord, Lord Empey, made: if we are not careful we will have a situation where we pass the Bill and, in a week or a couple of months’ time, there will be an oligarch, a kleptocrat or whatever you want to call them—somebody living off dirty money—on the front pages of the papers parading themselves as having got round what the Government have only just passed.

Of course, that is the whole purpose of the amendments that so many noble Lords have put forward: to say to the Government that they have to address some of this. If they cannot address it in this Bill, which clearly they will not be able to do because it is emergency legislation—we all accept the crisis in front of us—let us have a cast-iron guarantee that the second economic crime Bill will come quickly to address these various issues and that we will be able to come back to them. Those are the reassurances that so many of us are looking for from the Government. I do not think that is too much to ask.

As my noble friend Lord Rooker pointed out, with his normal passionate use of the English language, we do not want a situation where people—I cannot remember who he referred to—parade around saying, “Look, we’re cleverer than the regulator.” That undermines democracy and Parliament. It undermines all of us. That is how serious it is when people flaunt their ability to circumvent the law. That is not in our interest, whatever the crisis we face. I know that the Minister would accept that.

I am grateful to all noble Lords who have tabled amendments in this group, which cover a variety of non-trust provisions relating to the register of overseas entities. I should give my noble friend Lady Chapman’s apologies. She cannot participate in proceedings for personal reasons, but she tabled Amendment 23, which, like Amendment 24 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, seeks to accelerate the reporting of changes in beneficial ownership, for reasons ably supported by my noble friend Lord Eatwell. Again, this seems absolutely common sense; it does not seem to be a point of argument.

The Government are keen to stress that the vast majority of entities that apply to join the register will be entirely above board. We accept much of that. However, under the current provisions, a shell company could be registered under certain ownership on day 1, with new appointments to the board made on days 2 and 3, but it would be required to report that only 12 months later. That is clearly not acceptable or sensible. As my noble friends Lord Sikka and Lord Eatwell, the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, and others said, something should be done about that. The Government should see what changes they can make.

There are legitimate questions about enforcement, but do the Government agree that there should be a general principle that entities need to be proactive in reporting changes? The Minister should accept Amendment 23, or indeed Amendment 24, but if not, he should commit to giving this further thought as the Government begin to draft the next piece of legislation.

We are also sympathetic to other amendments in the group, including Amendment 3 from the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, and Amendment 53 from the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, supported by my noble friend Lady Chapman and the noble Lord, Lord Fox, which tries to start to deal with enablers. On so-called enablers, it would be helpful to understand what steps, if any, the Government have taken since Russia invaded Ukraine. As this is an emergency piece of legislation, what emergency action have the Government taken with respect to enablers? There have long been stories of lawyers and estate agents who purposely avoid asking their clients probing questions because they know that the answers would preclude them from doing business with them. It is time to say, “Enough is enough and we will seek you out and do something about it.”

We know that some individuals have sought to urgently offload their UK-based interests and, if they are seeking to rush sales through, we would hope that estate agents and others were already querying the reasons for that. In addition to any steps that might have already been taken, what steps do the Government plan to take over the coming days and weeks to deal with that problem? This series of amendments asks various questions, but ultimately seeks to tighten up a Bill that is in all our interests.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

First, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate. Before I address the amendments tabled, I reiterate the point I made earlier. This will be almost the first register of its kind in the world. We should accept that we are leading on this. I completely accept that we may not have everything perfect, but we will learn as we go—just as we did, in the example I cited, when we implemented the people with significant control requirements for domestic companies. We had to learn and iterate that, and now many other countries have followed our lead. That is a good thing. I re-emphasise that we will be perfectly willing to revisit these measures if it transpires that we have not got everything quite right.

[Lord Eatwell (Lab)]

Just thinking off the top of my head, I can think of four registers of this ilk which exist already.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I would be happy to debate with the noble Lord. When I queried this, my information was that Germany potentially has something similar, but nobody else. I am happy to exchange letters with him about numbers, but that is not the information I have.

Before I move on, perhaps I may correct something I said on the first grouping—which will teach me to pluck numbers from memory rather than consulting my notes. The correct figure is that there are 30,000 overseas entities registered in the UK owning approximately 95,000 properties. I think I may have said that the other way round. I slightly disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Sikka. The vast majority of those are perfectly legitimate entities. We are an open trading environment and welcome investment from all over the world. International companies owning headquarters in the UK do so perfectly legitimately. The vast majority of these entities are legitimate. A small minority are not, and they are the ones we seek to catch in this register, but we must be fair to the vast majority which are perfectly legal, above board and just seeking to use the UK to do business, which we encourage.

Let me also pick up the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. Although I am grateful that she is supporting the government amendments—I will write that down for posterity, because I am not sure it will happen again—we did not just pluck the dates of 1999 for England and Wales and 2014 for Scotland out of thin air. We did not just sit there and think what date we would make it retrospective to. Those were the dates of incorporation when that was required by the Land Registry, so it is appropriate to go back to them. Northern Ireland has never required this, so it is impossible to retrospectively apply the provisions there. I hope she will accept that we did not just make these dates up; they are put in place for a reason.

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[Lord Sikka (Lab)]

I refer the Minister to an entity called Business Bank Italy Ltd. It was owned by a convicted Mafia person from Italy, who registered this bank here and it had a website inviting wealth management. At Companies House, there was absolutely no declaration of any criminal convictions. Previously, the same person registered as secretary and director of another company, where the same person provided information in Italian. When it was translated into English, it read, “My name is the Chicken Thief, my occupation is a fraudster”, and the address was “Street of 40 Thieves, town of Ali Baba in Italy.” There is no information on whether there was any criminal conviction or anything else. The Minister just said that there are robust checks at Companies House. Where are these robust checks? I could pick out that example. Companies House did not carry any out; neither did any government department. As he knows, I have been filing a lot of Written Questions of late drawing Ministers’ attention to all kinds of strange goings-on in companies. It seems to me that, by rejecting the idea that somebody has to provide their former names and a record of criminal convictions and sanctions, the Government are opening the door for these people to misbehave.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

We are not opening the door. I assume that the companies the noble Lord is referring to are existing UK-registered companies; I know he has asked me a number of Written Questions about companies registered on the UK database, and I totally accept his point. He is pointing out an issue we are well aware of: that the existing UK companies register is a dumb register. The registrar is obliged under existing law to accept the information tabled to her. The noble Lord has raised a number of examples and tabled Written Questions to me about some patently ridiculous information that has been supplied. I get regular correspondence from noble Lords and from constituency Members of Parliament where false information is given and false companies registered at people’s addresses, unknown to them, and they then receive correspondence.

The difficulty at the moment is that the registrar does not have the legal power to query the information registered to her. If the noble Lord will be patient and wait for economic crime Bill part 2, which is coming, he will find that it will deal with this precise point. It will give the registrar the ability to query that information and provide that people must give identity details, passport information, et cetera, when they register. This is a massive change to the operation of Companies House—the biggest change for something like 170 years to the register database. It will give the registrar the power to query that information and people will have to provide evidence of their identity, addresses, et cetera. The noble Lord is right—there are a number of ridiculous examples—but we will deal with that. I am aware of it, and it will be in the next Bill.

In addition, information regarding designated persons who are listed on the UK sanctions list is already published for free via GOV.UK by colleagues in the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation.

Finally, the verification mechanisms of the register, which will be provided for under Clause 16, will ensure as far as possible that the information provided is highly accurate. This register will provide vital information and in turn give enforcement agencies even greater information to take actions and carry out their own investigations. Therefore, on balance and taking into account the reasoning we have set out, we are unable to accept these amendments.

However, I am in agreement with the noble Lord on the particular importance of ensuring that there is clear information for users of the register about whether individuals identified as beneficial owners of the overseas entities are subject to UK sanctions. It is in the public interest for users of the register of overseas entities to be able easily to see whether a registrable beneficial owner is a designated person listed on the UK sanctions list.

The Government have therefore tabled their own Amendments 7, 9 and 11, which would mean that the required information about a registrable beneficial owner will include information about whether they are designated by virtue of the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018. These three amendments would require overseas entities to confirm whether any of their registrable beneficial owners are designated persons listed on the UK sanctions list. It would be an offence not to do so. This information would be displayed publicly on the register. This will ensure that this information is then more easily accessible to the average user of the register. That fulfils a requirement raised by a number of noble Lords, and by Members of the other place when they debated this legislation. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, will appreciate that these three amendments will deliver a good deal, if perhaps not all, of the intention of his amendments and those proposed in the other place.

I move on to Amendments 18, 19 and 20, also tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, which relate to the level of shareholding that would define a “beneficial owner”. His amendments seek to remove the 25% level altogether, to capture any person who holds any shares in the overseas entity in scope.

The 25% threshold contained in the Bill is in line with global norms with regards to beneficial ownership. The Financial Action Task Force, which sets global anti-money laundering and counterterrorist financing standards, has found that this threshold is acceptable as an example of how to determine beneficial ownership. As a result, 25%—or more than 25%—is used in many jurisdictions, such as in the US and in the European Union’s recent anti-money laundering directives. The 25% threshold also follows the UK’s PSC—person with significant control—regime, which similarly requires beneficial ownership information of UK-registered companies. When the PSC regime was in development—

[Lord Burnett (LD)]

Does the 25% limit cater for class rights in the definition of control? In other words, you can have 10% and 90% but the 10% have all the voting rights.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I think it refers to rights of control—the actual percentage shareholding of the company—but if I am incorrect on that, I will certainly write to the noble Lord.

When the PSC regime was in development, significant analysis, including consultation, considered the question of thresholds. The threshold of more than 25% reflects the level of control a person needs in voting rights, under UK company law, to be able to block special resolutions of a company. It was considered that 25% represented the optimum opportunity to understand who is in a position to exert significant influence and control over a company. Collecting information on legal ownership below that threshold would be much less likely to do this. Removing the threshold altogether would have the effect of essentially creating a register of shareholders rather than a register of beneficial ownership, which—I hope noble Lords will agree—is not appropriate for the purposes of the Bill and the transparency involved in this register. Maybe the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, likes going through thousands of register entries, but I am not sure it would be helpful to most people.

For entirely legitimate entities, there could be hundreds or thousands of shareholders. For instance, think of a large foreign company that owns property in the UK. I am really not sure whether it would be tremendously helpful to have literally thousands of individual shareholders on the list of a property’s beneficial owners. For example, in the case of public limited companies with highly dispersed ownership, where shares can be bought and sold frequently and instantly, removing the 25% threshold would make the requirements of the register disproportionately difficult to comply with, as entities must first send a notice to those that they believe are their beneficial owners, and then allow time for potential beneficial owners to respond.

We are mindful of the risk that an individual wishing to disguise their beneficial ownership might, for example, deliberately reduce their shareholding. We have considered this, and so have made provision that means that anyone, regardless of their shareholding or voting rights, who exerts or has the right to exert significant influence or control over an entity is captured within the meaning of “beneficial owner”. This includes anyone who holds the right to appoint or remove a majority of the board’s directors. Perhaps that takes account of the point the noble Lord made earlier.

I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, cannot be with us today. I thank her and other noble Lords for Amendments 23 and 24. In particular, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, for his engagement and for the points he has made. I am very happy to meet the noble Lord to discuss these matters further.

These amendments would require overseas entities to update the register not just annually but when there has been a change in beneficial ownership. I know this matter has been exercising a number of noble Lords. It was also raised in 2018, during pre-legislative scrutiny of the then draft registration of overseas entities Bill. At the time, the scrutiny committee accepted fully in its report that this requirement would be difficult to enforce without active investigation. This would also create great uncertainty for third parties transacting with the overseas entities. This is the key reason why we have adopted the 12-month threshold.

A change in beneficial ownership is not necessarily foreseeable and would not be knowable to any third parties, including Companies House, without detailed investigation. As I said, there are about 30,000 of these overseas entities. As such, a requirement for an overseas entity to update its information when there is such a change means that, at any point in time, it could be compliant one moment and then not compliant the next. Our problem is that we think this creates significant legal uncertainty for any third parties engaging with the entity and seeking to purchase the property from it.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

Can the Minister help me and explain why they would be non-compliant if they had two weeks within which to register it? As long as they did it within two weeks, they would be fine.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

Yes, but they would have to be tabling notices to any potential beneficial owners in order to update the register. We think that if we have a yearly update, any third party transacting with that entity would then have sufficient legal certainty to be able to proceed. The point is not that the entity might not register the change of ownership but that the third party, and indeed Companies House, have no way of knowing whether it has. Therefore, a third party could engage in a transaction thinking that the original entity is compliant and then discover afterwards that it has not updated its register and is non-compliant, and therefore potentially lose its money and be unable to proceed with the transaction because it cannot register the property. On balance, we think the better option is to have a yearly update cycle, but I realise that this is a point of debate and I am happy to discuss it further. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, is engaged in this.

[Lord Vaux of Harrowden (CB)]

The Minister has not addressed the point that this can easily be dealt with by bringing forward the annual update, which a company has the ability to do under—I think, from memory—Clause 7. If that were done as part of the property transaction, that solves the problem completely. Does the Minister disagree with that?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

No, I do not disagree with that. It is, of course, perfectly possible—

[Lord Eatwell (Lab)]

My Lords, on the same point, would it not be helpful for a third party to know who it is actually dealing with? Under the Minister’s proposal for 12 months, it could rely on the register and find out that it is dealing with someone it had not expected at all.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

Indeed it would be helpful, and that is why we have the transparency of the register in the first place. Returning to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, it would indeed be possible for them to update it, and it is of course perfectly possible that the advisers of the third party buying that property would wish to say to the entity that they wanted it to update the register in terms of formal ownership before they could advise their clients to proceed with the transaction, which is a point that the noble Lord made to me. That is different in terms of due diligence of the third party’s financial legal advisers, but in terms of the legal requirements, we think that it is best to leave it at 12 months. However, maybe we could have further discussions on this before we get to the second Bill.

To summarise, a change in beneficial ownership is not necessarily foreseeable and would not be knowable to any third parties, including Companies House, without detailed investigation. As such, a requirement for an overseas entity to update its information when there is such a change means that it could be compliant one moment and non-compliant the next, at any point in time. Our point is that this would create significant legal uncertainty for any third parties engaged with the entity.

I remind noble Lords that the key sanction for non-compliance with the new register—apart from the criminal penalties for non-compliance—which interferes with existing property rights is effectively to make it impossible for the buyer to then register title, if purchasing from a non-compliant entity. Of course, if they have transacted with an overseas company in a different jurisdiction, it might be very difficult for them to then take appropriate legal action to recover any sums that they have paid. This is not about providing a free “get out of jail” card for the overseas entity; it is genuinely about protecting the rights of third parties that wish to transact with them.

As the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, pointed out, the onus is on the buyer and their agents to ensure that they do not transact with a non-compliant entity. In order to protect the buyer, who is likely to be an innocent third party, it follows that there must be absolute legal certainty in every case as to whether the overseas entity doing the selling is compliant. An annual update with a transparent end date for the update period will give third parties transacting with the overseas entity the certainty that they need. The annual update already requires an overseas entity—

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

I do not wish to be argumentative with the Minister—well, perhaps I do—but can he confirm in respect of the third party buying the company that that company will be compliant even if, say, 11.5 months ago, they changed their ownership because they will not have had to register?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

Yes, that provides the required legal certainty to the third party that is buying it, at the expense of, perhaps, a certain amount of transparency for that 11.5-month period. So, yes, I accept that.

The annual update already requires an overseas entity to provide information about its current beneficial owners, as well as any changes since its last update. This latter information was added as a result of the pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill, providing a complete picture of an overseas entity’s beneficial owners. For these reasons we do not believe a change in the updating period is necessary or desirable, and I therefore encourage noble Lords not to press their amendments.

Turning to government Amendments 49, 50, 51 and 52, the Government have listened to the concerns raised about the need to deal effectively with anyone seeking to file false or misleading information or those who know or suspect that they may be filing false information, and we have taken on board those concerns. I thank all noble Lords who raised these concerns with me. They made the point that the evidential threshold to prove intent or recklessness is too high in the clauses as drafted. I have therefore tabled these government amendments to ensure that those who provide false or misleading information “without reasonable excuse”—in other words, a lower legal barrier—can be prosecuted and are subject on conviction to an unlimited fine. This will catch those who seek to facilitate and enable money launderers and the corrupt.

Furthermore, we have amended the threshold for what, under our amendments, constitutes an aggravated offence. This removes the reference to the word “recklessly”, which caused a lot of concern in the other place and to the noble Lord, Lord Fox, and others in this place. It also retains the potential for imprisonment and an unlimited fine if convicted of the aggravated offence of knowingly filing false, misleading or deceptive information. I hope this addresses the concerns.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for Amendment 53, which would create a criminal offence of failing to disclose to the registrar certain information when a professional knows or suspects, or has reasonable grounds for knowing or suspecting, that misleading, false, or otherwise deceptive information was provided to them in their professional capacity. Again, I understand the noble Lord’s motive for proposing this new clause, but I hope that he will agree that his aims can be met by the existing provisions in the legislation regarding offences for the provision of false information, as developed in the way I have just set out by the Government’s amendments to lower the threshold needed for prosecution. We are confident that this will ensure that enforcement agencies have sufficient capacity to tackle those who seek to subvert the integrity of the register through the provision of misleading information.

I also take this opportunity to reassure the noble Lord—

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I am afraid I do not agree with the Minister; I am amazed that he thought that I would. The Government need a strategy to catch these enablers in the way that they currently operate. What strategy do the Government have? The Minister was just about to pass on to other things. He has prayed in aid the professional regulators, such as the SRA and the ICAEW, and he has more or less said that the legislation is absolutely fine: it will catch the enablers properly. But does the Government not need a proper strategy for dealing with enablers? They cannot gloss this over. Is the Minister prepared to look at this carefully before the next Bill?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

Of course, we are constantly looking at these matters. The Treasury is implicitly engaged in pursuing crackdowns on the so-called enablers that the noble Lord has mentioned, and the anti-money laundering regulations exist. This register, which is a transparency measure, is designed to provide information to the public, HMRC and other law enforcement agencies that can then take the appropriate action under the other provisions. However—before the noble Lord, Lord Fox, gets up—I totally agree with the noble Lord that we need to look again at whether the anti-money laundering statutes are appropriate. It is not for this legislation, but I am sure it is something we will want to look at in detail before we get to the next Bill, because it is a complicated area of law. If we do not, I am sure the noble Lord will wish to table his amendments again then.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

Each time the Minister speaks on this, I do not hear him acknowledge that there is a problem. In order for there to be a solution, there has to be an acknowledgement that there is a problem. So, does the Minister agree with me that there is a problem with unscrupulous enablers currently operating in the City and the United Kingdom? Unless the Minister agrees, I do not think that we can have much hope of a solution.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I am happy to agree with the noble Lord. If there is one firm of accountants or one legal practice that is turning a blind eye to these provisions, there is a problem with which we need to deal. Nobody wants to see that; we want to give the UK a reputation as the best place in the world to do business and to crack down on the small minority of the legal profession that are abusing their position and facilities—of course we would want to do that.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the Minister and slow the proceedings but, on that point, the Minister began to move, gradually, towards thinking about the enablers, and mentioned anti-money laundering legislation. But it is wider than that: it is about sanctions, economic crime in general and the provisions of this Bill. Is the Minister prepared to undertake to look more broadly across the piece?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

Yes. Obviously, a number of different government departments would be involved in doing this, but a number have been involved in putting the provisions into this Bill, and a number will be involved in the provisions of the next economic crime Bill. Of course, we want to take action against lawyers and accountants who abuse their positions to benefit some of these oligarchs and others. We have all seen the press reports and we all know the people that we are concerned about. I would not seek to defend them in the slightest, and I hope that we will be able to put the appropriate sanctions in place to deal with them.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

Does my noble friend think it would be a good idea to set up a Committee of your Lordships’ House immediately after the Bill has gone on to the statute book, like these special Select Committees that are set up for specific purposes, so that you have a number of knowledgeable Members of your Lordships’ House, among whom I do not include myself, who will be able to provide expert examination of this Bill on a continuous basis?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The noble Lord often suggests setting up special Committees of this House. He will know that it is way above my pay grade to dictate to the House authorities what committees they wish to set up for examining particular Bills. I know from appearances that there are some extremely good and effective committees already in this House examining all parts of the Government’s legislative agenda and all departments—but, if the noble Lord can forgive me, I will not get into instructing the House authorities on what committees to set up to future scrutinise our work.

Relevant firms, including financial institutions, law firms, accountancy firms and estate agents, under the anti-money laundering framework, must inform Her Majesty’s Treasury as soon as practicable if they know, or have reasonable cause to suspect while carrying out their business, that they have encountered a person subject to financial sanctions, or a person who has committed a financial sanctions offence. They must state the information on which the knowledge or suspicion is based, and any information they hold about the person by which they can be identified. It is already an offence to fail to comply with this reporting obligation. I understand that the noble Lord does not think that the legislation is applied properly—perhaps we can look at that—but there is already an offence on the statute book.

Activity which seeks to evade these new beneficial ownership reporting obligations should be taken into account in the course of these firms taking a risk-based approach to anti-money laundering, and any suspicions of sanctions evasion should be reported in accordance with their legal obligations. I am pleased to say that Treasury Ministers will be writing to the anti-money-laundering supervisors of the relevant professional enablers on this matter, highlighting that the Government will be expecting everyone in these sectors to be particularly vigilant.

I hope that, with the reassurances that I have provided on this important issue, the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Vaux of Harrowden (CB)]

The Minister was kind enough to offer to meet with me about my Amendment 24. I actually asked about meeting regarding the verification regulations in Clause 16. Is he prepared to do that, probably with others, as it is very important that these regulations get the input of all these highly intelligent people around the Committee before they are issues, rather than afterwards?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

Yes, I am happy to meet with the noble Lord and his colleagues to discuss that matter.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)]

I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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Moved by

[Lord Callanan]

33: Clause 9, page 7, line 23, leave out sub-paragraph (i) and insert—
“(i) is entered, on or after 8 December 2014, as proprietor in the proprietorship section of the title sheet for a plot of land that is registered in the Land Register of Scotland,”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment expands the scope of circumstances where an overseas entity is registered as the proprietor of a relevant interest in land for the purpose of Clause 9 (to include, for example, Keeper-induced registration) by removing the requirement for there to have been an application for registration.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My Lords, I start this grouping by speaking to the government amendments, which I have tabled. They are Amendments 33, 75 and 76; 35, 36 and 37; 63 and 77; 65, 66, 69, 70 and 72; 68 and 71; and 73 and 81. I hope that everybody is taking careful note, because there will be a check later.

These are technical amendments relating to land registration in Scotland, tidying up some of the drafting in the Bill. If it would be of assistance to noble Lords, I am happy to speak in more detail on any of these, but meanwhile, in the interests of time, I will move on to the more substantive government amendments in this group.

Amendments 73 and 74 make small but important technical changes to the Bill to ensure that Schedule 4 operates effectively in line with the land registration law of Scotland. These amendments add to existing provisions when an application must be rejected by Registers of Scotland because of the implications for who will be shown in the Land Register of Scotland as the owner of a plot of land. These amendments ensure consistency and clarity in setting out the circumstances in which a prescriptive claim application might result in a prescriptive claimant being provisionally entered as the owner of a plot in Scotland.

I am mindful that several noble Lords and Baronesses, including the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman of Darlington, and the noble Lords, Lord Fox and Lord Sikka, have tabled amendments to shorten the transition period proposed. To inform that debate, I thought it might be helpful to set out several government amendments that we hope will help to ease concerns about the length of the transition period for registering retrospective property ownership and the perceived risk of people moving illicit assets in the meantime—a concern that has been raised with me by several noble Lords.

Amendment 86 requires overseas entities when registering, who have disposed of certain land between 28 February 2022—the date that the Bill was published—and the date of their application to register, to submit a statement with their application setting out details of what has been sold and the beneficial ownership of the entity immediately before that transfer of title. The land in scope is that which otherwise would be caught by the transition period: that is, land that was registered after 1 January 1999 in England and Wales and after 8 December 2014 in Scotland. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, now knows why we have selected those dates.

This is an anti-avoidance measure. It would mean that any overseas entity disposing of any of their property in the period from 28 February and the date of their application to register on the register of overseas entities must provide information about the entity’s beneficial ownership immediately before the disposal. They must provide that information by the end of the transition period. This will mean that law enforcement will therefore have access to a record of the beneficial ownership to aid the enforcement of historic cases, and the seller would no longer be able to avoid being under a legal duty to provide beneficial ownership information by disposing of a property in advance of registering—something that I know was a significant concern for many noble Lords. This new disclosure requirement should significantly strengthen law enforcement’s abilities to investigate and prosecute both buyer and seller, and all involved in the transaction, should the criminal law have been broken.

Crucially, it addresses the concerns that have been raised with me in both Houses that corrupt people must not be allowed to sell up and escape the transparency that the register will bring. It is my submission that this measure will be more effective than any further reduction in the transition period, which risks opening up the provisions of the register to legal challenge, something that would no doubt be exploited by those wishing to avoid it.

Amendments 55, 60, 64, 79 and 82 align the transitional periods under Schedules 3 and 4 with the period in the new clause inserted by Amendment 86.

Amendment 87 supplements Amendment 86 by making it an offence for certain overseas entities who do not apply for registration during the transitional period, and every officer in default, to fail to provide information equivalent to that required by Amendment 86. That means information about relevant dispositions in land made on or after 28 February 2022 and the end of the transitional period. In the case of continued contravention, an offence is also committed by every officer of the overseas entity who did not commit an offence in relation to the initial contravention. A person guilty of an offence is liable on summary conviction to a fine and a daily default fine of up to £2,500 a day in England and Wales.

Amendment 88 makes further supplementary provisions, including a power to make regulations in connection with the new clause inserted by Amendment 86.

Amendment 59 reflects the revised transitional period of six months. It requires the Chief Land Registrar to act as soon as reasonably practicable, and in any event before the end of the transitional period, to enter a restriction in relation to an estate in land owned by an overseas entity that became the registered proprietor of that estate following an application made before commencement of the Bill.

Amendments 66, 69, 70 and 72 are technical amendments relating to land registration in Scotland. In the interests of time, I propose to move on to other substantive amendments, but am more than happy to speak on these amendments in more detail if required. I beg to move.

[Lord Sikka (Lab)]

My Lords, I apologise; I am not sure if it is my turn or someone else’s. I have four amendments in this group. I have listened carefully to what the Minister has said about Amendment 86. The real problem is that you can have an overseas entity that can be used to buy a property in the UK. When that property is sold, money is laundered, but before the six-month period is over the overseas entity is liquidated so there is no information of any kind to file. By giving anyone more than 14 days—this is a theme referred to earlier by the noble Lords, Lord Cromwell and Lord Vaux—the Government are inviting these kinds of cat-and-mouse games.

I recommend that no one should have more than 14 days. After all, that is what we give at the moment to UK companies to file information about persons with significant interest as per Part 21A of the Companies Act 2006, which says that the PSC’s details must first be recorded in the company’s internal register within 14 days of the change and Companies House must be notified within a further 14 days, which is the maximum permitted. So why are overseas entities to be given a longer period? We seem to be creating an opportunity here, a window, for these entities to misbehave, and at the end no declaration of any kind can be made. Fourteen days is not too demanding in the era of electronic filing. We must close all opportunities for anyone to circumvent the filing requirements and thereby get away with basically laundering their proceeds.

My second two amendments are Amendments 58 and 67, which, as has been referred to, are about the amnesty that is built into the Bill. The Bill grants amnesty from disclosures to those who acquired property in Scotland before 8 December 2014 and before 1 January 1999 in England and Wales. That is completely contrary to the Bill’s claim of adding transparency and providing no hiding place for dirty money. The amnesty will mean that large swathes of UK property are owned by overseas companies without any public knowledge of their true owners; people will simply not know who owns them.

I shall give some examples of Scottish property that is owned by anonymous offshore companies purchased before 8 December 2014 where people do not know who the true owners are: Strathfillan Forest, owned by Thar Enterprises in Jersey, registered at the Land Register in June 1999; Ardfin Estate, on the Isle of Jura, owned by Ardfin Lodge Ltd, again in Jersey, registered in November 2010; Glenogle Estate, owned by Glenogle Estate Ltd in the Isle of Man, registered in May 1999; most of Charlotte Square in Edinburgh, owned by Fordell Estates Ltd in the British Virgin Islands, registered in the Land Registry in 2010; Glenborrodale deer forest, owned by Luna Ltd in the Bahamas, registered at the Land Register in July 2000; and the Pitmain Estate, owned by Ranita Management SA in Panama. Even if these properties are acquired with clean money, people have a right to know who their neighbours are and who owns a large part of their locality. Are these people actually socially responsible? The Government are legally creating an amnesty, and that is really unacceptable.

This opacity is not just an issue in Scotland: it is an issue for the whole of the UK. Close to 250,000 residential properties in the UK are registered to individuals based overseas. UK property worth more than £170 billion is estimated to be held overseas, much of it anonymously. Last October, the Pandora papers leak revealed that Heads of Government, oligarchs, business tycoons, ruling families and Middle-Eastern monarchs were among the anonymous owners of at least £4 billion of property, held through offshore shell companies. When did they acquire that? We do not quite know: it might well have been before the dates specified in the Bill.

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[Lord Fox (LD)]

It did indeed, and I am glad that the noble Lord has had the opportunity to speak.

Once again, we have a huge number of varied amendments lumped into the same group, which I think is a side-effect of the process we are travelling through. I am going to focus on two themes. I am not going to interpose myself between lawyers on the subject of Amendment 92, but I look forward to the Minister’s response to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and my noble friend Lady Kramer.

I will turn to Amendments 56, 61, 80 and 83 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, and signed by myself. I will be brief because I do not think we have to speak for very long on this. The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, has been eloquent in this vein already in the unfortunate absence of the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman.

During Second Reading we heard a chorus of disapproval on the six-month transition period, and there is a good reason for that. The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, was clear on those reasons, as were other speakers, including the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and the noble Lord, Lord Sikka. We have to focus on what the Government are seeking to achieve and how they are going to achieve it. While that number is very important, the second number, introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, may be even more important, and it is the one covered by Amendment 97 in my name. It seeks to bring commencement forward to the First Reading of this Bill in the Commons. When I tabled that amendment, I was thinking of the National Security and Investment Act, which did just that.

In one of the meetings that the Minister kindly invited me to, he set out a number of reasons why that commencement date is, in Government’s view, not popular. The longer the Minister’s explanations were, the more alarmed I became, because it is clear now that the commencement date is subject to the pace of the slowest moving IT project. That is a matter of great concern, and certainly should be to your Lordships’ House.

In looking at the six-month transition period, we cannot isolate it from the commencement period, as the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, wisely stated. What the Minister has to think about and convince your Lordships of is how these two times work together. Can they be concurrent? Indeed, can commencement start without the whole system being in place? In other words, can there be some flexibility in how parts of the Bill come in? That would be controlled through statutory instruments, which the Government have control over.

Commencement is one thing, statutory instruments are another and the transition period is a third. They all add up to either a long time or a medium amount of time. The Minister needs to explain the formula the Government have in mind, because at the moment it seems to be a blank number. We do not really know when the terms of this Bill will be in place.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I am mindful that several noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman of Darlington, and the noble Lords, Lord Fox and Lord Sikka, have tabled a number of amendments in this group. I will start with Amendment 34 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, who I see is not in his place. I will speak to it alongside Amendments 58 and 67 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, as they cover the same subject of retrospectivity and the subject the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, raised earlier.

These amendments seek to extend the scope of the definition of overseas entities registered as the proprietor of a relevant interest in land by removing the registration dates currently stated in the Bill. This has obviously been an area of interest in both Houses. The Government, of course, agree that the register should be as comprehensive as possible. However, there is no benefit to be gained from removing the dates as suggested, as I explained to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, earlier. Doing so would instead create legal uncertainty. Due to the way information was collected prior to those dates, the land registries would have no way of reliably and consistently identifying properties owned by overseas entities and those that are not. It was not compulsory in England and Wales, for example, to register the jurisdiction of ownership before 1 January 1999. As such, the Land Registry would have this information only where the overseas entity had voluntarily supplied the information itself.

The amendment would result in inconsistent application, as the information needed to enter restrictions on disposition on to relevant titles is not readily available before these dates. They were not just dreamt up arbitrarily; these dates are put in for good reason. The result of removing the reference to the registration dates would be that only those entities that could be identified as being overseas entities could be brought properly into scope. Others that could not be so identified would not be.

This situation would also introduce significant uncertainty for buyers. There would be no way of providing absolute legal certainty as to whether an entity should or should not be in scope for those properties registered before 1999 in England and Wales, and before 2014 in Scotland. Third parties who were in the process of or considering purchasing a piece of land in the UK registered before those dates could not be sure whether they were engaging with an overseas entity that was in scope of the Bill, and which could become non-compliant at any time. The existing clauses are therefore essential for the register to be effective and operable, and to provide certainty as to which overseas entities are actually in scope of the requirement to register once the register goes live.

Finally, I remind the House that the agents who support property transactions are, as we have said earlier, all covered by the provisions of the anti-money laundering regulations. If there are properties with titles held by overseas entities going back further in time, when those entities next come to sell or lease those properties, the agents involved will be obliged to conduct appropriate checks for money laundering.

I turn now to Amendments 56, 57, 61, 62, 80 and 83 on the transition period. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, and the noble Lords, Lord Fox and Lord Sikka, for their amendments to shorten the transition period as proposed. Of course, as the noble Lord, Lord Fox, has just said, I am aware that speed of implementation of the register and of the transition period has been the focus of much debate in both Houses so far. The Government have already reduced the transition period from the initially proposed 18 months to six months.

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[Lord Faulks (Non-Afl)]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. He talks, understandably, about a transition period and the need for everybody to adjust to the new provisions. However, while Ukraine may have come as a surprise, the existence, or likely existence, of this register cannot fall into that category. I am sure the noble Lord would agree with me that anybody who had owned property would have had years to prepare themselves since it was first mentioned in 2016. It was mentioned in the Criminal Finances Act and again in the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act. Why is there so much need for further transition, when anybody would have been aware of these provisions?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The noble Lord will know from his time in Government that the law officers provide confidential legal advice to Ministers. I can only say to him that I am personally satisfied that this six-month period is appropriate. We are taking a severe step with this legislation; we are retrospectively interfering with property rights. Whether the legislation has been flagged in advance—I think David Cameron first promised it in 2015—does not, as I understand it, alter the legal case that somebody who wished to purchase expensive legal help to challenge the legislation would be able to do so under the Human Rights Act. I can do no more than assure the noble Lord that the officials and I are acting under the legal advice that we have received about the appropriate period. I can assure him that I wish to bring this in as quickly as I can. He will be aware that the Government originally proposed a period of 18 months. Following fairly significant political pressure, we have taken further advice and have managed to reduce it to six months. I am seriously concerned that, if we reduced it further, we could be subject to legal challenge. I am happy to speak to him outside the House.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, I assume that the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, has had the answer he required. To come back to implementation and commencement, it is not clear what the trigger for commencement would be. Can the Minister be clear on what the trigger for commencement will be and, having stated that, can he perhaps undertake to maintain a dialogue with your Lordships’ House on how reaching that trigger is getting along and when we might expect the commencement of this Bill?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I totally understand the point the noble Lord is making. I cannot give him a precise date; all I can say is that I am keen to commence this legislation as quickly as possible, but there are number of steps that we need to take. We need to publish and implement a number of statutory instruments on the back of this. Companies House needs to put the systems in place; it has already been given the funding for that. The computer systems need to be set up and the register needs to be activated. I am very happy to maintain a dialogue and keep the House informed, but the ultimate answer to the question of when the legislation will be commenced is: as soon as we possibly can.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

Given that your Lordships’ House has demonstrated that it can process statutory instruments at an insatiable rate, my point that the rate-determining step is an IT system in Companies House is entirely correct. Would the Minister confirm that?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

It is a number of different things. There are administrative procedures to be put in place; the IT system is of course important—I am hesitant to give assurances on when a government IT system might operate. It is not a hugely complicated system, but it needs to be done and to be put in place. Of course, we also need to go on to the next step, namely the economic crime Bill which will follow this one and will give Companies House the right to query the information that has been provided, as I outlined to noble Lords earlier. However, I am very happy to keep the House informed as to commencement dates. I am sure a lot of people will be writing to me about it and will be using the devices of the House to table Questions to ensure that my feet are held to the fire on this one.

[Lord Faulks (Non-Afl)]

I am sorry, but I had not quite got an answer. I absolutely appreciate the Minister’s sincerity in wanting to get this register ready. My point was that the transition would come as no surprise. His answer—as I understood it—was that the Government are concerned about possible legal action, which is not quite the same thing, because I think he is talking about a possible challenge under Article 1 of Protocol 1 to the European convention. I respectfully suggest to him that lawyers are being extremely cautious about this because, in the circumstances, it would be quite a brave court that would decide that the time allowed for transition was so short that they would be allowed to retain possessions.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his legal advice; I should not let my prejudices against lawyers get in the way here, but no doubt there are others who one might want to employ who might give a different opinion. All I can say is that we are acting under the advice that we have received. I am told that while people may have had an idea in advance that we would be introduce such legislation, the fact of Parliament actually passing it will, I suspect, be the legal test for when the register starts and when the requirements come into force—whether or not it had been flagged up in advance. However, that would be my opinion as a mere engineer, not a lawyer; I am sure that other opinions are no doubt available.

I turn now to Amendment 92—

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, I apologise that I was not here for Second Reading. I went down with a very bad cold and I wrote to the Convener’s office to say that I could not be here, so I apologise.

Can the Minister explain why the Government had gone for 18 months instead of six? Was the legal advice for 18 months that someone could challenge, so a longer transitional period was needed? Yes, there could be cases that come up, but if the intention is quite obvious and very clear why the decision is being taken, could he tell us why—no matter the number of days that you give for the transition—a very rich oligarch could not still bring a case regardless? I cannot understand why we have gone from 18 to six months, and now the Government are saying to stick at six because there will be a legal case. As a legislator, I just do not understand that.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I am happy to explain it to the noble and right reverend Lord. This is a severe piece of legislation retrospectively interfering with someone’s property rights going back—in the case of England and Wales—to 1999. Somebody could not have known when they entered into that transaction that we would wish to retrospectively legislate for that. There is a section in the Human Rights Act—I think it is the section quoted by my noble friend—about enjoyment of property and we are interfering with that. Bearing in mind that these are overseas entities for which contact details are sometimes not available, my advice is that we need a reasonable period for the entity concerned to become aware of their legal obligations. The rich oligarch mentioned by the noble and right reverend Lord may wish to bring a challenge against us on the basis that we had not allowed a reasonable period. What a “reasonable period” is then becomes a matter of legal definition and argument, for which there are obviously a variety of views. That is probably the best summation I can give of the case. I hope that satisfies the noble and right reverend Lord.

Moving on to the famous Amendment 92, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, for his innovative suggestion for a wide-ranging power for the Secretary of State aimed at preventing asset flight before the formal imposition of sanctions. I hope the measures we have added in the other House go a significant way towards dealing with the kinds of situations the noble Lord may have in mind. The sanctions measures in the Bill are designed to ensure that we are able to respond even more effectively to world events using those sanctions. While, of course, we are living in unprecedented times, I am concerned that his proposals would give huge amounts of power not just to the Secretary of State in relation to Putin’s regime but to future Secretaries of State with regard to people who are not yet the subject of sanctions regimes. Much as I hate to admit it, I think I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Pannick—for a change—on this one. We need to tread carefully on such matters. Indeed, this amendment would provide an open-ended power to freeze assets for an unspecified period prior to sanctions being imposed and includes custodial penalties for those who breach it.

I think we have led the world in sanctioning Putin and his cronies. In some areas we have gone further than the EU; for example, we have banned all 3 million-plus Russian companies from getting loans in the UK or from listing. The Government strongly support measures to ensure that sanctions are effective and will continue to keep under consideration all steps necessary to achieve that. In light of what I have said, I hope the noble Lord will not press the amendment, but this is on the understanding and with the commitment that the Government will continue to keep under review how we ensure that we have all the tools at our disposal to ensure that sanctions are as effective as possible.

In conclusion, I am aware of the strength of feeling in the House on this issue of the transition period. It has been made clear to me in meetings, in particular with the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and the Opposition Front Bench, and the noble Lord, Lord Fox, and the Liberal Democrat Front Bench. I have listened carefully to the points made in this debate, particularly the powerful remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and I am grateful for the constructive approach that the Opposition in particular have adopted on this matter. I will, of course, continue discussions with the noble Lord, and I am sure we will continue to talk these matters through before we commence Report on the Bill. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 33 withdrawn.

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[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Eatwell for moving Amendment 42. As we all know, he has a huge amount of experience in this field, having overseen many of these matters in another jurisdiction. He has long pressed the Government to introduce a register of this kind, but Amendment 42 calls for proper data verification. As we have heard from a number of noble Lords—the noble Lords, Lord Vaux and Lord Cromwell, the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, and others—it is essential to the credibility of this Bill to ensure that any data is verified and accurate, as my noble friend Lord Eatwell put it.

The Government moved a little on this topic when the Bill was in the House of Commons, passing what was then Amendment 49, as we heard from other noble Lords, requiring the Secretary of State to lay regulations outlining the verification process before the register goes live. We welcome that move as it provides greater certainty, but as we have already heard, it prompts a number of supplementary questions and, in our view, does not go far enough. That is what Amendment 42, which we support, seeks to address.

When will we see the regulations? Will the process be based on previous consultations or require a separate engagement exercise? What if they are brought forward and the envisaged process is deemed inadequate? What if we end up getting the Bill before the SI has been laid? As with the earlier group on the transition period, we need greater clarity on process and timescales. Surely, accurate, verified data as required by my noble friend Lord Eatwell’s Amendment 42 is essential; without it, the Bill simply will not succeed.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I first thank the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, for tabling Amendment 42 and for his thoughtful contribution at Second Reading on the same subject. He is, of course, absolutely right: I agree wholeheartedly that ensuring the public can be confident that the data on the register is reliable is of the utmost importance. That is why, as has been referred to, the Bill already provides for the making of regulations to create a robust and effective verification mechanism.

Clause 16 sets out that:

“The Secretary of State must by regulations make provision requiring the verification of information”,


which must be in place before an overseas entity can undertake certain actions. These actions include applying for registration to, or removal from, the register. Clause 16 sets out that these regulations can include provisions about

“the information that must be verified … the person by whom the information must be verified … requiring a statement, evidence or other information to be delivered to the registrar for the purposes”

of registration, updating of information and removal from the register.

This amendment seeks to add a statutory responsibility on the registrar to ensure the verification of any information provided to the registrar in accordance with the regulations made under Clause 16. The amendment would place responsibility for ensuring that information is verified on to the registrar, which means that the registrar would have to be satisfied that the information provided at the application stage is verified. We believe that such an addition would be nugatory to the already robust verification process that will be set out in regulations attached to this Bill once it has passed through Parliament.

The regulations that will be made under Clause 16 include the ability to specify the types of statements and evidence that the registrar can require in order to be satisfied that the information submitted to the register is appropriately verified. We expect that UK professionals regulated under the money laundering regulations will have a role to play in the verification process. We are, of course, aware of concerns raised in this House about enablers who might seek to undermine our systems. The verification process that will be set out in regulations will ensure that, whatever process is used, it cannot be undermined by enablers of unlawful activity. To support this, as was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, we have also put forward an amendment that would ensure that, where anyone submits information that is false or misleading without reasonable excuse, they can be held to account for that.

I would also direct noble Lords’ attention to the amendment tabled by the Government in the other place, which committed to bringing regulations made under Clause 16 into force before any applications for registration may be made under Section 4(1). Therefore, creating a specific statutory requirement for the registrar to secure verification, as the amendment proposes, is in my opinion not necessary. The verification mechanism already contained in the Bill will ensure that those engaging with the regime have confidence in the information held on the register. I therefore hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Eatwell (Lab)]

My Lords, I always think that the government defence of “not necessary” is the weakest we ever hear in this House. My amendment calls for a clear statutory requirement for verification. Just think of the contrary, which the noble Lord is supporting: that there will not be final statutory verification, and that information will be provided by professionals, enablers. He says that we can ensure that this will not “undermine the process”. If he believes that, he will believe anything. How can he ensure that it will not undermine the process, unless there is a means of checking that it is not undermining the process?

We are dealing with very sophisticated crooks with the best legal advice that money can buy and the Minister is leaving the Bill naked, with the key protection lacking that is necessary to sustain confidence in financial markets in this country. This is a sad day for the probity of those markets. Having said that, regrettably, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, Amendment 43 is also signed by the noble Lord, Lord Coaker. During Second Reading, I spoke at length on this issue, so noble Lords will be pleased to know that that allows me to be brief in Committee. The amendment is clear, but I shall briefly explain its purpose. Frankly, it is one of the simpler amendments we have before us.

Clause 18 deals with exemptions. Subsection (1) gives the Secretary of State the power to write to a person to exempt them from this part of the Bill if said Secretary of State is satisfied that one of three conditions is fulfilled:

“(a) in the interests of national security … (c) for the purposes of preventing or detecting serious crime”—


I do not think any of your Lordships would find that an unacceptable condition—but

“(b) in the interests of the economic wellbeing of the United Kingdom”.


First, what does that mean, and secondly, why is it there?

The Minister heard not just my words but the compelling words of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds, my noble friend Lady Kramer and others who explained—and I hope the Minister understood—why Clause 18(1)(b) is the wrong message to be sending, particularly at this time. I explained this issue to some members of the general public—people who do not actively engage in the sport of politics—and asked them what they thought. Their reply was, “Isn’t that the approach that got us into this trouble in the first place?” Quite. That is the message that the clause is sending.

This part of the Bill is designed to deliver transparent information that can be used by authorities, potential business partners and others to avoid trading with kleptocrats, thieves and money launderers. Hiding that information unnecessarily cannot be good for the economy. Why would a Secretary of State want to do that in these conditions? Amendment 43 removes that power from the Bill, and I beg to move.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My Lords, it might be helpful for the Committee, before it debates this amendment, if I set out that of course I am aware of the strength of feeling on this issue and am very grateful for the engagement with the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Fox, and others on it over the weekend and the past few days.

As I indicated earlier, we are keen to progress this vital legislation collaboratively and swiftly, and I again pay tribute to the Opposition for helping us to do that. Therefore, if I tell the House that the Government are prepared to accept Amendment 43 tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Fox and Lord Coaker, should they wish to re-table it on Report, perhaps that would enable a more speedy consideration of this group.

[Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)]

My Lords, in view of that, I will not press my Amendment 44.

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Moved by

[Lord Callanan]

54: Clause 32, page 19, line 13, at end insert—
“(5A) The Secretary of State must consult the Department of Finance in Northern Ireland before making regulations under subsection (4).”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment requires the Secretary of State to consult a Northern Ireland department before making regulations under Clause 32(4).

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My Lords, Amendments 54 and 84 require the Secretary of State to consult the devolved Administrations before making regulations on devolved land matters. It is appropriate when the Secretary of State is legislating on devolved matters in this space to consult the responsible devolved Ministers. This approach is supported by Ministers in the Northern Ireland Executive and in the Scottish Government.

The Bill seeks to make amendments to the Land Registration Act (Northern Ireland) 1970 to capture properties in Northern Ireland within the register of overseas entities by adding a new Schedule 8A. Clause 32 of the Bill allows the Secretary of State to amend by regulation the new Schedule 8A measures on Northern Ireland land provisions and the register of overseas entities.

It is, of course, convention that Westminster shall legislate only with the consent and support of devolved Ministers on devolved matters. The support of Northern Ireland Ministers has been secured for the provisions of the Bill but, should the measures be amended in the future, it is justified that the Secretary of State ought to consult with the Department of Finance before laying regulations. It is for this reason that Amendment 54 is being made. It will ensure that devolved Ministers continue to contribute on devolved matters.

The Bill also makes amendments to the Conveyancing (Scotland) Act 1924 and the Land Registration etc. (Scotland) Act 2012, including adding new Schedule 1A to the 2012 Act to include Scottish properties bought on or after 8 December 2014 within the scope of the register of overseas entities. Paragraph 13 of Schedule 4 to the Bill allows the Secretary of State to make further provisions for the purpose of requiring or encouraging an overseas entity owning land in Scotland to submit to the register of overseas entities.

As with Northern Ireland, Scotland has devolved competence for land provisions. I am pleased to say that the Bill has secured a legislative consent Motion from the Scottish Parliament, but this amendment would ensure that Scottish Ministers are consulted before regulations are laid, which will further impact those devolved matters. I beg to move.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, as someone who takes a close interest in devolution matters, I am delighted with these amendments. I have quite often moved amendments in similar terms and not been successful. It is a pleasure to see the Minister produce amendments in the very terms that I would have liked to have seen in the Bill. I very much welcome them both.

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[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

I can add to the Minister’s embarrassment. We are pleased to see these amendments brought forward. I have two questions. I think I understand why it is different, but it might be helpful if the Minister could put on record why one amendment refers to the Department of Finance in relation to Northern Ireland yet in the other, for Scotland, it is Scottish Ministers. It seems slightly odd. Secondly, has formal engagement begun already and, if not, when will that start? Overwhelmingly, we thank the Minister and hope that this is a sign of things to come.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I should quit while I am ahead on this one. I am not sure this will continue with other Bills, but let us welcome it when it happens.

I thank noble Lords for their brief comments. I am happy to confirm to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, that engagement has already started. I have spoken to Scottish Ministers. I think I spoke to Welsh Ministers, but if not some of my colleagues have. I definitely also spoke to Ministers from Northern Ireland. I will get back to her with the precise reasons why it is the Department of Finance. I suspect the problem is that we have not been able to get a formal consent Motion from the Northern Ireland Assembly because it is not sitting, but we do have written confirmation from the Ministers that if the Assembly had been sitting they would have recommended that a legislative consent Motion be granted. I suspect that is why the Department of Finance is mentioned, rather than the Northern Ireland Assembly.

After moving the amendment, I now ask that it be withdrawn so that I can retable it and the other amendments on Report.

Amendment 54 withdrawn.