Business of the House Debate

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Department: Leader of the House

Business of the House

Tessa Munt Excerpts
Thursday 12th September 2024

(1 day, 9 hours ago)

Commons Chamber
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Lindsay Hoyle Portrait Mr Speaker
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I will be running business questions for about another 40 minutes, so to help each other, shorter questions and brief answers might be a way to get everybody in. If people are disappointed, they should look to colleagues who may have taken too long.

Tessa Munt Portrait Tessa Munt (Wells and Mendip Hills) (LD)
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The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 introduced the requirement that directors and other individuals verify their identity before being listed at Companies House. I have found company directors whose registered addresses simply do not exist, which at the least means that papers cannot be served, and at the worst enables fraud and other crime. May we have a debate on the progress of two things: the secondary legislation that needs to be passed for those basic checks to take place; and an update on how Companies House’s systems are progressing to allow directors’ identities to be checked?

Lucy Powell Portrait Lucy Powell
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The hon. Lady raises an important technical matter, and I will certainly look into the progress of that statutory instrument. Given that she has such expertise and diligence in this space, she might want to consider going on the Public Accounts Committee or other Committees as those places come up in the coming weeks.