Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many confirmation statements his Department has challenged for inappropriate declarations of beneficial ownership since the requirement to make that declaration was introduced; and if he will make a statement.

69,543 confirmation statements were rejected for reasons specifically related to the provision of beneficial ownership details between 1 July 2016 and 31 January 2018. However, the majority of these are corrected by the company immediately when informed. The enforcement policy of Companies House is to help companies comply with their filing requirements, rather than immediately resorting to criminal or civil sanction. This is particularly important where there is reasonably new requirement such as the requirement to register beneficial ownership.