Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, if he will ensure that his legislative proposals aimed at creating a public register of beneficial ownership ensure that information in the register has undergone verification.

The Government recognises that register integrity is an important issue. This Department is carefully considering with Companies House and others what checks are necessary to ensure integrity of data and that the registration of company information in the UK remains quick, simple and inexpensive.

The current UK register is one of the most open in the world, and is accessed over 240 million times a year. This means the information is policed on a significant scale by the public, who report anomalies to Companies House for follow up.