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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of (a) increasing the value of penalties that Companies House levies on companies for filing failures that trigger automatic strike-off routines, and (b) using the funds raised from such penalties to fund Insolvency Service investigations of insolvent companies.

The late filing penalty regime was introduced to encourage directors to file their accounts on time. Using it as a source of revenue to fund investigation activity would present difficulties, as it would mean relying on behaviour that we are actively trying to discourage.

We are reviewing funding as part of our wider reforms, and have committed to ensuring that fees remain low by international standards.