Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill

Debate between Lord Cromwell and Lord Vaux of Harrowden

Committee stage
Monday 27th March 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Vaux of Harrowden (CB)]

My Lords, very quickly, I will not repeat what we said on an earlier group, but these two amendments cover very much the same sort of areas of transparency. I ask the Minister—probably as a matter of relative urgency, given the discussions we have had—whether he could facilitate a meeting of the various interested parties so that we can try to thrash out where we want to start to coalesce around these issues, as that would be helpful.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

I declare that I am a shareholder in an SME. We need to be aware that there are various classes of shares. You could be a 5% shareholder in terms of owning the company, but an 80% shareholder in the voting shares. Whatever the outcome of these discussions, we need to be very clear which type of shares we are talking about.

Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill

Debate between Lord Cromwell and Lord Vaux of Harrowden

Committee stage
Monday 14th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

Before the Minister tries to answer that, we need to recognise delivering what the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, wants would be absolutely transformative to Companies House. There is no tinkering at the edges here; this would be a massive transformational change and, unless we get that, this amendment will not deliver what is being asked of it.

[Lord Vaux of Harrowden (CB)]

I will quickly add to the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. Clause 16 sets out the regulations must

“make provision … about the information that must be verified … about 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 sections”

et cetera. Perhaps the Minister could enlighten us as to what he has in mind there.