Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how much public funding his Department has made available to SMEs through the Climate Change Agreements Scheme in each financial year since 2019-2020.
Answered by Graham Stuart
The Climate Change Agreements scheme provides participating organisations with significant reductions to the Climate Change Levy rates paid on their energy consumption in return for meeting energy efficiency or carbon reduction targets. The estimated costs of non-structural reliefs are published by HM Revenue and Customs.
These estimate that the Climate Change Agreements Scheme provided reductions in Climate Change Levy to participating organisations of £245m in 2019-20, £210m in 2020-21 and £255m in 2021-22. Organisations of all sizes have been able to participate in the scheme provided they operate an eligible process. Estimates of the total benefit for SMEs only are not available.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how much public money has been made available to small and medium-sized enterprises through the Boiler Upgrade Scheme.
Answered by Graham Stuart
The Boiler Upgrade Scheme has a budget of £450m over three years. Installers certified by the Microgeneration Certification Scheme can apply on behalf of homeowners and small business owners for grants of up to £6,000 on a first come, first served basis. Further analysis on the size of installer businesses that are benefiting from the scheme will be undertaken as part of the evaluation of the scheme.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of increasing the Companies House incorporation fee.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill gives the Government more flexibility to use fees in the future, including for investigation and enforcement activities and as a result the Government is keeping the future fees charged by Companies House under review as reforms progress. The Government will seek to ensure that the UK remains an attractive place for business, whilst also protecting the register from fraud and economic crime.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what estimate he has made of the number of companies that have been automatically struck off the Companies House register where fraudulent activity was suspected to have taken place in each of the last five years.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Companies House does not hold figures for how many companies were struck off the register where fraudulent activity was suspected.
The Registrar of Companies can only instigate action to strike a company off the register where she has reason to believe a company is no longer in business or in operation. The figures for the compulsory strike off process for the past five years are as follows:
2017-2018 | 2018-2019 | 2019-2020 | 2020-2021 | 2021-2022 |
212,334 | 216,642 | 230,931 | 165,597 | 279,913 |
The Registrar of Companies may also strike a company’s name off the register on application by a company. Table A9 of the Companies register activities: statistical release 2021 to 2022 shows the total volumes of all companies struck off and dissolved, which includes the compulsory strike off process and following an application by a company:
Companies register activities: statistical release 2021 to 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many companies have been struck off the Companies House register for instances of fraud identified by Companies House.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Companies House does not hold the figures for how many companies were struck off the register where fraudulent activity has been identified. The Registrar of Companies can commence action to strike a company off the register where she has reason to believe a company is no longer in business or in operation. The Registrar may also strike a company’s name off the register on application by the company.
Table A9 of the Companies register activities: statistical release 2021 to 2022 shows the total volumes of all companies struck off and dissolved, which includes following the compulsory strike off process and following an application by a company.
Companies register activities: statistical release 2021 to 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what estimate he has made of the number of directors who have been disqualified for fraudulent activity and have since committed further fraud offences after being disqualified, in each of the last five years.
Answered by Dean Russell
In each of the last five years the Insolvency Service has obtained the following number of director disqualifications.
18/19 - 1246
19/20 - 1285
20/21 - 981
21/22 - 803
22/23 - 441
Directors may be disqualified for a range of corporate misconduct which can include fraudulent activity. Fraudulent activity is not recorded separately and therefore the data requested is not available. However, the full details of misconduct are published by The Insolvency Service on the Directors Disqualification register at https://www.gov.uk/search-the-register-of-disqualified-company-directors.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what estimate he has made of (a) the number of Compensation Orders that have been made and (b) the total amount of funds that have been recouped from Compensation Orders in each of the last five years.
Answered by Dean Russell
In each of the last five years the Insolvency Service has obtained the following number of Compensation Orders or Undertakings under the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986 and recovered the following sums:
| Number | Amount (£) |
18/19 | 0 | 0 |
19/20 | 1 | 0 |
20/21 | 0 | 0 |
21/22 | 0 | 0 |
22/23 | 13 | £58,550 |
The data provided is Insolvency Service management information and not from official statistics.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what estimate he has made of the amount recouped to creditors other than HMRC through Compensation Orders made against directors disqualified under the powers of the Rating and Director Disqualification Act 2021 to date.
Answered by Dean Russell
The Rating and Director Disqualifications Act came into force on 15th December 2021 and gave the Insolvency Service, on behalf of the Secretary of State, the power to seek, where appropriate, disqualification and compensation orders against directors of dissolved companies.
As at 20th October 2022, the Insolvency Service has authorised disqualification and compensation order proceedings against 16 directors which are yet to be determined.
The Insolvency Service has not to date obtained a compensation order or undertaking pursuant to the aforementioned statutory power.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, for what reasons the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill requires the verification of information about company directors and Persons of Significant Controls but does not require the same for information about company shareholders.
Answered by Dean Russell
The purpose of the identity verification proposals in the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill is to provide greater confidence in the integrity of information on who owns and controls companies. Those are their directors and those who satisfy one or more of the criteria which qualify them as persons of significant control. In many companies the vast majority of shareholders are passive investors whose holdings are of insufficient size to afford them control. While it is proper that the identity of those shareholders be disclosed in publicly available registers, it would be disproportionate to require their identities to be verified.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what estimate he has made of the average number of persons of significant control in a UK company.
Answered by Dean Russell
Companies House publishes the requested figures as part of its official statistics, these can be found at the link below. The relevant table is A7.
Companies_Register_Activities_2021-22.ods (live.com)
The average number of persons of significant control for UK companies in 2021-2022 was 1.28.
The average number of shareholders for UK companies in 2021-2022 was 2.15.
The average number of directors for UK companies in 2021-2022 was 1.59.