Non-UK Residents: Property Ownership Register

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I apologise to the noble Baroness, but I cannot. The Government’s legislative agenda is not fixed yet. There are a number of different measures that different departments want to put forward and there has to be a weeding-out process, as all noble Lords who have been involved in government will know.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister not recognise the total contradiction between a commitment to take back control and reassert UK sovereignty and encouraging foreign investment, but to be owned anonymously by powerful and dubious men from authoritarian countries, in substantial chunks of London and the countryside around it?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I realise the Liberal Democrats are obsessed with the EU, but this has nothing to do with it. The two events are totally separate. We could implement ROBO whether or not we were members of the EU. We are intending to implement the register of beneficial ownership when parliamentary time allows.