Draft Register of Overseas Entities (Protection and Trusts) and Limited Liability Partnerships (Application of Company Law) (Amendment) Regulations 2026

Peter Fortune Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2026 General Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Blair McDougall)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Register of Overseas Entities (Protection and Trusts) and Limited Liability Partnerships (Application of Company Law) (Amendment) Regulations 2026.

These regulations, which were laid in draft before this House on 1 June 2026, make targeted and technical amendments to strengthen the transparency and operation of the register of overseas entities, which I will refer to as the ROE or the register from here. They also correct a separate technical issue relating to limited liability partnerships, or LLPs.

Hon. Members will be aware that the ROE was introduced in 2022 as part of the Government’s efforts to increase transparency in land ownership and combat economic crime. It is a public register maintained by Companies House that requires overseas entities that own or acquire land in the United Kingdom to disclose information about their beneficial owners or managing officers.

The register plays an important role in shedding light on complex ownership structures and in supporting action against illicit activity. Information on the register has been used by law enforcement, journalists and other parties examining corruption, money laundering and assets held by sanctioned individuals.

Appropriate safeguards are in place through a protection regime that includes the ability to apply to Companies House to have a home address removed from the register. As part of the application, individuals are required to provide supporting evidence to confirm that the address on the register is indeed their residential address. However, in most cases, the registrar is able to identify and verify that information internally. Furthermore, there is currently no requirement for applicants to provide a replacement correspondence address. This results in a gap in the information available on the public register.

[Peter Fortune (Bromley and Biggin Hill) (Con)]

I agree with the principles put forward in the regulations, but I am a little concerned about the regulations allowing overseas beneficial owners to suppress their residential address. Could the Minister reassure us on how the Government will prevent dirty money from flowing into the UK?

[Blair McDougall]

Yes, I will come on to that. The hon. Gentleman will hopefully find reassurance shortly that that information will still be gathered.

Part 2 of these regulations streamlines the application process; applicants will no longer be required to provide supporting evidence when applying to remove a home address that appears on the public ROE. This removes an unnecessary administrative burden for applicants. The regulations also introduce a requirement for applicants to provide a replacement service address to be displayed on the public register, except in very limited circumstances. Taken together, these changes bring the ROE protection regime more closely in line with the approach taken with UK companies.

Part 3 of the regulations includes changes to the ROE’s trust disclosure service, which enables members of the public to apply to Companies House to access unpublished trust information held on the register. Under the current application process, individuals must provide their own details, as well as the overseas entity’s name and ID number. These details relating to the entity are publicly available on the register. However, applicants must also provide the name of the trust that they are requesting information on. The name of the trust is not publicly available on the register, and many applicants are therefore unlikely to have this information, which leads to rejected applications.

In addition, where an application relates to trust information involving a person under the age of 18, the applicant must demonstrate a legitimate interest. This is demonstrated by evidencing that the applicant is investigating money laundering, tax evasion, terrorist financing or sanctions breaches. However, currently, when that is not demonstrated, all associated trust information is withheld, including information relating to adults, so those requirements can act as a barrier to accessing trust information and limit the effectiveness of the service.

The instrument therefore makes two targeted changes to the trust disclosure service to improve public access while maintaining appropriate safeguards. First, it removes the requirement for all applicants to provide the name of the trust when requesting access to trust information. This addresses a key barrier for making a successful application.

Secondly, the instrument makes a further change where trust information involves a person under the age of 18. Where legitimate interest is not demonstrated, the regulations enable Companies House to disclose trust information related to any individual over 18 years old. This ensures that access to information is not unnecessarily restricted because an individual under 18 years old is associated with the trust. Access to trust information relating to those aged under 18 will continue to require a legitimate interest. Together these changes improve the transparency of trust information on the register and enable more effective scrutiny while maintaining appropriate protection for minors.

Finally, part 4 of the instrument makes a limited and technical correction to the LLP framework. The requirement to provide additional address information in certain circumstances was inadvertently introduced ahead of schedule. The instrument therefore removes the requirement for LLPs to provide additional address information. However, this requirement will be reinstated once appropriate systems are in place to collect the information for companies and LLPs, and work is ongoing to achieve that. In the meantime, other address information is available on the public register for all LLPs.

Taken together, these measures improve the transparency and practical operation of the ROE while resolving a small but necessary technical issue relating to LLPs. I commend the draft regulations to the House.

Ground-mounted Solar Panels: Alternatives

Peter Fortune Excerpts

Tuesday 14th April 2026 Westminster Hall

[Lincoln Jopp]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point. I hope other Members will come forward with their own preferred alternatives to land-based systems, because there are others.

[Peter Fortune (Bromley and Biggin Hill) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a characteristically brilliant speech—the jokes get better each time we hear them. Does he agree that there are other types of provision? My area of interest is space-based solar power provision, which could provide the same sorts of solutions without taking up precious agricultural land.

[Lincoln Jopp]

As the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the shadow Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, my hon. Friend is only too well placed to talk about that. As his Whip, I can only say that his jokes get better too.

Royal Mail: Performance

Peter Fortune Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Peter Fortune (Bromley and Biggin Hill) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Twigg. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Exmouth and Exeter East (David Reed) on securing this important debate. Like all Members here, I have received a significant amount of correspondence from constituents—by email, I hasten to add—who are concerned about the performance of Royal Mail.

To be clear, I do not lay the blame at the feet of the posties; their hard work, day in and day out, is vital. However, delivery delays are having a huge impact on my constituents’ lives, and I will raise some of their concerns today. I have had numerous reports of areas in Bromley and Biggin Hill that my constituents receive only one delivery of letters a week, while parcels seem to be delivered with no delays. When letters do arrive, they are bundled together—sometimes a week’s worth in one go. One constituent even described a Christmas card being delivered three months late.

I appreciate that not all letters are time sensitive, but an issue of particular concern that has been raised by other hon. Members is whether NHS appointment letters are lost or delayed. One lady preparing for an ophthalmology appointment expected to receive a letter in advance to explain what she needed to do to prepare, but it arrived after the appointment.

Another of my constituents explained that her husband was recently referred for a CT scan, and subsequently heard nothing about when the appointment was scheduled for. When they phoned the hospital, they discovered that a letter with an appointment date was sent to them four months previously. They never received that letter, so they naturally did not keep the appointment.

Bromley and Biggin Hill is not in the middle of nowhere. It simply should not be the case that my constituents are waiting for weeks for letters to be delivered. I hope that the Minister can provide some clarity on what can be done to ensure my constituents receive the service they deserve and need from the Royal Mail.

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Fortune Excerpts

Thursday 30th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Blair McDougall]

I know my hon. Friend is a great believer in Leigh and Atherton’s untapped potential, and so are we. We have launched the small business strategy, with action on late payments, action to unlock access to finance, and better, simpler support through the business growth hub. In addition to that, Leigh will receive £20 million through the pride in place programme. I know my hon. Friend fought hard for that on her community’s behalf.

[Peter Fortune (Bromley and Biggin Hill) (Con)]

My constituency has nearly 5,000 SMEs, all of which are facing increasing business rates and taxes, threatening jobs and growth. Will the Minister signal his support for SMEs by following the Conservative party’s lead and completely abolishing business rates for pubs and restaurants on the high street?

Department for Business and Trade

Peter Fortune Excerpts

Wednesday 5th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Peter Fortune (Bromley and Biggin Hill) (Con)]

I regularly meet business owners big and small across Bromley and Biggin Hill. The story is the same no matter who I talk to, be it big franchisees, independent care providers or small family-owned start-ups: British businesses do not feel supported by this Labour Government. Instead, they feel hamstrung by Labour’s tax rises and red tape. The Department for Business and Trade’s budget may be over £3.3 billion, but any business will say that things are getting worse, not better, under Labour.

I have lost count of the number of local enterprises who have told me that they have stopped recruiting, and are making redundancies, delaying investment and increasing prices, all after Labour’s tax-raising budget. That should not come as a surprise to the Government. Hiking employers’ national insurance contributions by £25 billion will cost jobs. Imposing reams of new employment red tape will deter businesses from hiring. There may only be one Cabinet member who has started their own business, but this is simple stuff. If they make it more expensive and difficult to hire and grow, businesses will not hire or grow. That is what anti-business, anti-growth Government look like. Labour’s policies are causing economic growth to slow down, unemployment to rise fast and inflation to increase again.

Bromley and Biggin Hill has nearly 4,800 small businesses. They are the lifeblood of the local economy. If they thrive, our community succeeds. If they fail, our community suffers. But Labour is making their jobs harder, as it is for small businesses across the country. A new survey by the Federation of Small Businesses shows that a third of small employers plan to cut jobs, with nine in 10 worried about Labour’s Employment Rights Bill. Small business confidence has also fallen to a record low because of the pandemic, with confidence among small firms plummeting more in London than in any other English region. This Labour Government are not helping businesses to deliver economic growth; instead, they are taxing them to the very brink.