Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to paragraph 11 of his consultation document on the draft Register of Overseas Entities Bill relating to information for the public register on the beneficial ownership of companies that bid for public contracts, what thresholds he is considering for those contracts.

The Government has decided that the most effective way to achieve the required level of transparency on overseas entity beneficial ownership is to require information about beneficial ownership as a condition of awarding contracts that meet certain conditions or thresholds, and that this will enable the public and interested parties to easily identify the beneficial owners of entities awarded central government contracts. The information about beneficial ownership that will be required, will be equivalent to that proposed for the Register of Overseas Entities, and it will be published in an equally transparent way.

The Government is currently considering mechanisms including the Contracts Finder service (currently used to publish contract award information) to achieve this. A financial threshold for applying the policy on publishing beneficial ownership information has not yet been decided and will be subject to a Government consultation.