Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the ability of Companies House to verify that a company registering with Companies House complies with the EU's fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive.

The EU’s Fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive requires Member States to ensure that companies in their jurisdictions obtain and hold information on their beneficial owners. The UK’s register of company beneficial owners, the People with Significant Control register, went live in June 2016, and UK companies have been required to obtain, hold and provide to Companies House their beneficial ownership information. The UK’s anti-money laundering regime is currently being evaluated by the Financial Action Task Force, which will report in due course. Following this evaluation, the Government will actively consider areas where the anti-money laundering framework can be improved. The Government will look in particular at controls over who registers companies in the UK, what information they have to provide, and how assurance is provided over that information.