Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whether he has considered adding a VAT number field to the Companies House online register to help tackle (a) corporate fraud and (b) tax evasion.

Companies House is working with HMRC and Insolvency Service to identify the outcomes required to achieve an impact on the drivers of tax evasion, and assess the activities and resources required to deliver those outcomes. This expands on existing work that is strengthening our ability to target abuse of the register and tax system, increasing our ability to tackle tax evasion with greater visibility and accuracy of customer data. This work involves intelligence sharing between the organisations, and informs Companies House’s ongoing threat assessment.

We have no plans at present to require companies to provide VAT numbers to Companies House.