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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to conduct checks to ensure the transparency of those registering overseas entities.

On 1 March, the Government introduced the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill. The Bill will legislate for a new Register of Overseas Entities that will require overseas companies owning or buying property in the UK to provide information about their beneficial owners to Companies House.

Beneficial owners and managing officers of overseas entities will be required to verify their information with a UK professional who is supervised for anti-money laundering purposes, otherwise their registration will be refused. As such, information will be verified at the point of registration, annually as part of the updating duty, and at the point of removal from the register.