Company Law Reform Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 487A:"Page 347, line 19, at end insert—" ““(   )   any application or other document delivered to the registrar under section (Application to registrar to make address unavailable for public inspection) (application to make address unavailable for public inspection) and any address in respect of which such an application is successful;”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, I move Amendment No. 487A and speak to Amendment No. 487C. During our debate last week about the new scheme for protecting directors’ residential addresses, my noble friend Lord Sainsbury explained that the Government intended to lay an amendment that would provide a power to make regulations specifying circumstances in which a director’s—or indeed anyone’s—address may be removed from the public record. These amendments fulfil that promise. Under the new scheme introduced by our earlier amendments, a new director’s home address will be protected. But there will continue to be an historic record with the home addresses of most of those who are directors when the Bill comes into force—and indeed of those who have previously been directors. In the vast majority of cases, removing an address from the record held by Companies House would serve little purpose: once an address has been placed on the public record, it immediately becomes widely available through a myriad of secondary sources. What has once been published cannot be made secret. The genie cannot be put back in the bottle. Nevertheless, we do recognise that there may be circumstances in which the continued appearance of a person’s address on the public record held by Companies House is undesirable, possibly because it puts those who live there at serious risk. In reality this is only likely if, for some reason, the address is not also easily available elsewhere from other sources. On the other hand, those at risk are not only directors. For example, former directors and the families of deceased directors may be equally at risk. Therefore the amendments provide power to specify who may apply for their address to be taken off the public record. We intend to consult over draft regulations later this year so that they can be brought into force at the same time as the provisions providing protection for directors’ home addresses. I am grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Freeman, Lord Hodgson and Lord Jenkin, for their withdrawing Amendments Nos. 112 to 114 and No.117. 1 hope they agree that this amendment meets their concerns. I beg to move. On Question, amendment agreed to.