My Lords, I share the sentiment expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, about the contribution that the noble Lord, Lord Watson, has made to this debate. I thank other noble Lords for this group of amendments which are in the spirit of ensuring that the register is effective and informative, which is what we all want. I hope I have understood noble Lords’ various concerns correctly.
I fully support the objectives expressed. We must have a single source of easily accessible information on the individuals who exercise significant control over our companies. However, reform has to be proportionate. It should not come at the cost of imposing unnecessary burdens on business. We have heard very persuasively, particularly from the Government Benches, how important this is. As I will explain with concrete figures, some of these amendments would impose additional costs which I am not sure we could justify because I am not convinced that there would be corresponding additional benefits. I shall explain that.
The noble Lord, Lord Watson, asked about when the outcome of our consultation on corporate directors will be known. We will try to write to the noble Lord before Report with the key findings.
On Amendment 37, the Government agree that information in the PSC register must be accurate, but I do not think we need an extra regulation-making power to ensure that that is the case. I am confident that the existing measures we have in place, and those we will introduce through the Bill, can already deliver noble Lords’ intentions. These measures include: criminal penalties for the provision of false information; public scrutiny of the information; and multiple checks pre and post registration at Companies House. To give just one example, in 2013-14, 9 million submissions underwent multiple checks by Companies House, resulting in nearly 400,000 being rejected. If we were to go further—for example, by requiring companies to use third parties to verify data before their annual filings at Companies House—our provisional estimates for the first year would be in the region of £400 million to
over £1 billion, with a further cost of £300 million to £900 million per year thereafter. It is potentially a big bill.
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