My Lords, I just make the point that this amendment is not in my name, as was previously suggested, although I rather wish it was. I thank my noble friend Lord Flight for that back-handed compliment.
It is worth recalling that the PSC register in the UK in fact relies on self-reporting information that is not subject to independent verification. My noble friend the Minister indicated that it will be accurate because it is public but I struggle to rationalise that. The important point is that it is not subject to independent verification and, as my noble friend Lord Flight mentioned, that does not comply with Financial Action Task Force recommendations 24 and 25. None the less, that is the chosen route of Her Majesty’s Government and one has to consider the ramifications of allowing full public access to this unverified data. It means that people will take as read information supplied by companies, which of course could be completely incorrect, and they will assume that, as it is on an official register, it has validation when it is not the case. While recognising that tax and law authorities must and should—
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