My hon Friend the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Small Business, Consumers and Corporate Responsibility (Kelly Tolhurst) has today made the following statement:
The Government has today published its response to the report of the Joint Committee on the Draft Registration of Overseas Entities Bill.
The draft Bill was published on 23 July 2018 to enable pre-legislative scrutiny. The Joint Committee formed for the purpose of scrutinising the draft Bill was established in February 2019 and published their report on 20 May 2019. The report was supportive of the Bill and its intentions, concluding that it is “timely, worthwhile, and, in large part, well drafted”. The Government welcomes the Committee’s report and thanks the Committee’s Chair and members for their detailed scrutiny of the draft Bill. The scrutiny process has been valuable and the Government has accepted a number of the Committee’s recommendations and will be giving serious consideration to others to ensure that the legislation is as effective as possible in tackling the use of UK property for money laundering purposes by improving the transparency of property ownership.
A copy of this Government response will be laid before both Houses.