My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for the welcome. To deal first with the typing error on page 2, it should read 250 fund managers, not 600. As I said in my opening remarks, we estimate that there are 250 fund managers managing 780 funds. I shall address some of the other issues that she raised. If I do not cover them all—some of them were quite technical—perhaps I may write to her to fill in the gaps.
She mentioned the concerns of stakeholders and Scottish funds. She is quite right: a range of stakeholders raised concerns which the Government listened to, and we amended the order in several areas in response to their feedback. We took into account the views of Scottish stakeholders, including the Law Society of Scotland, while developing the order. On the broader concern expressed about Scottish limited partnerships being used for fraud, the Government have to stakeholders’ concerns and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy recently launched a call for evidence on the issue, covering all forms of limited partnerships, including these. The Government are committed to implementing any consequent reforms in respect of private fund limited partnerships, as well as other partnerships.
The noble Baroness asks why we did not postpone the order until we had the results of that survey. Strike-off procedure is an issue for wider limited partnership policy, and any process for removing partnerships from the register would need to apply to both private fund limited partnerships and other forms of partnerships. BEIS recently launched a call evidence looking at the possibility of limited partnerships being used for criminal activity—a subject I mentioned a moment ago. The call for evidence closes on Friday 17 March, and BEIS will consider what further action is necessary. In answer to her direct question—why did we not wait?—the Government’s view was that it was important to press ahead with this package of amendments now because competing jurisdictions are acting quickly. Luxembourg updated legislation in 2013; France and Cyprus are introducing measures now; and UK withdrawal from the EU makes this reform timely. That is why we decided to go ahead now.
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The noble Baroness asked about the white list. It clarifies the existing position for limited partners. It does not extend the activities that partners can undertake. In answer to the noble Baroness’s question, we do not expect to undertake a further review of the white list at this stage, as it is both clarificatory and illustrative. We used the proposals from the Law Commission report of 2003 as a basis for the policy. We consulted the stakeholders on that list and some adjustments have been made—for example, clarification that limited partners cannot wind up the partnerships themselves in any circumstances.
The noble Baroness asked some other questions, and I hope it is acceptable to her and noble Lords if I write to her about them. In the meantime, I commend the order to the Committee.