Lord Agnew of Oulton: To ask His Majesty's Government what is their assessment of potential unilateral recognition of EU standards to enable UK producers to satisfy EU requirements whilst continuing to sell the same products in the UK.
Lord Agnew of Oulton: To ask His Majesty's Government what is their assessment of the benefits of a veterinary agreement with the European Union against any adverse impact (1) with our other major trading partners, and (2) on the UK's regulatory reform potential.
Lord Agnew of Oulton: To ask His Majesty's Government how many titles to UK land are held by an overseas entity that is acting as a trustee, whether nominee or otherwise; and of these trusts (1) how many separate trusts are associated with those titles, (2) how many are registered with HMRC under the Trust Registration Service, and (3) of the trusts registered with HMRC under that Service, how many are taxable.
Lord Agnew of Oulton: To ask His Majesty's Government how many non-resident trusts there are with at least one UK-resident beneficiary; and how they arrived at an estimate in respect of trusts that are not required to be registered under the Trust Registration Service.
Lord Agnew of Oulton: My Lords, I support both Motion A1 and Motion B1. I turn first to my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier’s Motion and offer three reasons why I believe the Minister is completely wrong. First, the smallest SMEs include some of the most unscrupulous enablers. Take estate agents, for example: they are a conduit of bad money into this country from all over the world. The gaps that the...
Lord Agnew of Oulton: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hollick, for precipitating this debate. I declare an interest as a member of the Industry and Regulators Committee and as a farmer who holds some irrigation licences. As you will see from the report our committee published on 23 September, to any objective eye we are in a very poor place, be it by security of additional supplies, through...
Lord Agnew of Oulton: To ask His Majesty's Government how many applications for trust information from the Trust Registration Service have been (1) successful, (2) refused because the trust is exempt, (3) refused because the gateway test is not met, (4) refused because individuals are exempt, and (5) refused for other reasons, in each year the TRS has been in operation, broken down by gateway such as a legitimate...
Lord Agnew of Oulton: To ask His Majesty's Government how many trusts are registered with the Trusts Registration Service that hold UK land or property either directly or indirectly; and what is the total value of UK land and property assets held.
Lord Agnew of Oulton: My Lords, I rise briefly in support of my noble friend Lord Faulks on this amendment. I am particularly grateful to him; I was involved in the earlier amendments, but I realised that it needed a premier division lawyer rather than a second division entrepreneur to get this through. In our discussion with Ministers, we were often told that the enforcement agencies did not want this; that...
Lord Agnew of Oulton: My Lords, I shall speak in favour of my Motion D. I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for his ongoing dialogue with me as we grind to the end of this Bill: he has been patient and courteous, as ever. My problem is that the Government continue to say one thing and then do something different. Just to remind noble Lords, the reason I pressed my original amendment was that a gaping...
Lord Agnew of Oulton: My Lords, I apologise to my noble friend the Minister. I had been told that I needed to address my Motion D1 while Motion A was under discussion. I am very happy to wait but those were the instructions I had from the Table. Would anyone like to clarify?
Lord Agnew of Oulton: My Lords, I shall be very brief. First, I thank my noble and learned friend the Minister for his active engagement on this; he knows how strongly I feel about it. We have a complete mishmash on the principles of cost capping at the moment. For example, cases taken in the magistrates’ courts have cost capping, as do cases taken by the SRA. However, we do not have cost capping for the most...
Lord Agnew of Oulton: I thank my noble and learned friend the Minister for his answer. He has always been entirely consistent, and I respect that. We have a genuine difference of views. English law has plenty of exceptions to the landscape which my noble and learned friend has set out—for example, when local authorities bring cases following the Booth case, law enforcement bodies when they bring cases in the...
Lord Agnew of Oulton: My Lords, I do not seek to press this amendment. I merely say that the fraud plan, which my noble friend the Minister worked so hard on, has produced a list of some 74 commitments. I certainly am not going to add to the agony of the House and list them; all I ask my noble friend to do is to ensure that there is a mechanism for his department to track the progress of all these commitments. In...
Lord Agnew of Oulton: My Lords, I am most grateful to the Minister for his response to my opening comments on this amendment. However, I remain very concerned. I shall make four very quick points. I am very conscious that people want to get home; I was told we had to wrap things up by 7.30 pm, and we will not be far off that. First, we already know how the register is working, as we have had real-life experience...
Lord Agnew of Oulton: Okay, I will not. I shall give one example, which is golden visas. Golden visas were known for five or more years to be a conduit for bad money into this country. Everybody knew that, but it took the Treasury five years to finally close that loophole. That is why I do not like the idea of a consultation. I would like to test the opinion of the House. Ayes 171, Noes 151.
Lord Agnew of Oulton: My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendment 73A, which I apologise is a late manuscript amendment, with two supporting amendments. This is not in any way a change of the wording of my original Amendment 89, but I apologise to my noble friend the Minister that this was tabled only at around lunchtime today as I was only alerted by the Public Bill Office very late last night. To remind noble Lords...
Lord Agnew of Oulton: My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendments 63, 69 and 70. Again, I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for his engagement and for his detailed letter to me recently to allay many of my concerns. The Bill goes a long way to deal with the opacity of LLPs and LPs. It is very important that we regard them as similar in the level of transparency needed as we would consider for a company. We...
Lord Agnew of Oulton: My Lords, I thank the Minister for a very comprehensive set of government amendments. He has completely revolutionised the impact of the Bill in relation to ACSPs. I congratulate him and his staff on that. It is important to remind noble Lords about why this is so important. Around half of all company formations occur through the offices of an ACSP. Frankly, it has been a cowboy environment....
Lord Agnew of Oulton: My Lords, I support Amendments 16 and 17 from the noble Lord, Lord Vaux. I shall also speak to my Amendment 19. I do not want to repeat everything that the noble Lord has said, but I received a letter from my noble friend the Minister yesterday on this subject that included the subheading, “Transparency over shareholders and nominees”, and one of the arguments that the Government are...
