Lord Fox (LD)

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his explanation. For those of us who worked on the economic crime Bills, this is a welcome development. I am interested in the timeline, because it seems some time ago that we debated the Bill, which I believe has become an Act, and we find ourselves looking to the autumn of 2025 before some of these vital identity-verification processes will reach the statute book. I certainly do not blame the Minister, because he is new to this, but what is behind the delay and how many more statutory instruments are we due? I think there are still quite a few on the stocks. When can we expect them and what functions will they unlock? When we debated the original Bill, I think we all felt this to be a real and present issue that needed immediate, or near-immediate, attention. Clearly, things are dragging on and I wonder what is causing that. Further to the noble Lord’s comments about the functioning of Companies House, we were absolutely clear that this would be a culture change for Companies House, which will cease to be a filing cabinet and start having to investigate and verify what is coming across its desk. The previous Minister was confident that funding was in place and that the process to create that new culture was under way. We would benefit from the new set of eyes from the Minister, if not now then perhaps in a separate meeting where we can review the functioning, including the future functioning, of Companies House—a follow-on from the meetings that were so helpful during the formulation of the Bill.