§ Mr. CabornTo ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what are the particular grounds he uses to assess whether to agree to an application from a company to withhold information on any foreign subsidiaries from its public records, according to schedule 5(10) to the Companies Act 1985.
§ Mr. MaudeThe criterion against which the Secretary of State considers application for exemption from disclosure is whether the disclosure of the information would be prejudicial to exports or to overseas earnings.
§ Mr. CabornTo ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster how many companies he has granted permission to withhold information from their public records on subsidiaries registered in South Africa or subsidiaries whose business is in South Africa in each year since the passage of the Companies Act 1985.
§ Mr. MaudeIn order to protect the information for which the provisions for non-disclosure were made, and for reasons of commercial confidentiality, I do not consider it appropriate to provide a breakdown of the published statistics relating to these applications.
§ Mr. CabornTo ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster how many companies have applied to him for permission to withhold information from their public records on any of their foreign subsidiaries on the ground that presentation of this information would be harmful to the business of the company, according to the provision of schedule 5(10) to the Companies Act 1985, and how many companies have received such permission in each of the years since the passage of the Act.
§ Mr. MaudeStatistics of applications made under schedule 5 to the Companies Act 1985 are published annually in the report laid before Parliament in accordance with section 729 of the Act. Copies are available in the Library.