Part 1 of the Bill makes provisions to set up a register of overseas entities and their beneficial owners, and requires overseas entities who own land in the UK to register in certain circumstances. The purpose behind these provisions is to combat economic crime, by requiring anonymous foreign owners of UK property to reveal their real identities to ensure criminals cannot hide behind chains of shell companies. We have identified at least 23 provisions that confer new delegated powers (not including the powers to make commencement, transitional and saving provisions). Of these, seven include powers that can be exercised to amend primary legislation (‘Henry VIII powers’).

Part 2 of the Bill makes provisions to reform Unexplained Wealth Orders by amending the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.

Part 3 of the Bill makes provisions about breaches of financial sanctions by amending the Policing and Crime Act 2017. These Parts contain no provisions that confer new delegated powers.

• Clause 14: Sections 12 and 13: supplementary

• Clause 17: Power to modify application process etc in certain cases

• Clause 23: Disclosure of protected information

• Clause 38: Financial penalties

The exercise of the powers in the first three clauses is subject to the ‘negative’ parliamentary scrutiny procedure. In all three cases we recommend that parliamentarians should seek to amend the clauses so that the higher ‘affirmative’ scrutiny procedure applies. The briefing provides a suggested amendment to achieve this in each case.

The fourth and final clause of concern relates to the imposition of a financial penalty. Where the penalty for an offence may be set by delegated legislation, the maximum penalty that can be imposed should be set out on the face of the Bill. The Bill does not do this, so the briefing provides a suggested amendment to achieve this objective.

Vangimalla, D. (2022) The Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill: Delegated Powers (London: Hansard Society)