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Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill

I do not accept any of those propositions. It will be possible to devise a register—we have devoted a great deal of thought to this—to ensure that individual privacy is respected. We do not want the kind of invasion of privacy that occurred, for example, with life sciences companies in respect of animal testing. That is exactly the kind of problem we wish to avoid. We have discussed this extensively with business groups. We do not believe that it will have a negative effect on investment; we think that the opposite is the case, because honest, transparent transactions will be acknowledged.

Indeed, moving to an open register is a process that many organisations, including business organisations, welcome. The hon. Gentleman’s starting point is quite right: the vast majority of companies are completely honest and therefore have absolutely nothing to fear from an open register.