To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform how many fines Companies House has imposed on small and medium-sized companies for late submission of accounts in the last (a) six and (b) 12 months. (266810)

As provided for in section 242A of the Companies Act 1985 and section 453 of the Companies Act 2006, all accounts which are delivered late to the Registrar of Companies are subject to a late filing penalty. Over the past six months, 137,029 sets of accounts were delivered late. Over the past 12 months, 255,012 sets of accounts were delivered late. This reflects the fact that, of the 1,903,595 sets of accounts delivered to the Registrar over the last 12 months, 87 per cent. were delivered on time.

The Companies Act does not require a company to identify itself as “large”, “medium” or “small”. It is not therefore possible to say how many of these penalties were incurred by small or medium-sized companies.