Engagement hub

The Central Registry sought views on changes to laws on registration of companies, limited partnerships and other legal entities in order bring the Island into line with the requirements of the Financial Action Task Force’s international standards.

The Registry ran a 7 week consultation on the proposals, from 27 November 2025 to 16 January 2026.

There were a total of 16 responses.

Overall there was broad support for the changes, though there were concerns in relation to the detail of some of the proposals. The main themes of the feedback included:

• The possibility of overreach in relation to the Registrar’s powers and potential regulatory overlap with the FSA
   
• Proposals regarding the timescales for provision of some of the information from companies and other legal entities
   
• Proposals relating to personal information (e.g. dates of birth); how the information is held, what extent it is public or private, and who has access to it
   
• Disclosure of nominee shareholder arrangements
   
• Requirements to declare principal business activities and locations

The Registry is grateful to all those who responded to the consultation. The Registry will take on board the feedback from this consultation in preparing the Verification of Entity Registration Bill for introduction to the Legislative Branches in April 2026 and implementation of the resultant Act in the coming months. 

This will include engagement with industry and others as the Registry seeks to bring in these changes.

The Department will also bring forward to Tynwald in May an Order which amends the definition of 'registrable beneficial owner' to ensure that the Island’s definition aligns with the FATF standard.

The Cabinet Office asked for the public’s views on the development of updated regulations for both local and national elections.

132 people responded, 120 of whom responded as individuals while 12 responded on behalf of an organisation or as part of a professional group.

The responses to our proposals for the amendment regulations were broadly supportive.

• A large majority of people (94%) were in favour of candidates’ declarations of relevant interest being published online – 84% of people said they thought it was acceptable to publish these declarations as soon as practicable after the close of nominations
   
• A large majority of people (82%) were in favour of the Cabinet Office arranging one pre-election meeting per constituency. People gave a variety of suggestions about what should be considered in arranging these meetings, including accessibility and making recordings available
   
• A large majority of people (86%) said that allowing deputy returning officers to pre-verify postal ballots was a sensible way of making the vote count quicker on election day – 80% of people said that 48 hours’ notice to candidates in advance of pre-verification would be sufficient

We are grateful to everyone who took the time to respond to this consultation. All responses were considered in full, and an anonymised summary of responses has been provided in the Consultation Response document now available online.

The responses to this consultation are being used to help inform the final drafting of the Elections (Keys and Local Authorities) (Amendment) Regulations 2026. Once finalised, it is hoped that these regulations will be put before Tynwald for approval in April or May 2026.  

The Department of Home Affairs invited feedback on the draft National Infrastructure Security Bill.

The public consultation opened on the 1 December 2025 and closed on the 9 January 2026. The Department received 13 responses to the consultation,8 of which were received via the consultation hub. The 13 responses comprised:

• 5 Members of the public
• 4 Private Companies
• 1 Government Departments, Offices or Boards
• 3 Local Authorities

There was a consensus from the responses received on the need for legislation.

Amongst the feedback, there was agreement on the definition of the National and Critical National Infrastructure and the need for a competent and technical authority. Furthermore, it is apparent that further detail on how the legislation would work in practice, some amendments to the definitions of the national and critical infrastructure, together with engagement with stakeholders when drafting regulations was requested.

The Department is grateful to the individuals and organisations who responded to the consultation. All responses received have now been analysed and used to create a consultation summary report, which has been published on this page.  This report also includes commentary in places where relevant and where respondents indicated that their response could be published or published anonymously.

The report summarises the responses received and sets out the next steps the Department intends to take following this engagement. These will include amending some of the definitions of the national and critical infrastructure and continuing to work with stakeholders to ensure that any legislation introduced is proportionate.

The work in this area will help make our Island safer and we are committed to ensuring that those who may be affected have, through this consultation, and will continue to be involved in the detailed proposals.