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Company Law Reform Bill [HL]

My name is also attached to this group of amendments. Previous speakers have covered most of the points, but I should like to add a strategic point. As the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, implied, we are in an era when what was once regarded as the responsibility of the public sector to deliver has increasingly, with all-party support, effectively been assigned to the private sector not just as sub-contractors to the public sector but as good citizens with full corporate social responsibility. In those circumstances it is important that reporting mechanisms reflect those obligations undertaken by large quoted companies. My noble friend Lady Thornton indirectly expressed disappointment at the dropping of the OFR regulations. One can understand some of the reasons behind that, but when they were dropped there was also reference to the business review requirements in effect bringing back many of the more important aspects of the OFR without gold-plating them. We contend that the way in which the Bill is drafted does not fully implement the European requirements in that respect and misses some of the important social implications of what was previously in the OFR. Many of us, not just in the environmental movement or the trade unions but also in the investor community, find it difficult to understand why those elements of the OFR provisions are not now to be pursued. In those circumstances, and given the wider role that we now expect of private sector companies, I hope that the Government will at least seriously consider the arguments that lie behind the amendments, even if they are not prepared to accept their precise wording.