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Company Law Reform Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. A253A: "Page 408, line 37, leave out ““Part”” and insert ““Act””" The noble Baroness said: This is the last amendment to Part 33, in Committee at least. It amends the ““minor definitions”” Clause 857 by replacing ““Part”” in the first line with ““Act””. It is a probing amendment designed to find out how the various definition clauses and schedules are meant to fit together. Part 33 has its own definition clauses in Clauses 857 and 858 but there are general definition clauses in Clauses 766 and 767 which, in part at least, overlap with Clauses 857 and 858. I noticed the point when probing the definition of the word ““firm”” at an earlier Committee sitting when we were dealing with Part 16. The Minister pointed the Committee in the direction of Clause 766. However, Clause 857 also has a definition of the word ““firm””, in subsection (1), and that definition is included in the index of definitions in Clause 858. There are other duplications, for example in relation to ““director””, ““parent undertaking””, ““holding company”” and so on. The purpose of my probing amendment is to invite the Government to streamline the Bill by eliminating unnecessary duplication between the Bill’s definition clauses and schedules. The Bill is quite hard enough to understand without having to see whether definitions in different places are subtly different. I beg to move.