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Company Law Reform Bill [HL]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply and all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, for not having fully explained the amendment. I dealt with my amendment in a rather shortened form on the basis that several of us here had been through it in Grand Committee and did not need to hear it all again, and I focused on the one point that I wanted to put to the Minister today. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Sharman, for his support. I take the point raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, about subsection (2). I think that he will find that the Government’s amendments, which are currently in draft, deal with that point. We wait to see what the Government will produce. I would like to think about updating in greater detail. The US provisions have an explicit non-updating provision, which is why a number of people will be looking for one. Forward-looking statements expose directors to a greater degree of susceptibility to potential update and raise different issues from, say, updating judgments that were in the audited accounts where a line is necessarily drawn to produce financial statements. I was disappointed at the Minister’s hint that the clauses would not be ready for Third Reading, which is only a couple of weeks away. I said in my opening remarks that we would not want the Bill to go to the other place without a safe harbour provision. So I hope that the Government will feel able to table for Third Reading—