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Company Law Reform Bill [HL]

My Lords, as I indicated when we debated the other amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, on the audit of charitable companies, we are going to consider removing small charitable companies from requirements in the Companies Acts to have audits, leaving their audit regime to charity law—even more so in the light of the earlier decision of this House on Amendment No. 223. In the meantime, the two government amendments, Amendments Nos. 290 and 293, simply bring the thresholds for charitable companies into line with the thresholds in the Charities Bill currently before Parliament. Notwithstanding the earlier decision on reporting accountants, I do not believe it would be appropriate to change these thresholds in the way proposed in the noble Lord’s amendment. The government amendments would bring them into line with the thresholds in the Charities Bill. To go any further at this stage and in this way risks creating confusion. Nevertheless, we agree to consider whether, and if so how, to bring the audit requirements for small charitable companies into line with those applying to unincorporated charities.