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Company Law Reform Bill [HL]

My Lords, I support the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes. The provision is surplus to requirements, as she has quite rightly said. The statute requires the appointment of an auditor and the basis on which he reports. It has long been a tenet of our corporate law that that is a requirement. We do not have to have separate disclosure of the terms of appointment. All you will get is disclosure of a contract which tells you more about what the auditors are not doing than what they are doing, and I challenge any shareholder to interpret it. It is quite otiose to suggest that this provision is needed.