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Company Law Reform Bill [HL]

My Lords, I rise to support the noble Baroness on Amendments Nos. 316, and also to speak in support of Amendments Nos. 317 to 319. These are technical improvements, the need for which we accepted when it was pointed out by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, in Grand Committee, and we are grateful to her for that. The amendments bring the wording of the duty on auditors to look into whether a company has ““proper”” accounting records into line with Part 15, which places a duty on the company to keep ““adequate”” accounting records. There is no need to specify that the meaning is the same as in Part 15, and, as there is no need, it is better not to. There is the possibility that making it explicit here might cast doubt on other places where we expect the same words to have the same meaning. I am happy to reassure the noble Baroness that we believe that Amendment No. 320 is unnecessary, and that the matter is already covered by the other amendments.