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Company Law Reform Bill [HL]

My Lords, I had better set the record right rather quickly on this and speak to Amendment No. 13 rather than moving on. I was so carried away by the speed at which we were going through the amendments that I skipped this one. Amendment No. 13 does two things. It removes some duplication in the existing drafting of Clause 19 and reinstates an important requirement of the 1985 Act about the format of companies’ articles. Clause 19(3) states that a company’s articles are part of its constitution. That is of course true, but only a few lines earlier Clause 18(a) says that unless the context requires otherwise, references in the Companies Act to a company’s constitution include its articles. On reflection, we propose to remove the current Clause 19(3) as unnecessary duplication. Section 7(3)(b) of the 1985 Act requires that a company’s articles are to be divided into paragraphs numbered consecutively. This is a sensible and long-standing requirement of UK company law, which is helpful to companies and persons searching the public register alike, and we wish to preserve it. On Question, amendment agreed to. Clause 21 [Default application of model articles]: