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Company Law Reform Bill [HL]

My Lords, I will make a few general remarks because, from people’s comments, it might be thought that I was in some way resisting something put forward by Members of this House to deal with this problem, as though it were not a major problem as far as I was concerned. Because I look after the biosciences and the pharmaceutical industries in the DTI, I have been dealing with this issue for five years now. For noble Lords to come to this House and say that we have a problem here, simply on the basis of what has happened this morning with GlaxoSmithKline, shows that they have not been following this issue for the past five years. It has been a major issue. As a Government, we have introduced the substantial legislation required to deal with the economic damage situation. This is not a question of sharing the views of noble Lords on our objectives, but of saying that I probably feel more strongly about it than other Members of this House.