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Company Law Reform Bill [Lords]

I will give way to all Members who are standing, but I want first to answer the points that have already been made. The second point that my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth made is also important. It is vital that we in this House make it clear to whom a director is responsible. We do not want a director to be responsible to everybody in theory, but in fact to nobody. That would result in good directors—people acting in the best of faith and with the best will in the world—being unclear what they are supposed to do and to whom they are answerable. Bad directors—if I might use that term loosely—could easily play one side off against the other. Those who actually have to operate the law—all Members present must have received letters on this issue—get extremely fed up when Parliament puts on the statute book a measure that is not clear. The main knock-down point is that such a provision would not achieve the very things that many people behind the Trade Justice Movement want to achieve. I do not want a British company to look at British law and say, ““If that is the case, I shall incorporate in France, where perhaps there are not quite so many restraints.”” The Bill strikes a sensible balance that meets people’s legitimate concern that directors should have an explicit duty to consider all such issues, but at the same time, it is clear and workable.