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Company Law Reform Bill [Lords]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I did not mean to make light of the point. I think that the anger expressed by the right hon. Gentleman was felt throughout the country by people who paid attention, in the commercial sector, the trade unions and the campaigning movements. It was a hugely retrograde step. I shall say more about it, as, I am sure, will my colleagues. In my interventions on the Secretary of State thus far, I have been remiss in not welcoming him to his position and congratulating him. Some say that his new post is a preparation for another that he will occupy in due course. We enjoyed hearing the emollient tones for which he became famous in his previous Department. When he was Chief Secretary to the Treasury and I shadowed him, he was slightly less emollient, but I am sure that he was pleased to begin his new job by presenting a Bill that commands a great deal of consensus. On behalf of the Liberal Democrats, I can give the Bill a warm welcome. The enlightened shareholder value that is at its heart represents exactly the right approach. The deregulatory aspects are incredibly welcome; the concept ““think small first”” is incredibly important, taking company law to a new generation and recognising that modern companies are normally relatively small. The simplicity is also incredibly important. Even non-lawyers such as me can read some of the Bill and understand it. I doubt that I would have been able to understand the earlier Companies Acts. Some have criticised the process adopted by the Government for being lengthy, but I think that that probably resulted in the quality of the legislation. The procedures here and in the other place have shown both Houses working at their best. There is no doubt that the Bill deserves the support of the whole House tonight. On occasions such as this, however, we have to highlight a few of the differences between us. I want to discuss two, relating to the environmental, community and social aspects. We have one difference with the Chancellor, and another with the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron). In the context of two key aspects of the Bill, those would-be emperors have no clothes. In relation to corporate accountability reporting, the Chancellor was originally fully clothed, but at the CBI conference that I mentioned earlier he performed a very unsightly striptease. To please the crowd, he threw off an election promise to make firms report properly on their activities and their impact on the environment. That was a huge disappointment, and I think that the Chancellor will rue the day. He often likes to portray himself as the champion of poorer nations and of the environment, but in this important instance he was found lacking. I consider the Government’s U-turn on OFRs to be not just a retrograde step but a huge missed opportunity. I welcome some of the moves in the other place to strengthen the business reviews that we were already going to have as a result of the European Union directive on modernisation of accounts, but the strengthening has not gone far enough. We want the OFRs back, as they were originally proposed by the Government, and that is what we shall argue for. As for the Leader of the Opposition, some of us doubt whether he ever had any clothes when it came to corporate accountability and the environment, but the Tory peers have left him stark naked by voting to oppose the requirement for directors to have regard to the impact of companies’ operations on the community and the environment. That was astonishing.