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Company Law Reform Bill [Lords]

I am sorry, I must decline to give way. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman wants me to advise him on the machinery of tax evasion. If so, I am not qualified to do so. I would rather not sit down, as I would have to if I took an intervention; I apologise. Why should companies not be required to publish their tax computations? At present, companies keep at least two sets of books. There is one set to fool the shareholders and another set to fool the tax authorities. Perhaps there is another set of books to set out the true state of affairs, so that it is known how much to loot from the company. Why should not those books be published? Why should the tax computations not be published at the same time as the official financial publications? That would allow non-government organisations and the public to invigilate and investigate what companies are doing. It would seem that the task is too great for Revenue and Customs. Companies should also be required to publish in their reports their transfer pricing policy. That is the way in which money is fiddled and laundered from one section of a company to another. The Bill is supposedly to deal with openness and accountability. We are all told that we have a shareholder democracy and that it is the responsibility of shareholders to ensure that their companies are properly run. That is a myth, because only the big funds can take a close interest in and have influence in a company, but they have much more interest in spreading their investment than in invigilating any particular company. The small shareholders are not organised and do not have the time or information—and are also steamrollered by proxy voting. It is useless to think of shareholder democracy being effective. We must therefore strengthen reporting requirements so that the public, NGOs, the universities and the press have access to what is going on, and can therefore comment and report on it. Various suggestions have been made about environmental duties, responsibilities to the developing world and to world trade—and fair trade. It is my view that there should be publication of wages and salaries from top to bottom, with the numbers in each grouping. We should have information about training policies and investment policies, because a company is responsible for improving its work force. We should have information about perks and pay-offs. Mainly, we should have information about all the things that contribute to building up a strong, healthy and competitive company that involves its workers and makes a contribution to the economy and to the nation. I am disappointed that there is so little requirement to increase reporting in all those respects. Changes to that effect should be moved, and no doubt will be moved at a later stage. The Bill is useful in small ways. It will accomplish some things, but my main feeling is disappointment that it does so little, particularly in tackling the major problems of the transformation of British companies from production machines to money-spinning machines in a financial bonanza. Unless we ensure that there is better, more effective control and regulation, we are paving the way for a series of scandals. If auditors, companies and boards are kept up to the highest standards they will cheat, and the resulting failure and collapse will be blamed on the Government, and our failure to intervene at this stage and regulate effectively.