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Company Law Reform Bill [Lords]

The hon. Lady ought to read the debates carefully and see the basis on which Members of the House of Lords sought to discuss those issues. I shall come to them. I am dealing now with the non-appearance of the OFR and the belief that those bits make up for it. We need the OFR. The Government say that they cannot demonstrate leadership in that respect because companies will go elsewhere. I want to say something tough to the Minister, which will not be loved by all members of my party. One of the things we ought to be doing is taking a lead in the European Union. I have not heard the Government say they want an OFR—but a more detailed one—for every part of the EU. What about us setting in Europe the same standards as the United States seems able to do in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act? That is enforced throughout the world, whether we like it or not. The United States does not say, ““Oh dear, we can’t do that. It would be very embarrassing.”” Of course not. It has, admittedly, an unpleasant imperialistic way of doing it, but it says, ““This is what we’re going to do,”” and it does it because it thinks that is right for the United States. The OFR is right for Britain. I happen to think it is right for Europe. I would like the whole of Europe to have a sensible policy towards corporate social responsibility, and I would like it to be possible to understand how companies throughout the European Union operate, in order that when people wish to invest their own money, their pension money or other people’s money, they can do so with the safety of knowing that the company knows not just about its financial risks, but about its non-financial risks. That leads me to the attitude of business. I took the opportunity of intervening on my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan) on the subject of the IOD. There is a difference between the business leaders who have understood that issues of corporate social responsibility, particularly environmental and social attitudes, are part of the future and necessary for our competitiveness, and those who are still stuck in the past. My hon. Friend is a wise man and in his discussions will, I know, distinguish between those two groups. I shall merely tell him of my experience when I was Secretary of State for the Environment and was approached by the paint industry about some rules that we wanted to introduce to protect people’s safety. One of the things I discovered was that the good companies that had already sought to get that right supported the rules that we proposed. The noise that was coming from the so-called representatives of industry was not on their behalf, but on behalf of the less good companies, which did not want to make the change, had not made the change and wanted to have the advantages, temporary and short-lived though they were, of continuing as they had been doing. It is important to bear in mind the distinction between those who were in No. 10 earlier today and those who sometimes speak as the representatives of the whole of industry, although they are not. Very often, those who speak in that tone are talking about people who do not want change. My hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton, being a very busy man, was no doubt unable to hear this morning’s discussion on Radio 4 involving Adrian Wilkes, representing the Aldersgate group. I declare an interest as a sponsor of the group, which has very sensible views, shared by my hon. Friend, about how the requirements on companies as regards environmental and social progress are a necessary part of our ability to compete. There are whole areas of new business to be got for Britain if we are seen as leaders in this respect. We have a remarkable opportunity—a business opportunity. I come from business—my whole history is in running businesses. I do not oppose business, but I know that it will shoot itself in the foot unless it puts itself in a position to compete on the highest level, particularly given the British circumstance. We cannot compete on cheap labour or on long runs—we can do so only if we can be at the cutting edge not only of technology but of meeting the environmental demands of a world that is increasingly concerned about them. I hope that in his discussions with business, my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton will right the wrong that this Government have done. They have, I am afraid, taken the view of the reactionaries in business against the view of its leadership. It is increasingly embarrassing to hear what real leaders of industry say when they talk about the Government. They feel genuinely let down. They think that the Government promised so much but have gone back on their word at almost every step. The Minister will not have to live much longer before his children, leave alone his grandchildren, if he has any, will be asking him what he was doing about climate change—not what he was talking about, what his attitude was, or what his Government vaguely thought about it, but what he actually did about it. For example, did he do the simple thing of saying that every business ought to tell its shareholders how it is exposed to the risk of climate change? A company can get its listing on the stock exchange as a major mining company without mentioning the risks of climate change. It can be a huge user of water in a water-stressed area, and nobody asks it to reveal that that is an issue. It does not have to do it, and the shareholders do not know. My problem is that to start with, I believed you. [Interruption.] I beg your pardon, Madam Deputy Speaker—I meant the Government. I have always believed you and continue to do so. I believed the Government to start with. I thought that it might be bad enough to have a Labour Government, but at least they believe in this. Yet here we are, nine years later, and in every single area they have failed to act. They have talked, brilliantly sometimes, less brilliantly at other times. They have suggested, discussed and consulted—they have done everything bar action. In that, they are exactly parallel with the CBI spokesman on today’s radio programme. He said how much he wants to help with reducing emissions, that the CBI is supporting the Government’s goal of achieving a 60 per cent. reduction in carbon dioxide emissions, and that that is not at odds with the business leaders who submitted their letter to the Prime Minister today. When the interviewer asked whether the CBI wanted targets for reduction to be set closer to 8 million tonnes instead of the 3 million tonnes that is the bottom level, he replied:"““Targets need to be challenging but fair. The existing work undertaken by companies needs to be taken into consideration along with the activity undertaken at a European level. Responsibility needs to be shared between business and the community and between the UK and the rest of the world.””" In other words: ““We are doing absolutely nothing but saying all the right things.”” It is like trying to get agreement on fishing. Fishermen will agree to every conservation measure that does not work. I am afraid that that is a truth that we cannot gainsay. Our big problem is to bring home to the whole of this society that all businesses, big and small, have to play their part in changing our ways of thinking and living with risk, because the risk that we face with climate change is far too great to ignore. I am so pleased that the Leader of the House has entered the Chamber. I hope that he will not leave for the moment, because I would like him, in his new position, to hear my last words. He understands the situation because as Foreign Secretary he fought hard for the whole world to recognise the reality of climate change. But while he was out there fighting on the beachheads, dealing with the Americans in the difficult times that he had, back at home his Government, without telling him—but then they did not tell the DTI or DEFRA either—were doing everything to undermine what he was saying elsewhere. They could tell the Foreign Secretary to tell the world that the Prime Minister was going to make climate change the key issue of his presidency of the European Union, while at the same time intending to ask the EU to increase the levels of emissions that we should be allowed and to say that if it did not we would sue. How does one run a Government like that? Of course, people are now beginning to understand that that is how this Government are run. They are the same Government who promise that we will be safe on the streets but release on to the streets everyone who makes them unsafe. That was another job that the Leader of the House had.