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Company Law Reform Bill [Lords]

Of course, I will give way to my hon. Friend, who is a distinguished company lawyer among other things, if he will let me complete my paragraph. The whole purpose is to create greater legal certainty if that can be achieved. Therefore, I see the advantage of identifying the key directors’ obligations and placing them, as Parliament considers them, in the Bill. That would be a very desirable thing. It is always open to my hon. Friends the Members for Huntingdon or for Rutland and Melton to suggest that other things have been left out—indeed, I have left something out, which I will come back to in a moment—and that things in addition to those that the Government have included in the Bill ought to be added to the key obligations. I personally do not think that anything should be added to them. The five paragraphs that I have listed encapsulate the key obligations, and it is right for Parliament to say that those are the key obligations and that other things are secondary. The question in my mind is whether paragraph (d)—the one that I deliberately left out when I read out the list—which refers to"““the impact of the company’s operations on the community and the environment””," should remain in the Bill and continue to have the same status as treating all members of the company equally, being concerned with one’s customers and employees and considering"““the likely consequences of any decision in the long term””." Of course, the paragraph on employees is the only one that has been taken from the Companies Act 1985. I shall give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Mr. O'Brien), and then say what I have in mind and what my concerns are in relation to the community and the environmental obligations.