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Company Law Reform Bill [Lords]

Yes. If the hon. Member for North Swindon (Mr. Wills) had heard some of the debate, he might have been a bit wiser. One of the problems that we have is that the amendments mean that burdens will be placed on company directors of all UK companies—the corner shop as much as the multinational. We shall argue that that will not just lead to uncertainty and the fear of litigation, but will set back the agenda of engagement in corporate social responsibility that our party supports. That point was made elegantly by the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Alun Michael). The hon. Members for Richmond Park, for Kingston and Surbiton, for Portsmouth, North (Sarah McCarthy-Fry), for Caernarfon (Hywel Williams), for Gower, for Great Grimsby, and for Islington, South and Finsbury, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer), in their own ways and often elegantly, made their cases for more regulation on business and mandatory reporting in the name of corporate social responsibility—many different forms of corporate social responsibility, I hasten to add. Although some of the causes that were mentioned were certainly appealing, the recipe for dealing with those issues was much less so. I appreciate that this is a significant and important area and I foresee that we will spend some time on it in Committee. Let me just give hon. Members one example now. Most of the campaigns involving international development or environmental issues will probably involve large multinational companies and most of those companies will probably be foreign. Some hon. Members may have overlooked the fact that the Bill applies only to UK companies. Quite apart from the merits of the campaigns involved, is this the place to deal with those issues? We will suggest that it is not.