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Companies Bill [Lords]

I am not saying that the guidance should be statutory; I am saying that an obligation to provide guidance should be put into statute. I think that the Government have said that they intend to give non-statutory guidance to directors, but they have not yet done so, and it would be helpful if the Minister could say when that will happen. The factors to which a director must have regard, as set out in clause 173, include many responsibilities that directors already have to have regard to as set out in statute, such as environmental concerns. In some cases the Government are weakening existing statutory duties. Although the Government have taken some of the more fashionable responsibilities already imposed on directors by statute or common law, they have curiously chosen to ignore others.