---

Companies Bill [Lords]

I shall be brief, and I shall start by speaking about the position adopted by my right hon. Friend the Minister. The right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) suggested that the architecture of clause 173 was an attempt to claw back what was lost when my right hon. Friend the Chancellor ditched the operating and financial review. If that is true, one has to say that she has not done too badly. Many who have attempted similar tasks in the past have not ended so well, as the right hon. Gentleman will admit. If, as he contends, my right hon. Friend has got the Government and the Chancellor out of a hole, she has survived to tell the tale. That puts her in a strong position. The hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) was right to say that instead of trying to codify the 650 or so common law rights accumulated since limited liability began, my right hon. Friend the Minister has set out some general principles. That effort is not an aggressive intrusion on the rights of directors, but an attempt to protect them. There is already a problem about the rights of directors and their treatment in the law. For example, the rising liability insurance costs for directors should send a signal to the House that the circumstances that obtain at present need to be set in a proper framework of principle that will protect directors and inform the discharge of their duty.