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Companies Bill [Lords]

Throughout the Bill, the Government have been clear about what the business review is intended to do, and it is to be a narrative for the members of the company. I am sure that the Minister will want to deal with whether the Bill should have a much wider application to any company that is operating within UK jurisdiction. We need to strike the right balance with this legislation. That has been difficult to achieve and later we will debate whether we have achieved it. That has obviously partly been because it fits so clearly into a broader and important debate on the environment, but also because company law is necessarily limited in the extent to which it can be used as a vehicle to address such concerns. I fully recognise the concerns that the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, Central (Jim Cousins) raised, but the question is what is the best way to address them. I agree with Lord Sainsbury and many others both from the Lords and in this place, including Ministers and Opposition Members, that company law is one way in which to pursue the need for companies to review more carefully the effect of their operations on the environment, but it is not the only route by which that can take place, so we need to be careful. As the Minister said, company law is not the best vehicle for addressing wider social and environmental concerns. We can address those objectives, as some Government Members have said, through domestic legislation, health and safety measures and environmental protection, on which progress has been made.