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Companies Bill [HL]

My Lords, I strongly support what my noble friend Lady Noakes said from the Front Bench and what the noble Lord, Lord Lee of Trafford, said. I should declare that I regularly read his column in the Financial Times, although I do not think that the rules of transparency demand that I should reveal whether I have ever followed his investment advice or, indeed, profited or lost as a result of doing so. I have only two points to make. First, my noble friend Lady Noakes is surely right that it is correct to try to help audit committee chairmen and members to fulfil a very difficult and demanding task, as anyone who has served on those committees will attest. It is therefore reasonable to request that the prognostications of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board be made available in the way that has been suggested. Of course I accept what the noble Lord, Lord Grabiner, said about no audit committee member being able to be held to have misdirected themselves or to have behaved incorrectly because they did not take into account something that they did not know existed. I fully understand that. Turning the argument on its head, the views of the Public Oversight Board should be made available to audit committees so that members can be informed of its conclusions. My second point—I have no commercial interest to declare; I was never clever enough to be a chartered accountant—is that business in this country is looking at an accountancy market that may well shrink. That will be very bad for commercial activity in this country. The big four are tip-top organisations, and I have benefited from their advice from time to time, but lots of companies in the second tier—for example, BDO Stoy Hayward, Grant Thornton or Robson Rhodes—would also benefit from the dissemination of information in widening the market so that we are no longer so over-reliant on the big four companies. My noble friend Lady Noakes is absolutely right in wishing to press this issue. Although I will follow her guidance, as always, I hope that she will press her amendment to a Division.