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Companies Bill [Lords]

I, too, welcome the concession. I am glad that, in the first discussion of the freedom of information legislation under the Companies Bill, we have come out in favour of widening that legislation, rather than of narrowing it—I fear that that might not be the case when the Department for Constitutional Affairs has its way on the Freedom of Information Act 2000. I am especially glad that the Government have given way and accepted the proposal that the principle of freedom of information should apply to the Professional Oversight Board of the Financial Reporting Council, because Lord Sainsbury’s arguments on the subject in the House of Lords were becoming ever more Sir Humphrey-ish. At one stage, he said that the main argument against the proposal was that accountants would become more defensive in the way in which they passed on information to the board, and so would not act in a frank way. That, of course, is an argument against having any freedom of information legislation, and that would be Sir Humphrey’s view of that entire field of legislation. There was no evidence to support Lord Sainsbury’s view; all that was really meant was that accountants would have to be more accurate, and the board would have to be more accurate in the way in which it came to its judgments. It was also argued that board’s reports might be exempt from the legislation, and that is true, but that is a matter for the mechanisms of the freedom of information legislation to deal with, and it should not be ruled out, as it was under the Government’s original proposal. I am glad to join in the consensus on the very last amendments to a very long Bill. Question agreed to.