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Companies (Political Expenditure Exemption) Order 2007

Having heard my intervention on a question from the noble Baroness in the Chamber on the previous occasion, the Minister might not have expected me to have another swipe at those who will benefit from this change. If we were being awkward, we might well ask why we should not make it more difficult for quoted newspaper groups to influence voters in a referendum on European matters, which would of course be the effect of the order not being passed. As I understand it, were there to be a referendum on the treaty, which it does not look as though there will be, then the quoted newspaper groups—I think that there are probably two whose editorials on the referenda we could write—would have constraints imposed on them under the Companies Act 2006. Having said that, that is probably not the way to constrain what I like to refer to as the foreign-controlled press, but I should be interested to know the genesis of this order. Who has complained? Who has said that there is a problem? Reading the previous legislation, one would assume that it was covered anyway. Therefore, is this a case of people gearing themselves up for a campaign on issues where we would probably disagree with them, and have the Government been lobbied to bring in this order to that effect?