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Large and Medium-sized Companies and Groups (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008

My Lords, I thank the Minister for telling us about the regulations. Interestingly, he reminded us about the lifting of thresholds and that the thresholds in the Companies Act 2006 are now lifted, and lifted quite seriously, in 2008. Yet he also referred to the thresholds for listing donations, whether political or charitable, and said that they were being lifted after 28 years. This gives one the opportunity to say that the Government are looking at thresholds in terms of regulatory reform and considering whether it should be someone’s job to look out across the field of government and decide whether they should be lifted. I was concerned, and still am concerned, about the threshold in the intestacy regulations, which has not been lifted for years. I asked a question in this House about this, and a committee has looked at it, but nothing has happened. Thresholds are important, and they should be part of regulatory reform. I, too, am a chartered accountant and a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, to which I pay my subscription. I note from the documentation that it has sent us that it is ““broadly content”” with the regulations, although it has not had time to look at everything—dearie me, what about little me? The institute has a squad of people but has not had time. It tells us, however, that it is concerned about off-balance-sheet arrangements. It says that information must be disclosed, but there is a problem because there is no definition of what ““off balance sheet”” means. This means what it says; if it is not there, you cannot see it. It comes down to this: is the company exposed to something that is not being made clear? Does everyone who has to prepare accounts and put notes on them see these things in a similar way? That is the institute’s problem, and I think it is saying, ““Help!””, because it wants a level playing field for the reader of accounts. My third point is that, as the Minister indicated, the documentation helpfully sets out in one place what has to be disclosed in accounts. Does he believe that it is the department’s job to set out a pro forma, or several pro formas or templates, of how this work should be done? That would be very helpful, but the Minister may say, ““We’ll leave that to commercial sources””. If it is clear how accounts should be produced in accordance with the Act, it seems reasonable that a pro forma or template is produced. I happened to spot in both sets of accounting regulations that if there were such a pro forma—or indeed if we look at the required formats—Regulation 7 for the small companies and Regulation 9 for the large companies state that you must not have a heading or sub-heading if there are no numbers on either side. You can have the heading if you had it the previous year, but otherwise you do not have a heading. I wonder how sinful it would be if, for example, you said in your accounts, ““Land and buildings, nil; last year, nil; plant machinery, nil; last year, nil””. That does not seem too sinful. Indeed, it might be helpful because people think, ““I am amazed that that company does not have any plant or any land and buildings””. I am surprised that it says that a company must not have a heading or sub-heading in those circumstances. It struck me as rather strange that that is so prescriptive.