Company Law Reform Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 81:"Page 36, line 9, after ““office”” insert ““in the United Kingdom””" The noble Lord said: Part 6 is entitled ““A company’s registered office””, as is Clause 86. In speaking to Amendment No. 81, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 82 and 89. Amendment No. 81 requires a company registered in the United Kingdom to have an office registered in the United Kingdom to which all communications and notices may be addressed. It must be right that a company that wishes to be a UK company should have a registered office in the UK, not abroad. The service of documents would be much easier if the office were in the UK rather than overseas. It is not clear from the Bill whether that difficulty can be avoided. Amendment No. 82 covers a matter brought to our attention by the Law Society and we are grateful to the Liberal Democrats for having tabled a semi-similar amendment. Our amendment makes clear that a company may not have its registered office address outside the area stated in the register. Clause 87 deals with a company changing the address of its registered office. However, in the absence of a specific provision to change the stated area in which a company has the address of its registered office, it seems that a company would be unable to make that change, with the exception of Welsh companies, which are dealt with separately in Clause 88. This should be put beyond doubt by specific wording in the Bill, which Amendment No. 82 supplies. Amendment No. 89 is concerned with Clause 88, on Welsh companies, and returns to a point covered earlier in Committee. It is tabled to show the illogicality of the registration by region system. Why should a company registered in Wales and whose registered office is in Wales be allowed to register as being in England and Wales? We do not have companies registered in Scotland and Northern Ireland at the same time, nor can companies, at present, register in England alone, as they have to register in England and Wales. We covered this issue on Tuesday, and I fear that the response from the Minister will be no more satisfactory than the response I had then. I beg to move.