Company Law Reform Bill [HL]

I am grateful to the Minister for that response, which is clearly very considered, and for his assurance that the Government take this very seriously. The noble Lord, Lord Sharman, and I could agree that a facilitative approach is the right one; but the reality is that not a lot is happening. I have a modest number of shareholdings, and the fact that the GSK letter struck me as being extraordinarily open and novel in its approach indicates how far we are from getting the happy approach that we all seek. The Minister, in his carefully considered remarks, took too much for granted about how practice is emerging. I have two further points. My first point is that I was seeking to apply the amendment only to Stock Exchange listed companies—the biggest companies, which have the most responsibility to investors. In these amendments we were not trying to impose a burden on much smaller companies, let alone private companies. I accept what the noble Lord, Lord Sharman, said and there is a lot of attraction in his approach but it has a weakness. First, the company has to do something, and we have to ensure that it wants to do something. Secondly, if the company is linked to the electronic form of sending out information, every shareholder receives that information, whether he wants it or not. Under our approach, people who wanted the information would have to sign in. The great glory of the noble Lord’s amendment is that it drives a coach and horses through the Minister’s argument about cost, because the cost will fall dramatically when information is transmitted electronically. Therefore, if some additional cost is involved in following the system that the noble Lord recommends, it will be more than compensated for by the fact that it is all done electronically and mounds of paper will disappear. So I fully accept that there are some pluses to his amendment. My second point is that I do not think that the Minister was right to pick the US example, which is undoubtedly very prescriptive. The Canadian example is much more elective. We will not reach a conclusion on this matter but I hope that the Minister will take on board what we have said. I am sure that we will want to come back to it at a later stage. It is a big and important issue for UK plc, but I am grateful for the Minister’s carefully considered remarks.