Company Law Reform Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 142:"Page 65, line 42, leave out ““18”” and insert ““16””" The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 142, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 143. Clause 147 concerns the particulars of directors that need to be entered in the company’s register. The purpose of Amendment No. 142 is simply to introduce consistency with the minimum age for appointment as a director introduced by Clause 141. Under Clause 147(1), the director of a company must disclose his or her name and any former name. Subsection (3) defines ““former name”” as a name by which an individual was formerly known for business purposes. If a person is known by more than one name, each must be stated. Subsection (4) provides exceptions to this rule and presently includes one for a former name that was changed or disused before the age of 18 was attained. It is very much in the public interest that every name that a person may have used for business purposes is on the public record, whatever his or her age at the time. Therefore the minimum should be set at 16. The date that we have fixed in the Bill for the minimum age for directors is based on the school leaving age. Amendment No. 143 concerns the new ““non-disclosure certificate”” regime, which will enable any director’s home address to be kept off the public record. The relevant provisions are in Chapter 8 of Part 10. For the new regime to work effectively, it is important that the registrar is kept notified of directors’ home addresses. The address notified to the registrar from time to time is what the Bill refers to as the ““protected address””. The amendment will ensure that directors keep the registrar’s and their companies’ records up to date. On Question, amendment agreed to.