Company Law Reform Bill

I am going to disappoint my noble friend by saying that I am less sympathetic to this amendment than to the previous amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Sharman, which aimed at the definition. We start from the proposition, as my noble friend said that, traditionally a shareholder’s vote is a right of property and he can normally use it as he pleases. Currently, there is no obligation under company law for members to declare their interests. The amendment would impose a new burden on members; namely, to declare their interest in writing before the date of the meeting. So the noble Lord’s amendment is restrictive, to the extent that it would not be sufficient, as I understand the amendment, even if the disclosure was made at the meeting. The question is whether there should therefore be a burden of disclosing such an interest in some form. Although I can see that it will be necessary to know who has voted in favour of a resolution, if passed, and whether that includes people who have an interest—however we ultimately define it; as in the Bill or in some variant—I would not want to see the resolution invalidated because there had not been some specific formal declaration of interest at some point. This is really a step further than the Government believe is necessary in order to give effect to the objective of this part of the clause.