Company Law Reform Bill [HL]

I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Hodgson for his contribution on consultation. He was quite right to emphasise that point. We may want to look at it in relation to the Bill when we return to it on Report. The Minister is justifying this complex way of proceeding for a very small area, which is apparently not covered by the existing law. The DTI has created a whole structure of offences and then procedures to make them work properly and not create other problems—which suggests to me that this is the wrong way in which to address what appears to be a highly theoretical problem that does not exist in practice and which could be dealt with perfectly adequately by the disciplinary arrangements. We obviously cannot pursue this issue today, but I would not like the Minister to leave the Committee believing that we have found his explanations of these clauses anything other than unconvincing. Clause 495 agreed to. Clauses 496 and 497 agreed to. Clause 498 [Special notice required for resolution removing auditor from office]: