Company Law Reform Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 334H:"Page 246, line 12, at end insert ““and if such a statement has been required, the auditors shall attend the meeting and shall be available to answer questions from the members””" The noble Baroness said: Amendment No. 334H amends subsection (4) of Clause 514. This little group of clauses is headed:"““Quoted companies: right of members to raise audit concerns at accounts meeting””." That is very fine but the auditors seem to feature nowhere in the clauses, which are about the members, the company and websites. Clause 514 says that when a company has been required to publish a statement of audit concerns on its website, the business of its account meeting may include that statement. Amendment No. 334H, which, again, has been suggested to us by the United Kingdom Shareholders’ Association, takes this one stage further and requires the auditors to attend the meeting and to be available to answer questions from the members. I hope the Government will accept that, without the involvement of the auditors, the raising of audit concerns will be a somewhat sterile business. I hope that they will therefore agree that the amendment makes good sense. I beg to move.