Company Law Reform Bill [HL]

I am so sorry that the Minister has fallen into DTI thinking through his brief exposure to the Bill and wants to create offences every time I suggest something constructive to take forward the relationship between members and the companies in which they invest. I suggest that he could perfectly well create a requirement for auditors to attend and answer questions without creating offences. If some kind of evil was spotted where auditors regularly turned up and gave rubbish answers, the Government might well want to respond to that, but I resist totally the notion that every time you create an obligation in a company’s Bill you must create an equal and opposite offence. That is one of the reasons why the Bill is as long as it is. I shall not pursue the matter today because we need to move on. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 514, as amended, agreed to. Clauses 515 to 517 agreed to. Clause 518 [Liability limitation agreements]: