Company Law Reform Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. A225E: "Page 367, line 7, at end insert—" ““(   )   If the order would have the effect of imposing burdens affecting persons in the carrying out of any activity, then such burdens must be proportionate to the benefit that is expected to result from making the order.”” The noble Lord said: I shall be brief on this, because I know that the Minister has some important things to say about Part 31, ““Company law reform power””. However, it might be worth while summarising our position on these Benches. We accept that commercial practice develops faster than company law can keep up. It is a truism that we live in an era of rapid innovation, and keeping company law up to date with commercial practices is therefore pretty difficult. Whether enough political will has been devoted to ensuring that statute company law develops fast enough is another matter; 1985 to 2006—21 years—hardly denotes a huge degree of urgency. However, we accept that there is an issue over how company law should be kept up to date. We thought that the Government’s plans as originally drafted in Part 31 were a fairly blunt instrument. We noted the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee report about scope, process, excessive delegation and proportionality. We thought that they were deficient in several ways, some of which are of the Government’s own making because of the proposed drafting and others because of the deficiencies in or complete absence of agreed parliamentary procedure to scrutinise proposed reforms, notably the inability to amend statutory instruments. That is why we have tabled this series of probing amendments which are designed to tease out the Government’s thinking and to ensure that the proper methods for parliamentary scrutiny are put in place as part of the Bill, in particular our Amendment No. A225AGB We were surprised that the Government then introduced a separate regulatory reform Bill. A twin-track approach seemed highly undesirable. Above all, we regard this as a company law reform Bill, not a constitutional reform Bill. So we are very glad to hear that the Government are abandoning the twin-track and will rely on the Regulatory Reform Bill. We look forward to hearing at least an outline from the Minister on the plans for Part 31. I beg to move.