Company Law Reform Bill [HL]

The Minister rephrased my self-denying ordinance as ““agreements”” but of course he knows that these so-called agreements have no force of law. They are simply the Auditors General saying that they are not going to do something. But the Government also know that they have no control over Auditors General, which is why this is their last opportunity to make sure that their policy is complied with in practice. The Institute of Chartered Accountants recognised the definitional problems but thought that some restrictions should be imposed because of the point that I have made—that the Government will have no power to control the process once the Bill becomes an Act. Without some process in the Bill—I do not know whether Treasury order is the right process; I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Sharman, that it has some oddities but one has to have some process to allow the thing to evolve over time—we shall have a flawed Act that goes much wider than it should ever have been drafted.