Company Law Reform Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. A249: "Page 397, line 21, leave out paragraph (a)." The noble Baroness said: In moving Amendment No. A249 I shall speak also to Amendment No. A250. The amendment would remove subsection (2)(a) of this clause. It is entitled ““Information to be made available to public””, which is possibly missing a ““the””. Subsection (1) sets out some categories of information which are very far-reaching. Subsection (2) states that regulations made under subsection (1) may. "““impose such obligations as the Secretary of State thinks fit on persons eligible for appointment as a statutory auditor””." The amendment seeks to probe what kind of obligations are anticipated. The whole clause is supposed to be about information, but the terms of subsection (2)(a) are far-reaching in their effect. Will the Minister confirm that the obligations under this subsection are confined to those related to making information public, which is the nature of the clause? Will he further detail what sorts of obligation would be involved? Amendment No. A250 seeks to replace the negative regulation-making power with the affirmative procedure. If the power is to be confined to information and not in the broader terms suggested by the wording—if the words are confined to ““information””—we will be content with a negative power. But if it is intended to use the power created in subsection (2)(a) in a broader context because it has been drafted without any restriction, we feel that an affirmative procedure would be more appropriate. I beg to move.