Company Law Reform Bill [HL]

My Lords, we have not yet got to that point. I am sure that when we do, the attempt will be to make that as intelligible as possible. The key point is that it would have to be circulated in the same way as other material. You could not simply refer to a document which people had not received. On the comments of the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, I think he lives in a different world from the one that we live in. In the world in which I live, at least, there is thought to be a relationship between the managers, their performance and the performance of the company. That is rather important and fundamental to this whole Company Law Reform Bill. If we do not believe that, it is, frankly, not worth spending a lot of time on this Bill. That is the assumption. Of course, there will be cases where companies do well despite their directors’ efforts. However, the fundamental principle of company law is that directors are responsible for the company and manage it. Speaking for most directors, the picture he paints of their meeting rarely and going off and having a nice lunch is really unfair. In the world we live in, directors bear a heavy responsibility, in many cases putting in long working hours because they believe passionately that their performance affects that of the company.