Company Law Reform Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am completely mystified by that because the Minister made a clear distinction about onward transmission, but I cannot see any such distinction within Clause 444, all of which is making me even more uncomfortable about the structure of these disclosure powers. The Minister has made a case for having ““persons”” as well as ““purposes””, and I will certainly read that in some detail, but if the only purpose is to avoid the Government having to specify things in detail—given that we are talking about exceptions to the principle that information remains confidential—I am not sure I have a huge amount of sympathy. Nor do I have any sympathy for the fact that purposes may change in the future. It seems to me that there is always a legislative opportunity, when dealing with a new function, to let Parliament determine whether an associated gateway is appropriate at the time a new function or body is created. It seems to us that that is the right time to consider that. The Minister gave a long and detailed reply, and we need to look at that carefully in order to clarify what the remaining issues are. I suggest to him that some issues remain in these clauses and schedules, but for today I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.