Company Law Reform Bill [HL]

My Lords, on this side of the House we understand that the noble Lord, as the Minister for Science, has been at the forefront of these important issues in trying to deal with the activities of animal rights activists and others who wish to disrupt the normal, proper and well-regulated conduct of scientific activity. So far, however, I am not sure that he has taken the point that is being made by the noble Lords, Lord Jenkin and Lord Forsyth. In all the Minister’s five years in dealing with this issue, I defy him to suggest he has come across a situation that arose in the past week whereby activists wish to threaten people because they are shareholders in one of our major British companies. This is a completely new point. The Minister may have had experience of it but, if he did, he never disclosed it to the House—to use a Charles Clarke analogy. If he had experience of it he did not tell us. As far as we on this side of the House and those on the Tory side are concerned, this is a new point. Bearing that in mind, I cannot immediately think how to deal with the issue of what happens when a perfectly respectable firm of solicitors asks GSK for its shareholder list, which it then turns over to an animal rights activist group which is its client. I do not know how that issue can be dealt with. This is a new problem that has come up in the past week. I should have thought that the Government should take the time between now and Third Reading—or, if necessary, when the Bill goes to another place—to consider how they will deal with it. I do not think that the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, deals with the issue, which is why I did not put my name to it.