Company Law Reform Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 487B:"Page 347, line 19, at end insert—" ““(   )   any application or other document delivered to the registrar under section (Rectification of register on application) (application for rectification of register);”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 487B and speak to Amendments Nos. 487D and 487E. These amendments relate to an issue which was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, in Committee, based, as he mentioned, on suggestions from the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. I am very grateful for the prompt this has given us to consider the issue and I hope the noble Lord will be pleased at the outcome. It is time for action. The question is the ability of the registrar to correct the register where clearly inaccurate, perhaps fraudulent, material has been placed on it. Under the Bill, it is not possible except under very narrow circumstances indeed for the registrar to remove material unless there has first been a court order to that effect. Our debate in Committee there was a good degree of consensus between us that a power for the registrar to remove material without court order could well be useful, but that if so there would need to be strict limits and controls built into it. Amendment No. 487E therefore introduces a power for the Secretary of State to make regulations to set out a regime on these lines. We have ensured that certain of the safeguards which were mentioned are set out in the primary legislation itself. For example, the new clause makes clear that the registrar must only remove information on application, and that the regulations will require the registrar to remove the material where the application is in order and there are no objections to it. In other words, we have minimised the scope for the registrar to exercise discretion or make judgments, particularly judgments between individuals with competing claims. If there is an objection, the remedy will be to apply to the court. But the clause does not attempt to set out all the new details of the new scheme. It is a power, and other elements of the system—for example the matters covered in broad terms under subsection (2)—will be set out in the secondary legislation. I can assure the House that there will be full and public consultation on the precise composition of the regulations before they are made. Finally, for completeness, I should mention Amendment No. 487B, which is consequential on the new scheme and ensures that an application under it does not in itself constitute a publishable document; and Amendment No. 487D, which removes what would now be a misleading statement in the Bill suggesting that the new non-court process did not exist. I beg to move.