Company Law Reform Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 511C: "Page 394, line 21, at end insert—" ““(   )   An order under this section must include requirements relating to— (a)   the preparation and publication of financial statements of the appointed body, and (b)   the audit of those statements (save that an order may not require or permit a person mentioned in section 820(1) to be appointed auditor for that purpose).”” The noble Baroness said: My Lords, with a little luck, this will be my last appearance at this Report stage, but I shall be back. This small amendment builds on a slightly different amendment discussed in Grand Committee. It concerns the accounts of the independent supervisor and the audit of those accounts. Amendment No. 511C states merely that the order appointing the independent supervisor must include requirements on accounts and audit. In Grand Committee, the Minister said that the order under Clause 822 was the right place for the accounts requirements rather than a special clause. We are inclined to agree with that, but we find it a little strange that, on this fundamental area of financial accountability, the Bill is completely silent. It is unusual to find a body being created without any explicit financial accountability arrangements. Paragraph (a) of my amendment states that an order under Clause 822 must include a requirement relating to the preparation and publication of financial statements. Paragraph (b) of my amendment states that the financial statements have to be audited—I do not think that there will be any policy disagreement on this—but, importantly, it rules out audit by any of the auditors general. I hope that there will be no policy disagreement on that either. This was included in the amendment that I tabled for Grand Committee, but we somehow failed, probably due to fatigue, to debate the point, so I have included it again in this amendment. I beg to move.