No. I must make a little progress, because otherwise the hon. Gentleman’s speaking time will be reduced to three and a half minutes, and he will blame me.
Let me now say something about takeovers, which I had absolutely no idea would feature in the Secretary of State’s speech. He made two announcements on the BBC’s “The Andrew Marr Show” over the weekend. First, he said that he wished to introduce measures that would ensure that commitments given by bidders for British companies had some teeth, and that a sanction could be applied if those commitments were reneged on. Secondly, he said he believed that the Government should have a backstop power to strengthen the existing public interest tests if that proved necessary.
I support the thrust of the Secretary of State’s proposal in relation to commitments given by bidders in takeover circumstances. As I said earlier, I suggested at the
weekend that he should include such measures in the Bill. According to the legal advice that I have received, primary legislation would be required; simply amending the City code would be insufficient. I think that that is sensible, and I am happy to work on it with the Secretary of State in the context of this Bill.
As for the proposal to strengthen the public interest test, my own view—based on the legal advice that I have received—is that, if the Secretary of State wishes to change the current set of criteria, there will be no need for primary legislation. He has expressed concern—as did we, some months ago—about the need to protect our science and research and development bases in the national interest. Obviously, the way in which any provisions were crafted would be important—in particular, we would need to ensure that there was clearance from the European Commission—but, as I have already said on several occasions, we are happy to work with the Secretary of State on that.
I think that I have gone on for long enough. The Bill contains other measures—relating to company filing requirements, child care and schools, and education—with which we have no major issues, and the details of which we will examine in Committee.
This is not a terrible Bill but, to refer to what the Secretary of State has said about the Government’s economic policies before, it is all rather piecemeal. Given the challenges we face as a country—a country with huge potential—our constituents were entitled to expect a bit more from this Government in this Bill. The only way to get that is to change the Government and vote Labour next year.
4.20 pm