My Lords, I must say I am slightly disappointed by the Government’s response to this. This amendment is not about looking at the issues that the noble Viscount has suggested need to be looked at. It has nothing to do with the FSA or European regulations. Its entire purpose is to clarify the existing
law. For example, it seeks to clarify that institutional shareholders which had a shareholding in Cadbury’s were entitled to take the view that they did not have to accept a very successful financial bid if they were concerned about other characteristics. That is not an FSA point or a European regulation point; it is a simple matter of clarifying the law. That is all we are asking for.
I have serious reservations and concerns about the matter being referred to the Law Commission because I predict that we will be debating this in five or 10 years’ time—those of us who are still alive then—when the Law Commission eventually comes back with a recommendation that will cover much wider areas than are dealt with by the amendment, as the Minister has indicated. To my mind, that is typical of the way in which Governments respond to things in that you propose a relatively small amendment and they say, quite fairly, that the whole area, which is huge, is being looked at, of which the amendment is just a small part, and therefore they cannot do anything about the small amendment until that huge area has been looked at. That is the problem, and that is what I worry about. However, in the mean time, I shall withdraw the amendment.