My Lords, I shall come first to the Minister’s final point. These are good pointers that he draws to our attention. Much of what we have been trying to do is accelerate the process, to encourage shareholders to become much more involved so that we get even further results on this.
My noble friend Lord Lea of Crondall made an eloquent speech about working people working for companies and the fact that it is useful to see these disparities in black and white. Indeed, it is usual for countries in the north of Europe to do it, and they seem to be doing very well in the world economy. The noble Lord, Lord Blackwell, again made a useful contribution. I am not sure that I agree with his position but it was useful and not dissimilar to that of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard. Our position is that it is information that some investors would like to know about companies: what is the disparity in those companies? I say to the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, that I had not really thought about it, but it must refer only to the United Kingdom. It had not occurred to me that we could be looking at the pay that somebody in a call centre in India gets compared with the senior executive of, say, a bank in this country. I have listened closely to everything that has been said, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.