Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill

My Lords, I speak in support of Amendment 44. It seems to me that this is an example of the Government getting slightly cold feet about their own proposals. If this Bill is supposed to create a public document—a public register—there is no going back. Surely it is public and saying “but only in certain circumstances” seems to display a lack of coherence. I am not merely worried about potentially trying to curtail the rights of journalists to expose just the sort of malfeasance that we might wish to expose. Once things are made public, surely they should be public documents that can be used for whatever purpose people wish. If there is a fear that, for instance, animal rights activists might put such a register to use, the answer is obviously that certain companies and individuals can claim exemption in the first place and will not appear on the register. However, once the register is there, a public document has, surely, to be accessible to the public.