Clause 33
Company Law Reform Bill [Lords]
5:00 pm
Margaret Hodge (Minister of State (Industry and the Regions), Department of Trade and Industry; Barking, Labour)
I do not know whether the hon. Member for Huntingdon wants to reconsider the wording of the amendment, but we are not minded to accept it in its present form.
Clause 33 gives members of companies the right to obtain from the companies various constitutional documents free of charge. As the hon. Gentleman said, it replaces equivalent provisions in section 19 of the 1985 Act. A company can currently charge up to 5p a copy for any memorandums and articles that members may request, although I understand that companies rarely make that charge. The clause therefore updates legislation to reflect the new approach to the provision of constitutional information under the Bill. In particular, as we have said a number of times, the memorandum will have a more limited purpose, and information currently set out in it will instead be contained in a company’s articles or other documents listed in the clause.
Amendments Nos. 17 to 19 would restrict what can be provided to members by their company on request. If they were to be accepted, clause 33 would apply only to companies with a share capital, and members of such companies would be entitled only to a copy of the most recent statement of capital. As hon. Members know, such a statement is essentially a snapshot of a company’s subscribed capital at a particular time. While that information is of constitutional importance, the statement does not necessarily encompass all the information set out in the memorandum and articles to which we believe members are entitled and should have access.
The hon. Gentleman is right to say that it would be possible for members of those companies to obtain those documents, including the statement of capital, elsewhere, for example, from the registrar and others.