Clause 115
Company Law Reform Bill [Lords]
10:30 am
Crispin Blunt (Whip, Whips; Reigate, Conservative)
On a point of order, Mr. Illsley. Over the weekend the Minister honoured her undertaking to circulate the draft clauses relating to the consolidation Bill and I thank her for that. However, I have identified 254 new clauses that the Government will introduce in Committee. There are a number of identified changes to those clauses to reflect the new language in which they are being introduced and the Committee will not have an opportunity to do anything other than simply insert those into the Bill under the Government’s plans.
When writing to the Committee, the Minister stated:
“I said that we hoped to do so as far as possible during Committee stage while noting that this was a considerable task”—
that is, consolidation—
“We would then intend to seek the view of the Law Societies and others over the summer, in particular to ensure that no unintended changes to the law had been made by the restatement. We could then reflect any comments in amendments brought forward at Report stage.”
My point of order is that that is inherently unsatisfactory and should be done by the Committee. With 254 new clauses and more to come, as the Minister promised, it will take an hour simply for the Chair to put the motions on those if we do not get around to considering them in detail by 5 o’clock on Thursday 13 July, which is the current outdate of the Committee.
I seek from you, Mr. Illsley, some form of protection for us as legislators to do our job. The Minister made an offer to the Committee when she said that she would be
“very happy for any interested Committee members to be involved in discussions in September”
when, as the Committee will cease to exist in July, its members will have no more status than other right hon. and hon. Members of the House. I urge you, Mr. Illsley to recommend that the Committee sits into October after the summer recess so that we can do our job properly or, if the Government are not prepared to do that, to recommend that sufficient time—it will be a long time—is provided for consideration on Report on the Floor of the House.