Clause 115
Company Law Reform Bill [Lords]
11:45 am
Jonathan Djanogly (Shadow Solicitor General (Also Shadow Minister for Trade and Industry), Law Officers (Assist the Home Affairs Team); Huntingdon, Conservative)
We have had a useful debate on clauses 115, 116 and 117. Having heard the various contributions and interventions relating to my speech last week, it might be helpful if I say a few words about what we are not proposing, as much as about what we are proposing.
We are certainly not ignoring previous legislation in this area. I appreciate that the Minister recognised our input and review of previous legislation, such as the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, and other aspects of economic terrorism. The hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme accused us of playing fast and loose with company law. I can only say that we believe that it was important to raise those issues in Committee with the specific aim of having a full debate to cover the ground and to ensure that the issues, including both extremes as well as the bits in the middle, have been discussed.
We are certainly not ignoring the Government’s willingness to improve the situation where that exists, and we appreciate that clause 115 as drafted moves the debate forward positively, although we believe that the clause needs to be refined—as it stands it will not work adequately or be totally fit for purpose. In interventions during my speech last week, the Minister noted that the hon. Member for Cambridge and I were invited to the Department of Trade and Industry to discuss the clauses—I appreciated that offer—and although we made our position clear at that meeting we also received draft clauses which I took away and looked at. Many of the comments that I made last week and today were based on my views of the Government amendments that were given to me at that time.
Furthermore, from our point of view, and as I explained to the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme, this is not just a debate about animal rights terrorists. I made the point that we believe that the attacks on pharma shareholders will be just the preliminaries of a wider campaign against other sectors, if we do not get on top of the issue. We recognise that registers are already being misused for a variety of illegal purposes. I gave the example of the offshore boiler-room criminal gangs.
Another important point is that the debate, to us, is not just a matter of protecting home addresses. The Minister said, in relation to new clause 3, that service addresses can be used, so that an individual can deal with the problem within the existing law. I made the point, in response to an intervention last week, that sending a threat to a service address can be just as bad as sending it to a home address. Furthermore, people may not want their names to be revealed.
Finally, to us the debate is not about ending public access to shareholder registers, as, I think, the Minister appreciated. The amendment that would restrict access to those who own a certain percentage of shares is not our policy; we tabled it on a probing basis so that that question could form part of the debate. I should point out that concerns have been raised by, for instance, credit agencies, that even the Government’s proposals go too far. That aspect of the matter was debated in the House of Lords Committee. As the hon. Member for Cambridge said, the Government themselves propose through the clauses to restrict public access. The debate is therefore about not extremes but degrees, and about whether the provisions approach the right degree.
After giving no little time to his impressive CV, the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme described, but in a very unspecific way, how the amendments would affect investigative journalism and hurt corporate governance. I think that those were his main points. He will have to be a little more specific, although I agree, basically, with his comments about access not being allowed without 5 per cent. share ownership. Even then, however, as the hon. Member for Cambridge noted, the hon. Gentleman mixed up his amendments.
The debate should be about protecting individuals from the use of their names or addresses for illegal purposes. Now that we have heard the debate on the Government’s proposals I shall set out our position. The Minister asked why we have, for instance, maintained that the Government’s proposals do not go far enough, and I want to deal with her points.
We remain concerned that Companies House is being kept in the equation. We can see no need for double disclosure. We think that we should simply stop companies having to provide details of members to Companies House, and then debate the question of access to details attaching to the companies’ registers of members. We shall table amendments to that effect, and we still maintain that that should be set out in the Bill.