[Hugh Bayley in the Chair]

Written evidence to be reported to the House

ERR 09 Chartered Institute of Environmental Health

ERR 10 UCATT

ERR 11 Manifest Information Services Ltd and MM&K Ltd

ERR 12 ShareSoc

ERR 13 Million+

ERR 14 David Bleiman

Good morning. I am sorry to have missed the Committee’s oral evidence sessions last week, but I have been reading the transcript, so I hope to get up to speed, and I am sure members will help me to do so. I understand that there is a point of order.

Thank you, Mr Bayley. I look forward to your stern but fair guidance in our deliberations.

On a point of order, Mr Bayley. Members will know that, in Committee on Thursday, we circulated several relevant documents, including the shareholder framework document, the operational independence undertaking and the articles of association. I make that point for the benefit of the Committee, simply because the documents are relevant to the amendments and clauses in part 1, and I will refer to them.

Further to that point of order, Mr Bayley. I was grateful to the Minister for providing that information, which will illuminate some of our deliberations. To clarify, I understand that we did not receive a full copy of the articles of association, but only article 3. Is that correct? I have printed off a full copy of the company’s articles of association, but will the Minister clarify that for the benefit of the Committee?

Order. That is a point of order for the Chair, but it might be simpler to let the Minister make a supplementary point of order.

Further to that point of order, Mr Bayley. The hon. Member for Hartlepool is entirely correct. The articles form a more substantial document. However, we felt that it would be appropriate to provide the shareholder relationship document with the operational independence undertaking—that is the crucial document for colleagues to be aware of—and the green objective,  which is the article of association to which I will refer. At the moment, I am not planning to refer to any other specific articles; hence the provision of what I hope is a concise but useful set of papers for the Committee.

Good. We now begin our line-by-line consideration of the Bill.