HC Deb 02 August 1972 vol 842 cc898-914

8.47 a.m.

Mr. Arthur Lewis (West Ham, North)

The subject I wish to raise is officially the responsibility of the Department of Trade and Industry—the enforcement of the Companies Act. What I say will apply to the present Minister and ministerial team and the Government as a whole because obviously the present Minister and the Government are responsible for the Department. But it will be an attack upon the Department going back for many years. When I castigate the present ministerial team, I am really castigating the Department as a Department. There has been not only neglect by the Department but, to put it quite mildly, the scandal of the Department's deliberately aiding and abetting the breaking of the law.

During the past few weeks we have had the unusual experience of seeing the great rapidity with which the Government can get the law into action when they want. I refer of course to the episode of the five dockers, of the container dispute involving the Transport and General Workers' Union. Within a matter of a few weeks the law in all its majesty has been brought into action. Within a few weeks we have seen the case go from the lower court to the High Court, to the Court of Appeal and even to the House of Lords. Normally it takes months and sometimes years for cases to reach the House of Lords on appeal. I am amazed to see how the Government can act when they want and yet do not act when they should.

For years a large number of companies and their directors have been deliberately and persistently breaking the law yet no action has ever been taken against them. There has been a large number of companies which have had their actions reported to the Department of Trade and Industry and, strange as it may seem, we have never seen the Official Solicitor, the Attorney-General or the Department come along to carry out the statutory duties imposed upon them by Parliament under the Companies Act. The Act lays certain duties and obligations upon the Minister and his Department. Not only have they failed to carry out those duties but when they have been requested to do so by all sorts of people they definitely said that they will take no action.

Having made the charges I should like to go through some of the offences which have been taking place over the years, in the last 12 years to my knowledge, because I have been trying for that long to get some action. First there is the issue of false and illegal prospectuses and statements on flotations. There is the failure to have properly elected directors. All of this is contravening the Act. There is the failure to hold proper company meetings, the failure to issue company accounts and auditors' reports and the failure to send in company returns to the Registrar-General.

On that point, I saw in the Observer that there were hundreds and possibly thousands of public companies which year after year failed to give the returns as laid upon them by the Companies Act. I asked the Minister whether he could give me the latest figures on this. His reply was that finding the figures would involve a disproportionate cost. That means that there must be many thousands of these, because if it was only a few hundred the Minister could find them out. The Observer estimated that there are hundreds of these companies yet not a thing has been done by the Minister or his Department.

There is the failure to respond to the demands for action by shareholders when called upon, and the failure of the Minister and his Department to take action when accountants, solicitors, barristers and sometimes former directors of such companies have asked for action to be taken. There has been a failure on the part of the Government to take action when asked to do so by Members of Parliament. I see my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, Central (Mr. Clinton Davis) here and I am glad that he is to ask a question this week about the Vestey set-up. Here we have an admission by the Vestey concern that it had been breaking the law. We do not find that the Government run quickly to take it to the courts, as they did with the five dockers.

What happens? Vestey wriggles out of it by pretending that it was a slip-up, it did not know, it was not aware that it was carrying out a subterfuge upon the public and the Government by having undisclosed nominee arrangements. If I were to do 50 miles an hour or 60 miles an hour coming to this House in my car and a policeman stopped me, I cannot think what he would say if I replied. "I made a slip-up, I did not know I was breaking the law, I was not aware of [...]." This is the sort of excuse that a big and responsible concern like the Vestey empire has been making and getting away with for years. Yet its employees, the dock workers, are immediately pulled up and the courts take action.

I have tried all the ways possible, by writing to Ministers, by asking for deputations to be received—which have been refused—and by asking Questions in the House. I received evasive replies and eventually I wrote to the Prime Minister giving him chapter and verse, asking him to help because he said he was all in favour of open and honest government. But even he refused to take action. I make the charge that the Department of Trade and Industry has been guilty of a deliberate conspiracy on the part of its officials to cover up and protect a number of these illegal activities to the detriment of the shareholders of the companies. These are some of the offences which have been going on year after year about which the Department knows.

What are the companies? I should be here until next week if I were to name all of them, but I shall name 13 which I have drawn to the attention of the Department. There are about 30 others. I pick out some of the more glaring ones. I shall name them because I want the opportunity of seeing the Minister later to go into this matter.

There is Hartley Baird Limited. For years we asked for action to be taken in connection with this company but none was taken. Eventually the man who milked it went to another country. Dr. Wallersteiner, who is a supporter of the Tory Party, was associated with Mr. Robert Maxwell. When he left Mr. Maxwell, he revealed to the Sunday Times some alleged irregularity with which Mr. Maxwell was connected provided he, Dr. Wallersteiner, was given a clear record. Action was taken in Mr. Maxwell's case but not in Dr. Wallersteiner's case. I have a foolscap sheet of offences which Dr. Wallersteiner has been committing for years.

Another concern is H. J. Baldwin. Then there is the Vehicle and General Insurance Company in respect of which we tried for years to get action taken. When most of the evidence and files had been lost, and as a result of persistence in the House, we got an inquiry which showed inefficiency, maladministration, neglect and near-criminal activities by the Department of Trade and Industry. The castigation of and attack on the civil servants in that Department in the Vehicle and General report are astounding.

Then we come to the Competitive Insurance Company and Dollar Land Holdings. The Pinnock Finance Company fleeced and milked millions of pounds out of the shareholders' pockets. The Government knew about it and took no action until the director fled to Australia. When he got to Australia they said that they could not trace him. I see from the Press today, however, that four policemen are to go to Australia to assist the Australian police by carrying out an investigation for the Australian police. But they cannot make an investigation into what has happened to the director of that company.

The next concerns are Three Ways Nurseries Limited and Camp Bird Limited. Then I come to Rolls Razor Limited and the Bloom empire. For four and a half years we tried to get action taken in this connection. Very reluctantly and belatedly action was taken. I was told that an arrangement was entered into by Mr. John Bloom that provided he pleaded guilty to lesser offences he would merely be fined £30,000 and the Government would drop all the other charges. That was told to me by none other than people connected with the case; and that was what happened.

Then there are Associated Leisure Holdings, Sempah Holdings and the Third Mile Investment Trust. Next comes the Poulson affair. There have been some strange happenings here. Hundreds of thousands of pounds of Inland Revenue money and tax have been owing for years. That is admitted, but no action has been taken.

What about the recent case of the Real Estate Fund of America? I pay tribute to the Sunday Times. It had almost a full page article last week on this scandal concerning an American director and a British director. The American director is known to be crooked and eventually went to gaol and I think he is in gaol now. What happened? The Department of Trade and Industry took no action. As far as I know it took no action. At least, I will correct that. I have heard whispers—I cannot get proof of this—that the police have been investigating. I have been asking questions on this and I am now going to ask several questions.

When did the police start investigating the Real Estate Company of America? What date? When were they first asked to investigate the Real Estate company of America? Have they interviewed all those connected with the Real Estate company of America, including all those who were directors and have had association with the company? If not, why not? One of the directors who is a right hon. Member of this House—I refer to the right hon. Member for Barnet (Mr. Maudling), a former Chancellor of the Exchequer and a former Home Secretary—has declared, and I must accept his word, that he has not been investigated or been asked to give evidence; he has said that he has not been called upon to give any information at all. It is an amazing situation, is it not, that when a company whose prime director is now in gaol is being investgated the directors associated with the company have not been and are not being investigated? So perhaps we could ask for information on that.

Mr. Clinton Davis (Hackney, Central)

Does not my hon. Friend think, alluding to the sort of inquiry which is going on and relating to bankruptcy proceedings of which the House is well aware, that where a person is alleged to have undertaken fraudulent activity or committed some illegal activity of some kind or another, there is a very substantial case that that person should be permitted to make his own representations to the court because allegations of that kind may be totally unfounded? It may be that a Member of this House and of the company is put in the most absurd position as a result.

Mr. Lewis

I accept that 100 per cent. That is why I did not deal with the Poulson affair in detail. I touched on it only in passing. I agree with my hon. Friend entirely. That is why I would welcome the opportunity for everybody to have that chance. It is regrettable. I heard a former Attorney-General on the radio yesterday saying that for many years—I think he said hundreds of years but certainly for very many years—this has been the practice whereby these public bankruptcy cases can be held and evidently it is quite in order for someone to be accused or charged in his absence and it appears that nothing can be done about it. I think it is regrettable.

I will say in passing, while I accept my hon. Friend's point, that I read in the Press, and I believe it is true, that never in the history of bankruptcy cases where people face this situation have the Attorney-General and Department of Trade come along and asked for the case to be taken in camera and for the case to be adjourned. Never has that been done. But it is good to note that they can act quickly and that they acted quickly in this case. Why did they not act quickly in other cases?

I agree with my hon. Friend. I would like to know why my right hon. Friend—if I may call him that—the Member for Barnet could not be given the opportunity of being questioned and to put his case with regard to the Real Estate company. I am told with regard to Poulson that there is nothing which can be done because the law has been properly activated. Perhaps it is the result of one of those bad Acts and is wrong, but though charges and accusations have been made nothing can be done about it.

With regard to the Real Estate company of America it was possible and it should have been possible for my right hon. Friend—if I may call him that—the Member for Barnet to have been given the opportunity of stating his case. If the right hon. Gentleman had had that opportunity, he would not have had to resort to Press statements and would not have been vilified in the Press, as has happened. I am sure he would welcome the opportunity to have his case stated properly to the police who, I am told, have been investigating the case.

I shall come on to the Pinnock case and I have mentioned the case of Dr. Wallersteiner. It would take too long to go into all these cases but I would ask the Minister to look at the debate initiated by my right hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) on 28th May, 1971, which was over a year ago. He then gave all the details and quotations in the case of the Pinnock set-up and the "rackets" which were worked. I can give the Minister a lot more information if he likes to have it.

There are hundreds of companies which have not sent in returns and yet no action is taken against them by the Government or by the Department of Trade and Industry. Attempts are made to cover up. When I write and say that a certain company has not been making any returns, does the Minister reply "Yes, we shall take action"? No, the Department takes no action at all. The approach in the Department is "Let us try to sweep it under the carpet. Let us change it around from Department to Department. Let us give evasive replies to Members of Parliament. Let us cover it up and hope that in the course of time it will be lost. If eventually there is a demand for an inquiry and unfortunately it has to take place, most of the papers or records will have been destroyed or lost and therefore nothing can be proved and no action taken." I say that this is a deliberate attempt on the part of the Department of Trade and Industry to see that these things are not properly dealt with.

If I were to go into the whole list of 30 or 40 companies, it would take up too much of the time of the House and would incur the displeasure of the Chair. I shall let the Minister have five foolscap pages setting out chapter and verse relating to these companies where millions of pounds have been fleeced out of the pockets of the ordinary investing public by known crooks running known crooked companies, and not a thing has been done about it. I claim that action should have been taken and I regret the fact that when I write to the Prime Minister on this subject asking him to take action, he refuses to do so and even refuses to see a deputation.

I do not accept that this is true, but when my constituents write to me saying that they believe some of the Ministers might be involved in some of these scandals, I have told them that I do not believe it. They then say "If that is the case, why does the Prime Minister refuse to meet you? Why do Ministers refuse to take action, why do they refuse to carry out the Act?" It is hard to give answers. When we ask that a deputation should be allowed to see the Prime Minister to discuss the maladministration, neglect and deliberate evasion by the DTI, he refuses to give any help or assistance at all.

Mr. John Wells (Maidstone)

I am not trying to encourage the hon. Gentleman to lengthen his speech, but if the subject is as important as he says surely it would be much more in the interests of the House and of the nation that he should read out the list, however tedious it might be, so that the names of these companies should be known to all.

Mr. Lewis

I agree, but I have already read out 13. The hon. Gentleman has only just entered the Chamber. The Minister has about another 30 names. If the hon. Gentleman would like me to, I shall table a Question to the Minister. I have already done that, asking that it all be published, but the Government have refused. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will join me in tabling a joint Question asking the Minister to publish—although perhaps he will give an answer now—for any period of time over which he likes to go back, and the longer the better, the number of companies which have been reported to him and the action requested by shareholders, barristers, solicitors, accountants and Members of Parliament of both major parties but on which no action has been taken.

I said that I would mention Dollar Land. This is the most glaring example of all, but it is typical of others. The Dollar Land Holding Company is the most notorious of the lot. It was floated in 1960 by a group of persons associated then with a Mr. Kenneth de Courcy, who used then to send to hon. Members of the House a news sheet of secret happenings in Rhodesia and so on. For another offence not connected with this, Mr. Kenneth de Courcy served a term of imprisonment. Shareholders in that company were sent notoriously false prospectuses of wrong information, the details of which I shall eventually give. From that day to the present, they have been given no assistance or protection in relation to the false prospectuses that have been issued on the flotation of companies. But since then it has got worse.

Since 1960 there has been a succession of so-called directors on the board. With the exception of one person, Mr. Hugh Nicholson, who was a reputable accountant, there has never been a reputable board of directors or a carrying out of the provisions of the Companies Act. There has been complete contravention of almost all sections of that Act. There have not been legally appointed directors or legal company meetings. Proper company accounts and returns have not been sent to the Registrar of Companies or the shareholders. There was one instance where eventually, due to my persistence and that of other hon. Members, we got a three-year report and accounts published. But we now find that even that was such that the auditors refused to endorse or sign the report and accounts as being accurate.

Nothing has happened, except that one of these men—again an American gentleman—a Mr. Gottesman, who admitted that he never held qualifying shares, got hold of the Company and issued a statement that he would establish a blue-white diamond set-up. We found eventually that the shares which floated at 28 shillings dropped to 14 shillings. They are worthless now and the share quotation was suspended years ago. No one knows exactly what happened. I pay tribute to the Conservative Sunday Telegraph, which has been trying for years to have this company investigated and some action taken.

I agree with the hon. Member for Maidstone (Mr. John Wells). I hope he will join me in tabling Questions seeking publication of information about all these various companies which have been breaking the law in circumstances of which the Minister knows or should know. If five dockers break the law, within days or weeks action is taken. Therefore, why should not these people be proceeded against? I pay a tribute here. One company director was eventually caught, after years of persistence by hon. Members. Mr. Savundra was caught. But the others have got away with it. There has been no action. How often does one read of company directors going to gaol for this crookedness and wickedness of robbing poor people of their hard-earned cash? It is rare indeed.

I mentioned the John Bloom business. I was told by one of those connected with the case that he knew he would not go to prison because he had already been told that if he confessed to a minor offence he would be fined only £30,000 and all the other charges would be dropped. I was told this before the case was settled, and that eventually happened.

Mr. Clinton Davis

I go a long way with my hon. Friend in his argument, but this is a montrous assertion to make. That case could not be and was not settled. I know something about that case through a friendship with one of the principal lawyers involved in it. It is a monstrous allegation that the case was "fiddled" and fraudulently settled. In fact, the full facts of the matter were investigated by the learned judge and a certain conclusion was reached.

Mr. Lewis

I am not making charges or allegations; I am making a statement of fact. I can only repeat that I was told by one of those connected with the case who was up on a charge what the result would be even before the case was finished. He told me that this would be the result, and this was the result. That is all I know. This is a statement of fact. Whether there was any jiggery-pokery I do not know, but I assure my hon. Friend that a former Member of this House, Mr. Richard Reader Harris, met me during the process of the case of Mr. John Bloom and told me that his case would come after John Bloom's case but that he would not have much to worry about because it had been agreed that this would be the way it would be settled, and this eventually happened. That is the only case I know about where what I term action was taken. After all £30,000, bearing in mind the sums involved, was negligible.

I received a letter only this week from a constituent who, wrongly of course, put money into Dollar Land Holdings and saw it go completely. Therefore, I suggest, it is incumbent upon the Department of Trade and Industry to carry out the duties imposed upon it by Parliament. If it cannot carry out those duties because of insufficient staff, I suggest it should come to the House and ask for more staff. If its powers are not strong enough, again I suggest it should come to the House and ask for more powers so that it can take action. I believe the Department has enough power and that it should take action quickly, not wait years, to ascertain whether such companies on the borderline may have something wrong with them.

I mentioned Dollar Land Holdings. In that situation barristers and solicitors acting for the company, and indeed former directors, honourable men who were manoeuvred out by this American gangster, as I call him, asked for investigations to be made, but no action was taken.

I ask the Minister for an assurance that all these companies to which I have referred will be investigated. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, Central that if persons connected with any of the companies I have mentioned wish to come forward to put their side they should be given the opportunity of giving the details. In such cases perhaps assistance might be given before the companies get into difficulties.

I ask the Minister to look into this matter and to agree to meet me with a deputation of the shareholders of the companies concerned. I will show him where millions and millions of pounds have been fleeced out of the pockets of the shareholders. Let him meet the shareholders and me so that we can ask him to have the matter thoroughly investigated and a proper committee of inquiry set up.

9.21 a.m.

The Minister for Trade (Mr. Michael Noble)

The hon. Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Arthur Lewis) has pressed his case with his usual vigour. I am sure that all hon. Members, particularly all those who have had ministerial responsibility for company matters, will acknowledge the determination with which, over a number of years, the hon. Gentleman has urged first the Board of Trade and now the Department of Trade and Industry to follow the case which he supports on company matters. From the number of times that the hon. Gentleman has disagreed in the past with my predecessors, and recently with me, over the exercise of the powers under the Companies Act, I doubt whether he will be imagining that I shall agree with everything he has said.

The hon. Gentleman has mentioned a number of cases in which he considers that certain powers have not been used as they should have been. It would not be fruitful for us to go into them in great detail but I shall mention one or two of them later. Several of the cases which the hon. Gentleman has mentioned have been or are under investigation by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration. It is worth recording that, although the Commissioner has made some criticisms of some of the actions of the Department, in none of the cases on which he has reported so far has he found maladministration by the Department.

I emphasise that the Companies Act sets out definite circumstances in which inspectors can be appointed. In some circumstances the Department is required to appoint inspectors. In other circumstances it is given discretion to do so and the circumstances are clearly defined. On occasion, judgment is involved as to whether the circumstances provided by the Act do or do not exist. Most difficult—this is a matter on which the hon. Gentleman's views have most often been in conflict with those who have been exercising the powers—is Section 165 (b)(iii), which provides that the Department may appoint inspectors if it appears that there are any circumstances suggesting (iii) that its members have not been given all the information with respect to its affairs which they might reasonably expect. One of the main points on which we have disagreed is how the discretion should be exercised. One point of disagreement concerns the production of statutory information such as accounts. The Companies Act provides in Section 148(3) a specific remedy for the simple non-production of accounts. I know that the hon. Gentleman has felt strongly over a number of years that if anything goes wrong it is for the Department of Trade and Industry to take action, but that is not what the Companies Act says and in many cases it is not what the Jenkins Committee, which reported on these problems, said.

There are specific ways in which shareholders, former directors and other people can raise their grievances through the courts. It is one of the essential differences in approach between the hon. Member for West Ham, North and the Department that he feels the Department should do everything and that all approaches to the courts should be left to the Department while the shareholders and the directors take no action. I cannot accept that point of view although it is one which consistently runs through the hon. Gentleman's type of argument.

Mr. Arthur Lewis

Does the right hon. Gentleman think that the Department of Trade and Industry should expect an old-age pensioner of 70 or 80 years of age, who has put £50, £60 or £100, probably a life's savings, into a company, to know whether the company has been sending its returns, as laid down in the Act, to the Registrar-General? If such a person approaches his Member of Parliament and asks him to find out, and he discovers that the company is not doing so and asks the Minister to see that it carries out the terms of the Act, which is not voluntary but mandatory, why should not the Minister then take action?

Mr. Noble

I think we all accept that there are about 500,000 companies in the country. According to figures from Companies House, about another 4,000 companies are registered every month. Clearly, even the most active Member, let alone an old widow of 70, could not conceivably keep a check on exactly what is happening in this range. But that is not basically the point.

If there is something in which a company is failing, apart from simply being late with its returns, action very often can be taken. The hon. Gentleman is right in saying that thousands of companies are late with their returns, but with by no means of all of them is there any complaint apart from that. Many of us find ourselves in the same sort of position in our daily lives, and I do not honestly believe that, if the hon. Gentleman thinks we should do a survey of about 500,000 companies and prosecute every one of them irrespective of reason, he is thinking in real terms. I certainly cannot see it in such terms.

The hon. Gentleman talked about the five dockers who were put in prison. But if anyone ever volunteered and wanted to go to prison, surely those five did.

Mr. Lewis

Some of these directors deserved to.

Mr. Noble

They may have deserved to but they did not jump up and down and say "Please put us in prison", which is exactly what the five dockers did.

While it is perfectly fair for the hon. Gentleman to say that some things are very slow, perhaps he will have noticed that in the case of Koscot Interplanetary Limited the Department succeeded in getting a rapid winding-up of this pyramid selling operation. That is at least one mark in our favour.

Mr. Lewis

At last.

Mr. Noble

There are in fact many others. But I find it difficult to accept the hon. Gentleman's approach. The hon. Member for Hackney, Central (Mr. Clinton Davis) found it difficult to accept one angle of the hon. Gentleman's speech. I find it difficult to accept that a Member of this House can make a very broad and almost vicious attack on the civil servants in the Department. He said that their action was, if not entirely criminal, deliberately aiding and abetting the breaking of the law. I accept that we may attack each other as Ministers, because Ministers are responsible and it is for them to defend themselves as best they can. But to make an attack on the whole range of civil servants going back over many years and under successive Governments in the way the hon. Gentleman did is grossly unfair to a large number of people who are working exceedingly hard and in accordance with the best legal advice available to them. The claim that they are deliberately aiding and abetting the breaking of the law I find difficult to accept from anyone.

Mr. Clinton Davis

While I accept what the right hon. Gentleman says about the civil servants, I am not sure that I can go 100 per cent. of the way with him when he says that Ministers are responsible. I do not think that Ministers in the present Government are. Would the right hon. Gentleman deal with a specific matter to which my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Arthur Lewis) referred—the Midland Cold Storage shareholding? There has been an admission made by the Ulster Bank of Belfast that it held all but two of 1 million shares as nominees for the Vestey family or some other similar concern and yet there was no information filed at the Companies Registry indicating that that bank was holding a nominee.

Is not that a breach of the law and is not the excuse proferred that a clerical error caused the failure to return those people as nominees a grotesque position? Does it not at least demand an investigation by the Minister's Department? Will he give an assurance that such an investigation will be undertaken at once?

Mr. Noble

I will give an undertaking to look at the point. I had not considered it until the hon. Gentleman raised it a moment ago. When I have looked at it, I shall write and tell the hon. Gentleman what I think is correct and what should be done.

Mr. John Wells

In his point about half a million companies, my right hon. Friend failed to go along with the hon. Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Arthur Lewis) that it is only in publicly-quoted companies where these widows get burnt. Will he get together with the Stock Exchange Council now that there is unity and get some return of publicly-quoted companies? That would meet the point and the hon. Member would not have to thumb through half a million.

Mr. Noble

Although those concerned do what they think right to ensure that quoted companies provide accounts timeously, there are difficulties with one or two. There are specific grounds on which one can go to the Stock Exchange and explain that one is deferring the accounts for a period and get agreement to that. It is hard to take the point of the hon. Member for West Ham, North that one should then prosecute such people because they have broken the law.

Mr. Arthur Lewis

The Minister should not put words into my mouth. I am saying that if there are so many that he cannot count them, it could be an encouragement to those who are wrongly breaking the law to break it—

Mr. Albert Roberts (Normanton)

When the Craven Insurance Company went bankrupt, the Board of Trade—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Ronald Russell)

Order. It is out of order to intervene on an intervention.

Mr. Noble

We have been ranging over a wide area of different problems and I do not want, at this early hour, to give the House any impression that I am complacent about many things in which there are problems in companies legislation and the law on procedure.

There are real difficulties and problems and I am certainly only too willing to look at the problems which exist, but we cannot act as a super-nanny for every discontented director thrown off a board and every shareholder who thinks he has been done down. There is a whole range of ways in which these people can get their rights, but with the best will in the world the Department of Trade and Industry cannot take on all that work.

The hon. Member talked particularly about Dollar Land. It is fair if I quote something from what the Parliamentary Commissioner said on this topic.

Mr. Lewis

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. That report has not been published and—

Mr. Noble

It is dated 3rd July, 1972.

Mr. Lewis

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. While the Minister and I have privately seen the Parliamentary Commissioner's report on the Dollar Land company, the official report is not yet published—not yet "laid on the Table". Because of the rules of the House, I purposely refrained from referring to it as it was not available to hon. Members. I submit that it would be out of order for the right hon. Gentleman to refer to it before the report is published. Until it is published, it remains a private document. If the right hon. Gentleman were to quote from it, I might want to quote a private letter that I have had from the Parliamentary Commissioner, and I might wish to dis- pute what the Parliamentary Commissioner may have told the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

I supposed that the Minister intended to make merely a brief reference to it.

Mr. Noble

I am grateful to the hon. Member. I was not aware that it had not been published, because it is dated 3rd July. I will say no more about it except that, when it is published, it will be seen that what I have said about the Department has at least some justification and that some of the hon. Member's cornments—I go no further than that—are not entirely supported.

Naturally, I do not want to discuss the Real Estate Fund of America or the Poulson case as both are sub judice and it would be improper to comment upon them. I accept that there are many serious and difficult problems in company law and insurance. It is our intention to try to improve the position steadily and to act as quickly as circumstances permit.

I totally refute the allegation that for a number of years, under both Administrations, civil servants in my Department have been deliberately aiding and abetting the breaking of the law. They have carried out their tasks as they have seen them and as they have been advised, by the best legal advice, was their duty.

I have seen the enormous strain under which they are working. If occasionally they make an error of judgment—and judgment is often involved—that is only human and something to which all of us as Members of Parliament, or in any other position, are liable when under great pressure. I should like to pay tribute to people who, I believe, are working exceedingly hard for the public good.