Company Accounts (Hansard, 3 April 1990)

§ Mr. Austin Mitchell
To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry whether he will seek to amend section 363 of the Companies Act 1985 to require the letter of representation issued by the directors of a company to the auditors to be filed with the Registrar of Companies.

§ Mr. Redwood
No. The Government do not accept that any benefits that might be obtained from imposing such a requirement would outweigh the administrative costs involved.

§ Mr. Austin Mitchell
To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry whether he will bring forward proposals for requiring all large companies to have audit committees.

§ Mr. Redwood
No. Although we would encourage companies to set up such committees, we believe that the decision as to whether or not to do so is one that is best left to individual companies.

§ Mr. Austin Mitchell
To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry whether he will introduce legislation to require companies separately to identify all holdings gains in their financial statements.

§ Mr. Redwood
I have no plans to add to the existing legislative requirements.