Part of Enterprise Bill – in a Public Bill Committee am 10:45 am ar 7 Mai 2002.
I certainly agree that companies can, and should, help themselves. Unfortunately, as everybody would accept, there are occasionally complex situations that require complex information. That is the reason, as I said earlier, why the 12-month long stop is untenable. I want to re-emphasise the fact that a nine-month period is very unusual, 15 months is not common and 12 months does not seem to be sensible. We are committed to ensuring that investigations are completed in a good deal less than 24 months and we have the power to vary that if we need to. We are talking about a quality process and that is why we want to get the balance right. We do not want to curtail investigations that involve complex data and analysis of incoming information. We do not want to carry out a botched-up job by imposing a 12-month period. I hope that Opposition members will understand that—although we are coming from a similar position in terms of what we want to achieve and
the period in which we would envisage that normally being achieved—the decrease in the time limit would not be sensible.