Audit and Corporate Governance

Lord Lennie Excerpts
Tuesday 23rd March 2021

(3 years, 1 month ago)

Lords Chamber
Read Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Callanan Portrait Lord Callanan (Con)
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I do not agree that the audit market is in crisis. Some worthwhile improvements can be made, which is what we are proposing. The noble Lord will see that a full impact assessment is attached to the proposals.

Lord Lennie Portrait Lord Lennie (Lab) [V]
- Hansard - -

My Lords, further to the question of my noble friend Lord McKenzie, can the Minister confirm that any annual report on the state of the City, as proposed in the report of the noble Lord, Lord Hill, will clearly outline how the dominance of the big four accountancy firms has been reduced?

Lord Callanan Portrait Lord Callanan (Con)
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

The big four accountancy firms are important to the regime but we want to introduce more possible competition into it, which is why we are introducing the proposals for shared managed audit to try to bring up the capacity of medium-sized companies.