Audit and Corporate Governance

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

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.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, given the clear struggle in the report, Restoring Trust in Audit and Corporate Governance, to find a workable model for auditing large UK companies, and given Deloitte UK managing partner Stephen Griggs’s comment to Accountancy Age, stating that,

“It is important that changes in audit are complemented by reforms to the governance of the UK’s largest and most complex businesses”,


does the Minister agree that the terms given to the UK listing review were fundamentally flawed? We do not need a more complex so-called competitive sector, but rather simpler, more secure, stable and auditable company structures.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

We are discussing audit reforms and reforms to the audit market. I think that the noble Baroness may want to have a separate debate about reforms to company structures.