Lord Markham (Con)

The noble Lord may be looking down the wrong end of the telescope. It is not that they have got only £25,000 in cash. You have to look at the whole balance sheet. The fact that they have a load of players who are worth a lot of money, who they could sell, means that they are fine financially. There are loads of companies out there today in positions of net debt. Most FTSE 100 companies have debt as a vital part of their balance sheet. You would be saying to them, “Oh, you haven’t got much money in your account, you’re in a net debt position”, when the value, when you look at all the assets too, means that it is in the FTSE 100 and is a very successful company. That is an example of why the whole area of us as politicians trying to get involved in setting criteria worries me. We will put things forward that are well intended but have unintended consequences. We will come on to this in later debates on the Bill. I will finish. I hope that noble Lords understand that the reason why we have gone over time is that we have had a good discussion. It has been helpful in terms of the questions that have been asked. I would be pleased if the Minister could say why we would not want those measures of success as part of the criteria.