Community Interest Company Regulations 2005

My Lords, we on these Benches are also pleased to see the regulations. We welcome the establishment of the community interest companies. The Minister will be pleased to know that I shall not put him through such a rigorous viva as the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, did. I have one question to raise and one point of clarification. Regulation 11 requires any new community interest company to provide a community interest statement. Under the definitions, in that statement a company is required to indicate how it is proposed that its activities will benefit the community. I would welcome an assurance from the Minister that, in interpreting that requirement, the regulator will not require the company to set out a hugely detailed financial analysis of exactly how every activity that it might undertake will benefit various parts of the community. At the time that the company is established, a paragraph or two of broad explanation would suffice. Such a definition could lay itself open, under an over-rigorous and efficient regulator, to an onerous requirement on a new company to set out in greater detail than is required exactly how it would operate.