Regulation Of Auditors

EDM number 679 in 1997-98, proposed by Austin Mitchell on 22/01/1998.

That this House, noting that the current audit regulators have failed to maintain the public interest, are controlled by the auditing industry, have neglected the rights and welfare of audit consumers and failed to report on the audit failures at Atlantic Computers, BCCI, Maxwell, Polly Peck, Levitt London United Investments, Wickes, MTM, Resort Hotels, Eagle Trust, Queens Moat Houses, Barings, Homes Assured, Wallace Smith and many others, as well as failing to investigate the overall standards of any firm implicated in audit failures, or investigate and publicly report on the involvement of accountancy firms in facilitating moneylaundering, therefore considers that the accountancy bodies as trade associations concerned to protect the interests of their members are unfit to be regulators; and urges the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to transfer licensing, monitoring and disciplinary powers to an independent body and to exercise her powers under the Companies Act 1989 by replacing the five existing regulators for auditing with a single statute-based independent regulator who can enforce a duty of care and articulate and maintain the public interest.

This motion has been signed by a total of 30 MPs.