Company Law Study Group – Chair's Report
Chairman: Louis Manson
The Company Law Review Steering Group has prepared its final report and submitted it to the DTI for consideration before publication. Any legislation will not be ready for at least a year.

This Study Group has made submissions on all the consultation documents published and has focused on those elements with a political context, i.e. the form of Company Law, dealing with what it is meant to achieve, corporate governance and SMEs. When the final report is published, we expect to submit a response on these and related matters.

Emerging Markets Study Group – Chair's Report
Chairman: Sir Peter Heap KCMG
The Group held eight meetings between 30th May 2000 and 21st June 2001. Although the active membership of the Group is not large, this is made up for by the enthusiasm and loyalty of the 10 or so members who attend regularly. The meetings are mostly held in committee rooms at the House of Commons and sometimes at the home of the Group's Chairman.

In the first part of this period discussions focused on the preparation and publication of a study paper on Trade and economic Relations with Southern Africa drafted by Deva Ponnoosami. This was finalised in September 2000 and in the following weeks it was widely circulated. Ministerial recipients included Richard Caborn, Peter Hain and Clare Short. A request for a meeting with the DTI's Richard Caborn to discuss it did not get a response, but a copy was given to the Financial Secretary, Stephen Timms, shortly before his visit to South Africa, who subsequently told the Group that he had found it valuable.

In early 2001 the Group's Chairman had a meeting with the Chairman of LFIG's China Study Group, Stephen Parry, with a view to co-ordinating the work of the two Groups. This will be kept under review, but meanwhile the China Group's study, A Third Way with Chinese Characteristics, was circulated within the Emerging Markets Group. Meetings then discussed further likely topics for a further formal study. A different format was followed on 8th May when a well attended meeting heard an excellent talk by Diana Weinhold of the London School of Economics on the pros and cons of debt relief.

SME Study Group – Chair's Report
Chairman: Professor John Stanworth
The LFIG SME Study Group has become active again over the last year under the Chairmanship of Professor John Stanworth. John is Professor of Enterprise Studies at the Westminster Business School (University of Westminster) and also Director-General of the Small Business Research Trust (based at the Open University Business School). Activities during the last year included:

With the election now out of the way, it is hoped that the LFIG SME Study Group can build upon its strength to once again become the force it has been at times in the past. A proposal which has much to commend it might by that the group, focusing on key issues, should operate in Parliamentary Select Committee mode. We are, after all, ideally suited at the House of Commons to call in and receive expert witness contributions feeding into areas of specialist interest.

China Study Group – Chair's Report
Chairman: Stephen Perry
The China Study Group put together a report on china, starting with trade but never received an acknowledgement of it and, therefore, we have done nothing further. I do not presume that the people who put it together would think there is much point in doing any more work if the first study went nowhere.

Transport Study Group – Chair's Report
Chairman: Hugh Collis
The Group did not meet during the last half of 2000, and the Chair resigned, concerned that the concerns of the group were not being acknowledged by Labour ministers. Particular concerns of the group had been opposition to the privatisation of National Air Traffic Services (NATS) and the proposals for a Public Private Partnership (PPP) for London Underground. I was asked to take the chair and we have had two meetings before suspending activities for the general election.

Whilst the group had not changed its views on NATS and the Underground PPP, it was agreed that further work on these was not particularly useful, and the NATS issue has been resolved satisfactorily with a transfer to the Airlines group. Two main concerns for the new government, which the group wishes to start work on shortly are the future of Railtrack and the airport capacity in the South East. I met John Biggs, the Labour Transport Spokesman on the Greater London Authority, and he has been asked to speak to the group about Labour transport policy in London.

I have written to Stephen Byers and John Spellar congratulating them on their appointments as Secretary of State and Minister responsible for transport and asked them if they would be prepared to meet the group or its representatives.

Utility Study Group – Chair's Report
Chairman: John Pickering
The Utility Group's activity this year consisted of hosting a visit to the UK of two distinguished US Regulators. We arranged for, and attended, meetings with Special Advisers at No. 10 Downing Street, the Minister of Energy and senior civil servants, Callum McCarthy, DG OFGEM, OFTEL and the Commons Select Committee. We discussed the comparisons between the Californian power situation and the UK and the approaches to telecom regulation in the US and the UK. We concluded that the market approach to energy and telecoms was not delivering to the consumer by quite a long way.