Corporate Insolvency and Governance Bill

Debate between Lord Fox and Lord Monks

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 16th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Monks [V]]

I do not wish to speak at this stage.

[Lord Fox]

My Lords, we have heard descriptions of a series of power imbalances. There are two large, powerful entities on the scene; one is covered by this Bill and the other is not. One is the banks and financial institutions, and the other is of course HMRC, which is covered in the Finance Bill but not in this. My noble friend Lord Palmer referred to that as the elephant in the room. Those two wield the power, and then we hear the tale of small creditors, small businesses, pensioners and workers eking out a return.

In proposing this Bill, the Government have destabilised what had been a static relationship. Things are moving, and we need to understand in detail how the Government see all this movement shaking out. The Bill, letters and now assurances from the Minister have moved everything around. It is still not clear to me—perhaps it is clear to others—where the power has moved in the end. At the moment, it still looks as if the financial institutions will get increased power as a result of this Bill and HMRC will get increased power as a result of the Finance Bill. If that is not the case, I am happy to be surprised by the Government.

I will say just one other thing. I welcome the suggestion from the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, to perhaps look at different levels of pension fund debt below that of the Section 75 debt. That could be one way of alleviating some of the concerns. I hope the Minister is able to catch up on what the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, had to say just now, because there was some wise suggestion there.