Insolvency Act 1986 Part A1 Moratorium (Eligibility of Private Registered Providers) Regulations 2020

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Friday 24th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on the clear and concise way in which he introduced these regulations. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord German, and to benefit from the contributions of the noble Lord, Lord Wood, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer.

I have a number of points for the Minister. Many have already been touched upon at least. What would my noble friend say in terms of how the two different moratorium regimes will operate and what concerns do the Government have in this respect? However, probably my major concern is around priority. With HMRC having super-priority status, how does my noble friend conceive that HMRC is likely to operate and use this priority? Secondly, and at least as important, what is the Government view on how banks are likely to operate to increase their priority and the opportunity, for want of a better word, in the way the current structure is set up?

I want to touch on the issue of student housing, because it is such a significant piece of the equation and Covid has made such a significant change to how this area is seen as a source of finance. I use that as an example in itself, but also as an opportunity to go broader and ask the Minister: what is happening across Whitehall to ensure that his department is able to get all the information and data that exists from other relevant departments that have such pertinence for the issue that we are debating this afternoon? Students are obviously one important piece but there is a whole series of departments that I envisage having useful data and intel; we could act sooner rather than later if there were such a cross-Whitehall structure. What is happening on that front?

Lastly, there is the question of cross-border issues. There will be circumstances where people operate in one home country and have resources and assets in another. What is the current thinking on that?