Arcadia and Debenhams: Business Support and Job Retention

Debate between Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist and Baroness Garden of Frognal

Thursday 3rd December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for her supportive and constructive comments. The Government recently reformed the use classes to create a new commercial business and service use class. This will give businesses greater flexibility to change to a broad range of uses such as leisure and as shops and offices, as well as nurseries and health centres, without the need for planning permission. This means that businesses will be able to adapt to changing circumstances and respond to the needs of their local communities more easily and quickly. More widely, we are looking to transform the planning system as set out in the White Paper, Planning for the Future, which will make it simpler, quicker and more accessible, and more certain.

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has elapsed. I apologise to the noble Lords, Lord Mackenzie, Lord Liddle and Lord Foulkes, that we did not have time for their questions.

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Debate between Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist and Baroness Garden of Frognal

Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 2nd November 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Baronesses, Lady Noakes, Lady Jones and Lady Neville-Rolfe, and the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, have all withdrawn so I now call the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I start by trying to reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, that we do not wish to see monopolies increasing and choice and quality declining either.

Amendments 136, 139, 140 and 142 aim to give the monitoring and reporting obligations of the office for the internal market a specific focus on the interests of consumers. Clause 31 enables the office for the internal market within the Competition and Markets Authority to operate general and periodic reporting and monitoring to assess the effective operation of the UK internal market and Parts 1 and 3 of the Bill, including how it operates for consumers. These amendments would limit this function to assessing the operation of the market as it affects consumers.

The role of the office for the internal market is to monitor the health of the UK internal market, including specific regulations, sectors and nations. Moving to a narrower definition of the assessment criteria of Clause 31, from the outset, would hinder its effectiveness in fully delivering this function.

To appreciate this, it is worth setting out the breadth of the areas of monitoring that are in scope. They include emerging trends and developments in the UK internal market, cross-border competition, the nature and level of trade between different parts of the UK and access to goods, services and trade. Monitoring may be undertaken independently by the CMA or upon request by other parties such as the UK Government and the devolved Administrations. Proposals can be submitted to review specific sectors relating to the UK internal market.

In doing its work, the office for the internal market will naturally be able to gather information from consumers, businesses and public bodies. Clause 32(4) also specifies that its advice and reporting can involve consideration of the impact of new regulatory proposals on the pricing, quality and choice of goods and on services for consumers. The interests of consumers are therefore an important concern which is already laid out for the office for the internal market when undertaking its monitoring and reporting functions. So, I can assure your Lordships that it will take into account consumer interests in undertaking its wide monitoring and reporting functions and there is no need for a specific reference to this in Clause 31.

Amendment 138 aims to impose an additional requirement in Clause 31 that reporting on reviews which the CMA undertakes of its own initiative or following a request under subsection (1) on matters relevant to the effective working of the UK internal market must be published. Clause 31(4) already requires that all reports the Competition and Markets Authority produces on matters in subsection (1) be published. Clause 32(10), Clause 33(6)(b) and Clause 34(10) also require publication of the reports on the operation of the UK internal market referred to in those clauses as soon as reasonably practicable. In light of this reasoning, I trust that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, will be assured that the amendments are unnecessary and that the amendment moved should be withdrawn. We are already doing a lot of background thinking on consumer protections; it is not a closed issue.

Corporate Insolvency and Governance Bill

Debate between Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist and Baroness Garden of Frognal

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

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

I call the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara. Is he there? No? I call the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I thank noble Lords for their amendments on these important issues and their comments in this short debate. The amendments include making additional changes to insolvency legislation in the provisions regarding the prescribed part, which is the amount of a company’s net property that must be reserved for the benefit of unsecured creditors when a company enters insolvency. There is what I take to be a probing amendment, which will provide the opportunity to discuss the effect of priority on creditors, such as pension fund deficit, as flagged by the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles. There is also an amendment in this group from my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe to enable the regulation of pre-packs and connected sales in administration. As this matter is being dealt with in group 10, I hope my noble friend will not mind if her amendment is spoken to in full in that group.

The measures in the Bill are intended to help companies maximise their chances of survival during the Covid-19 emergency, to protect jobs and to support the recovery of the economy. That is why other measures that would not alleviate the impact of the current emergency have not been included in the Bill.

I shall first deal with the probing amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, and the noble Lord, Lord Fox. It is correct that the priority rules, which apply to some debts when a company enters insolvency following the end of a moratorium, change the way in which a company’s assets are allocated among different types of creditor, but the Government consider there to be compelling reasons why the moratorium provisions should give priority to certain types of creditor. These relate to rent and goods and services supplied during the moratorium, which will enable the company to pull through as a going concern.

For example, they include amounts owed to employees —which, as I am sure noble Lords agree, should rightly be considered a special category—and liabilities involving financial services, where default could result in the company facing a demand to repay a much larger amount, which would prevent the rescue of the company as a going concern. For the moratorium measure to operate successfully, it is essential that providers supplying these types of goods and services during the moratorium have some level of assurance that they will receive payment for those supplies.

The amendments from the noble Lords, Lord Hendy, Lord Hain, Lord Monks and Lord Stevenson, would change the value of the prescribed part and alter the way in which an insolvent company’s property is distributed between different categories of creditor. The rules for calculating the prescribed part were recently amended by statutory instrument in April this year. The noble Lord, Lord Hendy, asked how this was calculated: the proportion set aside for payment to unsecured is calculated at 50% of the first £10,000 of assets plus 20% of the rest up to—he was correct—a current cap of £800,000. This amendment was as a result of a consultation that ran between March and June 2018. As a result of these changes, the maximum amount of the prescribed part was increased from £600,000 to £800,000.

When this issue was consulted on, respondents expressed concern that further alterations to the rules for calculating the prescribed part were likely to have an adverse effect on lending, as floating charge holders may not be able to accurately assess their level of risk and anticipated recovery in the event of the debtor’s insolvency.

The noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, asked why the Government have not introduced measures to support the provision of debtor-in-possession rescue finance for distressed companies, in line with other jurisdictions, such as the Chapter 11 arrangements in the US. While the current UK restructuring framework does not provide explicit debtor-in-possession finance provisions, it allows rescue finance to be used to help rescue a financially distressed company. The Government previously consulted on various ways in which rescue finance could form a more prominent part of the restructuring package but, at that time, feedback from stakeholders was that the new measures would still allow for rescue finance with all the features found in other jurisdictions. I hope that answers the noble Lord’s question.

Lastly, the noble Lord, Lord Fox, mentioned the Finance Bill and HMRC taking precedence. I am not sure that he is aware that its precedence relates only to moneys it holds on behalf of employees, such as national insurance. For the reasons I have set out, the Government are not able to accept these amendments. I hope the noble Lords will therefore withdraw their amendments.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

I have received a request to speak after the Minister from the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara. We were unable to hear him earlier due to a technical error.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara [V]]

My Lords, I want to make a brief point. The Minister’s response was interesting but very much couched in the existing paradigm. We seem to be in a situation where, as somebody said, the Government have lifted the lid on the debate over how we work out what goes into the insolvency waterfall, as it were, and how to compensate those who lose out as a result of that compression. Pensions should be part of wages and salary; they should not be where they are. Small businesses always seem to suffer. Thirty per cent is just a figure; it is beneficial but it does not go to the heart of the problem of how we deal with creditors and who comprises the neediest in terms of the analysis of what must be paid back and how that should be organised.

As the Minister was trying to argue, I think, there may be a short-term fix to get this thing back on the road, but these reforms will not be sufficient to resolve the inadequacies of the present arrangement. Does she agree that the time has come—but perhaps it is already too late—to review this area critically, with particular reference to issues such as debtor-in-possession financing? Obviously, there is a crisis because of Covid-19; that crisis provides an opportunity to say that we need to look at this issue again. This would be a good time to do so.