Corporate Liquidations

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Tuesday 10th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

My Lords, private equity plays an important role in business support in this country. We have seen private equity companies that have acquired businesses and actually grown them as well. Yes, their track record is not great, but there is definitely a role for private equity in business in this country. Do not listen to the Government. Listen to people in the private equity business. Jamie Dimon said:

“I’ve always been a believer in the UK’s … strengths as a place to do business and there’s much to like about the new government’s pro-growth agenda”.


Yesterday, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang argued that the UK was in the “Goldilocks” zone with great universities, a good start-up culture and the third-largest amount of investment in AI companies globally outside the US and China.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, is my noble friend aware that in the 2024-25 financial year, the Insolvency Service disqualified more than 1,000 company directors? Of those, a significant proportion—736—were banned for abusing the Covid-19 Bounce Back Loan Scheme. Additionally, there were 131 individuals subject to bankruptcy restriction orders, with 87 of them also linked to the misuse of Covid-19 loans. How many businesses had to wind up because of those facts?

[Lord Leong (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for that. Yes, those figures are quite high. It is right that the full force of the law should come down on company directors who are found to be trading insolvently. Basically, there are different forms of liquidation, from creditors’ voluntary liquidation to compulsory liquidation, which I mentioned earlier, which has increased mainly because of HMRC prosecution. HMRC, Companies House and insolvency practices target abuses such as tax evasion and this whole area of phoenixism with tougher enforcement, personal liability for directors and upfront tax demand. That should be the way.