Rating (Coronavirus) and Directors Disqualification (Dissolved Companies) Bill

Luke Hall Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 28th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

The reasoned amendment in the name of the Liberal Democrats has been selected.

[The Minister for Regional Growth and Local Government (Luke Hall)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be read a Second time.

The Bill contains two halves: first, a measure that changes the valuation assumptions that are applied when making business rate determinations in the light of covid-19; and secondly, a measure that will provide for the disqualification of unfit directors of dissolved companies. I will start with the first measure before moving on to the second.

The pandemic has presented significant challenges for businesses in all sectors. Our response has been of a similarly unprecedented scale, with more than £280 billion provided throughout the pandemic to protect millions of jobs and businesses. In this year’s Budget, the Chancellor announced an extra £65 billion of support for 2020-21 and 2021-22. The support we have provided for businesses included 100% business rate relief for all eligible retail, hospitality, leisure and military properties for 2020-21, at a cost of £10 billion. Combined with those eligible for small business rate relief, this means that more than half of ratepayers in England will have paid no rates in 2020-21.

At this year’s Budget, we confirmed a further three-month extension to the full 100% business rate relief for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses, followed by a further nine-month period of relief at 66% subject to the cash cap, at a further cost of £6 billion. That takes the total level of support provided to businesses by Government through relief from business rates since the start of the pandemic to over £16 billion.

That is an important context for the Bill, because as well as helping businesses through the pandemic, it is also important that we support local government with the critical role it has in supporting our communities. A vital part of that is the income that it receives from business rates, so while it is necessary to provide rates relief to businesses, it is important that we do so in a way that is targeted and that ensures that those who can still contribute continue to pay this tax.

With that in mind, clause 1 is concerned with how rateable values should be assessed during the pandemic. A business rates bill is calculated by multiplying the rateable value of the property by the multiplier, or the tax rate, and then applying the reliefs. The rateable value of a property is therefore, broadly speaking, its annual rental value at a set valuation date, which in the current rating list is 1 April 2015. All rateable values should therefore reflect annual rental values at 1 April 2015. This provides a consistent tax base for all businesses.

Of course, it is necessary to update the tax base, which is done at regular revaluations undertaken by the Valuation Office Agency. The next revaluation was originally scheduled for 1 April 2021, based on values at 1 April 2019, but last year we took the step of postponing it to 1 April 2023 to ensure that it better reflected the impact of the pandemic; Parliament approved that change by passing the Non-Domestic Rating (Lists) Act 2021. The Act received cross-party support, for which we were extremely grateful.

Outside those general revaluations, a ratepayer can still submit a challenge to the VOA on their property’s rateable value between revaluations for a number of reasons, such as to correct factual errors or reflect a material change in circumstances. If not satisfied with the outcome of the challenge, the ratepayer can appeal the VOA’s decision to the valuation tribunal. It has been an established principle of the business rates system that a material change in circumstances challenge can be made on the basis of a physical change to a property or its locality. For example, a successful MCC challenge could be made following the partial demolition of a property, or significant roadworks near a property that might affect its value.

However, following the pandemic, the VOA received high numbers of MCC challenges seeking a reduction in rateable value to reflect the impact of the pandemic. Of course, the MCC legislation, as first set out in the Local Government Finance Act 1988, was not designed with covid-19 in mind, and the MCC system has never been used in response to economy-wide impacts or shocks. It has therefore become necessary to clarify, as clause 1 does, the treatment of covid-19 in assessing rateable values.

We have been clear that relying on the MCC system to help businesses that need further support in the light of the pandemic is not the right mechanism. It would mean significant taxpayer support going to businesses with properties such as offices, many of which might be able to operate normally throughout the pandemic, at a time when we have provided significant support to those most affected.

For example, the workforce of a consultancy firm based in central London that was previously entirely office-based is likely to have been working largely from home since the start of the pandemic, but the business itself may have continued to operate throughout. Under the business rates appeal regime, it could have argued that its office space had undergone a material change of circumstances due to the reduced occupancy.

If that business’s appeal had been successful, it would have been awarded a business rates reduction, but it would not have been right for it to have a reduced tax liability on that basis, given that it had not actually suffered an economic impact. Relying on the MCC system to support businesses would also mean resolving disputes through the courts, which could take years and create additional uncertainty both for businesses and for local government, which relies on income from business rates to deliver vital local services.

The Bill will therefore ensure that the coronavirus and the restrictions put in place in response to it cannot be used as the basis for a successful MCC challenge or appeal. It will ensure that changes to the physical state of a property can continue to be reflected in rateable values as and when they occur, irrespective of whether they are a result of the coronavirus, but that the general impact of the pandemic on the property market will not be reflected until the next revaluation in 2023. Until then, all rateable values will continue to be based on the property market as at 1 April 2015. This approach is supported by the Public Accounts Committee, which has welcomed the financial certainty that such a measure gives to councils.

Clause 1 applies in England. Business rates policy is fully devolved, so whether the same legislation is necessary in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland is a matter for their respective Governments, but we have been working closely with the devolved Administrations regarding the Bill. Although the law in Wales is similar to that in England, different legislation applies in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Of course, the impact of the coronavirus may have been different, so whether the devolved Administrations choose to follow the measures set out in clause 1 will depend on the individual circumstances and choices made in those countries.

We have also supported businesses. We have put £16 billion of support into business rates for the pandemic, and we have announced a relief worth an additional £1.5 billion for ratepayers impacted by the pandemic who have not been able to access business rate reliefs. These new reliefs will be administered by local authorities and will be distributed according to which sectors have suffered the most economically, rather than on the basis of temporary falls in property value. This will ensure that support is provided to businesses in England in the fastest and fairest way possible, and we will continue to work with and support councils and local government to enable ratepayers to apply for the new reliefs as soon as possible.

The second part of the Bill deals with the abuse of the process whereby companies are removed from the register and dissolved. The large majority of company directors are responsible, passionate about their businesses and diligent. They act as effective stewards of the companies to which they are appointed, and I pay tribute to the directors who make such a valuable contribution to our economy and who have fought so hard over the past year to ensure their company’s survival, preserving the jobs and livelihoods of so many within their business and beyond.

Unfortunately there are exceptions, and the business community and the wider public must be protected from those individuals who abuse the privilege of limited liability. Those directors who act recklessly, irresponsibly or even criminally should expect to have to answer for their conduct. That means expecting to have their conduct investigated and, if they had done wrong, facing the possibility of being disqualified from acting as a company director for up to 15 years, depending on the severity of their misconduct. Disqualification protects the public from the actions of those who have demonstrated they are unfit to hold the position of a director of a company, and acts as a deterrent to reckless or culpable behaviour.

Evidence to support disqualification action comes from the investigation of companies and the conduct of their directors. The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy may investigate live companies through the powers contained in the Companies Act 1985, and also the conduct of the directors of insolvent companies through similar powers in the Insolvency Act 1986 and the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986. If such investigations reveal evidence that a director’s conduct has fallen below the standards expected of someone in their position, a period of disqualification can be sought, either through a court application or through an under- taking given by the person to the Secretary of State. A period of disqualification protects the business community and the wider public by preventing the person from acting in the promotion, formation or management of a limited company. Breach of a disqualification order is a criminal offence, and an extremely serious matter.

As things stand, though, there is a loophole in the disqualification regime that some irresponsible directors have been able to exploit. It concerns the situation where a company has been dissolved without entering insolvency proceedings. Dissolution should not be used as an alternative to insolvency proceedings, but there is evidence that some directors have been using the process both as a way of fraudulently dodging the payment of company debts and of avoiding insolvency proceedings and the scrutiny of their behaviour that comes with that.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I support the measures that my hon. Friend is taking in the Bill. He mentioned fraud. I take it that the measures he is talking about would not negate the potential for prosecution of fraud where it was demonstrated that a company director had defrauded the taxpayer by means, for example, of a bounce back loan.

[Luke Hall]

I thank my hon. Friend for that point. He is an expert on these matters in this House, and I look forward to working with him as we deliver the Bill.

When a company is dissolved, the only way the conduct of its former directors can be scrutinised is if it is restored to the register, which is a costly process involving court proceedings. The Insolvency Service regularly receives complaints about the conduct of directors when a company has been dissolved, and many such complaints relate to the use of dissolution to dump the debts of one company, only for a new company to start up in the same business, often with the same directors and the same employees, and often even working out of the same premises. The debts dumped in this way are often large tax debts, awards made by employment tribunals or sometimes even debts owed directly to consumers.

The provisions in this Bill will close the loophole and allow the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to investigate the conduct of former directors of dissolved companies and, where public interest criteria are met, to take action to have them disqualified from acting as a company director.

We consulted on this measure back in 2018 and it received a warm welcome from stakeholders. It has now become extremely important that we get it on to the statute book, so that it can support the business community and the wider economy in recovering from the impact of the pandemic.

This new power to investigate and seek disqualification of former directors of dissolved companies forms part of a package of counter-fraud measures seeking to target any fraudulent behaviour relating to bounce back loan schemes through the abuse of the dissolution process and to ensure the responsible use of public funds. Retrospective provisions in the Bill will mean that, when the new provision becomes law, conduct that is happening right now will become subject to investigation and could be used to support future disqualification proceedings even if the company is dissolved.

The Bill fulfils the Government’s commitment to introducing two important measures: it will make changes to the business rate appeals system and provide for the tackling of abuses associated with the process whereby companies are removed from the register and dissolved. These are two distinct areas of policy, but our approach is consistent. We will ensure the continued operation of a coherent framework, deliver certainty, support businesses to thrive, and allow councils to plan for their finances with confidence and continue to deliver the first-class services on which our communities rely. I commend the Bill to the House.

Rating (Coronavirus) and Directors Disqualification (Dissolved Companies) Bill (Second sitting)

Luke Hall Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 6th July 2021 Public Bill Committees

[The Minister for Regional Growth and Local Government (Luke Hall)]

Q Thank you both for your evidence this afternoon. You clearly both have a wealth of experience, so it is really useful to hear your thoughts. What has your experience been of how the scope and extent of MCC claims have evolved over recent years? Could you talk us through the changing landscape of using this type of appeal over the past few years?

David Magor: When this legislation was introduced, you saw various significant events that triggered MCC changes. When you are looking for things that are similar to covid, you perhaps look at the crash of 2008 and things like foot and mouth disease. These are factors that are taken into account when you are looking at the broad picture. The covid situation, as we all know, is quite unique. The normal material change of circumstance is an essential part of the overall evaluation process. You need to reflect the changes in communities and in the environment, such as buildings being demolished or empty and so on—the material changes that happen in every neighbourhood from day to day. There are roadworks and 101 different things. Those have been dealt with very adequately by the Valuation Office Agency. The agents, on behalf of ratepayers, put in the challenges under the new challenge and appeal process, and it has worked very effectively. It has ensured that the distribution of the rate is as fair as it can be when you have got a five-year cycle of revaluations.

The special circumstances that come to mind are the crash in 2008 and foot and mouth disease. It worked quite adequately but, of course, it was nowhere near on the scale of covid, and the impact of covid on the economic wellbeing of communities.

Adrian Blaylock: The only thing I would add is the position since the end of March 2020. From 1 April 2017 to 31 March 2020, just short of 160,000 MCCs were lodged against the 2017 rating list. By the end of June, that had grown to just over 300,000, so had almost doubled in that three-month period. By the end of March 2021, 568,000 MCCs had been lodged with the Valuation Office Agency. There has been a significant increase, and it is fair to say a good proportion of those will be related to the pandemic.

[Luke Hall]

Q A lot of the early feedback we received suggested the potential scale of the appeals was causing concern in local government. We started to hear talk from local government about potential savings to frontline services that would need to be made. Could you tell us your experience of the way local government started to approach that potential task, and whether that started to impact on budgeting and forecasts for councils in setting their budgets?

David Magor: Since the introduction of the rates retention scheme, local authorities have had to forecast the impact of changes in the valuation list from year to year when preparing their budgets. You started with 50% retention, and moved to pilot schemes of 75% and 100%. When you have a rates retention scheme that works in that way, if you make a mistake in forecasting the reduction in value, you will significantly affect the finances of the local authority and the budgeting process.

Every chief financial officer has to make a forecast of the impact of a change. They would have to make a provision against that forecast and, of course, provisions prevent you from spending money, because you are providing for an event that is likely to happen. Certainly, as far as forecasting for the 50% rates retention scheme was concerned, every time you looked at your rateable value and the changes in that over the forthcoming year, you were conscious that any forecast you made, 50% of that reduction in value would fall on your budget.

That was the way the retention scheme worked, and it created a great deal of concern because chief financial officers were making very significant provisions. As I said, making provisions curtails the local authority’s ability to spend. Elected members quite rightly get very concerned about that. Then the MCC checks and challenges came in, with the checks first. As Adrian said, the enormous number of checks has now reached half a million, and the challenges emanating from those are well in excess of 100,000. You are talking about a massive impact on the valuation resources of the list. Local authorities have to make provision for that.

Through this Bill you would remove that risk and, as the Chair said, transfer it to central Government, because you would fund it through a relief scheme. The real problem is whether the relief will be sufficient to meet the needs of the ratepayers who are expecting a reduction in rateable value.

Adrian Blaylock: That is right. The risk and the responsibility of a local authority to set aside sufficient funds to cover any potential losses to the rating list could be significant. If I can just give you some indication of where we were: at the end of 2019-20, local government had just short of £3 billion sat in provisions for alterations of lists and appeals. This is all pre-covid. This is nothing to do with the pandemic, just essential changes to the rating list. Every year, they have to forecast what they think they will lose in the forthcoming year and there is roughly £1 billion a year being added to that pot, regardless of covid. So the potential loss on top of those normal everyday changes to the rating list—well, I would not like to think what would happen to local government finances if it went ahead. You would need a significant level of provision to be able to carry that. We have already seen local authorities applying to MHCLG for capitalisation directions because they are struggling to pay the day-to-day costs of running their services. How many more authorities would need to go down that route if that is where we get to? That is what concerns me.

[Ms Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)]

Q There are three very specific exemptions to the restrictions on appeals set out in clause 1(5), inasmuch as the valuation decision must take into account the effects of covid-19 on the quantity of minerals extracted and the quantity of waste disposal from the property, along with the physical state of the property being affected. Do you think those exemptions are reasonable and are there any other circumstances that you feel should be included?

David Magor: I must admit that the Bill is very well framed. We have looked closely at the Bill, clause by clause, and it meets its specific purpose. The approach to dealing with the material change in circumstances and to withdrawing or removing the covid ones is very sound. I find the provisions of clause 1 fit for purpose and they meet the needs of Government. That is a relief, in the sense that it seems to be fair. Of course, it is important that in making decisions in relation to the clauses that you have mentioned the Valuation Office Agency is transparent and gives the ratepayer and ratepayer’s agent every opportunity to make their case for other matters that are outside the covid situation.

Adrian Blaylock: I have nothing to add to that. I agree with David.

--- Later in debate ---

[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

Q Can you comment about how these provisions will affect local government’s income from business rates? We hear a lot about cuts to local government in the last 11 years, but how will this impact finances?

Sarah Pickup: These provisions mitigate against the need for having to make provisions against the material change of circumstances. In that sense, they are beneficial to local government, because it takes away that uncertainty, albeit we need the clarifications around timing and discretion as part of this.

If we stand back and think about business rates as a source of finance for local government and the Treasury’s fundamental review of business rates, they form 25% of local government income and are really important. Alongside council tax, business rates are one of the two main sources of funding, but where we stand now is that there is a whole patchwork of reliefs and new provisions for relief to businesses against their core business rates commitment. It means that the future is very uncertain. The way in which the next revaluation will go is uncertain and, arguably, while business rates have a role going forward, some significant reforms are needed to make them a stable source of finance for local government going forward.

[Luke Hall]

Q Thank you for your evidence: I know the LGA conference is happening today. Can you think back and tell us when the LGA first heard about the potential scale of losses through MCC challenges and appeals? What was the reaction of local government at that time? What issues were they raising with you and how widespread was the concern? What time did it start to build up?

Sarah Pickup: Gosh, it is really hard to recollect precisely; so much has gone on in the last year. It was probably about a year ago; it may be slightly less. There was a lot of discussion at the point when the Valuation Office Agency started to discuss how it might address these appeals. I think there might have been some leaks in the press. That is when the discussion started to come to the fore a bit more, because there were some quite substantial proposals around the adjustments to valuations that might go forward. I think there was an attempt to address this on a uniform basis, rather than deal with every appeal and address it individually. We have gone from there to this scheme which approaches the issue differently, probably more straightforwardly and in a more timely way, certainly in the short term.

The anxieties around appeals are ever present and this was just an addition to the pre-existing issue about businesses’ ability to put in appeals right up through a rating list with no time limit on it. The check, challenge, appeal process has made a difference to that, but we have not yet seen the end result of the number of appeals from the 2017 list, because the time window has not closed yet.

[Luke Hall]

Q It would be interesting to hear your view, from a local government perspective, on exactly why the LGA thinks that ruling out MCC appeals for councils provides extra certainty—I think that is what the LGA has said—and how big a difference that has made to councils and their planning of their finances.

Sarah Pickup: There is a greater degree of certainty, because they do not face a period of time of not knowing whether an appeal will be successful or not, nor the extent of that success, and therefore having to make additional provisions on their balance sheet. Instead, they have a scheme to operate that offers them resources to provide discretionary funds to local businesses, which is welcome. As we have said, there is still some uncertainty in relation to what the guidance says and whether the scheme delivers what businesses expect, and whether, if not, there is either a pressure on the council to fund beyond the resources that have been made available, or a pressure because businesses cannot manage without the relief that they had been expecting, and therefore some businesses start to fail.

[Seema Malhotra]

Q As a slightly different angle on this, I was just wondering about any contact that you may have had, or experience that you may have had, with the Valuation Office Agency at the moment, and whether it has the resources it needs for the work it is currently undertaking—its existing functions—as well. I would be very interested in your perspective on that.

Sarah Pickup: I do not have detailed knowledge of its precise funding at the moment, but over time, we certainly have made a case that we support the Valuation Office Agency being funded adequately to deal with the task in hand, because there has been a very big backlog of appeals on the books. It has been pulling those down, and the change to check, challenge, appeal has impacted on that. Nevertheless, there is still a backlog, and our fears were that if the Agency was not properly resourced, you would end up with overlapping backlogs of appeals from different rating lists creating ever more uncertainty and not really taking away that need for councils to keep assessing the provisions that they need to make on their balance sheets.

One of the things that we certainly would support is a time limit on the time when businesses can put forward checks, challenges, and especially appeals against any given rating list. We think that would help, and it is in place, I believe, in some of the other UK nations.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeff Smith]

Q Can I follow up on a specific question that follows from something you said earlier? I was interested to hear you say that the hospitality trading levels in London are 20% to 30% of what they would normally be, and in the rest of the country it is around 60% to 70%. That is partly down to international travel, and I am guessing that there might also be areas—maybe coastal towns—that might be similarly affected by lack of footfall. I am wondering whether there is an evidence base for those regional or city-based variations that the Government might take into account in guiding the allocations, or is that a little bit too sophisticated to get into?

Kate Nicholls: It is certainly challenging to be able to get into, and I am not sure it would drill down as closely as local authority by local authority level, but there are certainly indications. You can measure footfall drops by high street data: there is good data from Springboard about footfall in our high streets, towns and city centres, as well as shopping centres. They are measuring it for retailers, but that would also apply to hospitality businesses. It is not just the international tourists: it is the offices, the work from home, and it affects different city centres differently according to the demographic that uses them. It is less to do with our coastal towns—they are benefiting from more domestic tourism and domestic footfall—but you are seeing it in London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, and to a lesser extent Leeds, Sheffield and Newcastle. They are seeing a drop, but London is particularly badly affected because 70% of London hospitality is inbound tourism, and we are not going to see any pick-up in inbound tourism any time soon.

I think there are broad regional differences that you can apply: it is a very rough and ready crude assessment that you can place on it, but there is a possibility of looking at footfall data. However, I would urge the Government to look at the areas of the country and the constituencies where you have a disproportionately dense population of hospitality and tourism businesses—many of which will be SMEs—and where you have the supply chain businesses that support them. They tend to be local supply chains and to be geographically co-located, so that would be a good indicator of where that support needs to be directed.

[Luke Hall]

Q We are clearly moved to give 100% rate relief to many businesses with a £16 billion pot. Of course, I understand that some of the businesses you work with and represent will have been disappointed about where the line was drawn, so to speak. I just wonder, notwithstanding the point you made earlier in answer to the question about guidance, whether there is anything you would like local authorities to start thinking about as they start to draw up their own guidance schemes in response to some of the early challenges that have been faced by some of the businesses you will be working with.

Kate Nicholls: We would urge local authorities to work with us to identify themselves where the areas of greatest need are. One of the things that has frustrated a lot of our businesses is that there is a central message from Government, and it is not necessarily interpreted on the ground as fluidly as Government might have hoped. When you look at some of the local authority areas, we have had businesses that are clearly designed to be captured and covered by the support mechanisms that are available, but local authorities have often taken the view that if it is not directly specified in guidance and it is not a named company or a named type of business, they are precluded from using their discretion and being able to provide support to those businesses. That is the frustration that our businesses have had on the ground going forward.

It would be helpful if local authorities could be a bit more permissive in identifying the businesses that they know are hurting at a local level, rather than applying a prescriptive approach that says, “If your name’s not down, you’re not coming in,” or “Here’s a tick, you are covered.” That would help immeasurably in those businesses that tend to fall between the cracks because they are not clearcut: if you are a coach operator, are you a tourist business or are you not? A local authority should be able to understand its local area and know which ones are and therefore need to be helped, and which ones actually managed okay. Those are the kinds of areas in which we would like local authorities to use their own discretion, not wait to be told specifically by Government that they can help those businesses.

[Paul Scully]

Q Briefly, with my hospitality Minister hat on, and following on from that question, Kate, you will remember that Minister Huddleston and I wrote to local authorities asking them to use their additional restrictions grant before they access their top-up. Have you seen any evidence of any local authorities responding to that, either by giving more money to businesses on their books or by widening the base to fill some of the cracks that you are highlighting?

Kate Nicholls: There are a few notable exceptions, but you can measure on the fingers of fewer than two hands the local authorities and businesses we have been able to help that have had a positive response to that request. All too often, the response has been that the grants that we are talking about are closed, there is no more money, and they will get back in touch with the businesses if more money becomes available.

It is incredibly frustrating that you have this disconnect at a central level. We hear what is being pledged, and we hear and understand the work that is being done by Ministers to communicate to those local authorities, but the operators on the ground just get a “No”. Some local authorities have been more creative than others, and some have been more proactive than others, but generally speaking it has been a long, slow process, and it has been very difficult to get money out of the local authorities for the businesses that desperately need it. It has been too slow in being processed. We know, because of the work we are doing we are doing at a central Government level, that it is there and has been made available; it is just not cascading out.

Rating (Coronavirus) and Directors Disqualification (Dissolved Companies) Bill (Third sitting)

Luke Hall Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 8th July 2021 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 2—Effectiveness of non-domestic rating lists provisions—

“(1) The Secretary of State must, no later than the end of the period of one year after the day on which this Act is passed, lay before Parliament an assessment of the effectiveness of the provisions in section 1 of this Act.

(2) The assessment must include consideration of—

(a) the extent to which the provisions have achieved their objectives;

(b) the interaction of the provisions with other law and policy relating to coronavirus support for business and business rates; and

(c) possible related changes to law and policy.”

This new clause would place an obligation on the Secretary of State to publish an assessment of the provisions in section 1 of this Act.

[The Minister for Regional Growth and Local Government (Luke Hall)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Rees. The Bill before the Committee is one of two halves. The first half is a measure that changes the valuation assumptions applied when making business rates determinations in the light of the pandemic. The provisions that will implement the measure are contained entirely within the first clause.

In order to understand clause 1, I will briefly take us back to the Local Government Finance Act 1988, which requires business rates to be calculated from rateable values that, broadly speaking, represent annual rental values. Those values are updated at regular general revaluations. Earlier this year, we were extremely grateful for the cross-party support for the passing of the Non-Domestic Rating (Lists) Act 2021, which sets out the date of the next revaluation on 1 April 2023, based on a valuation date of 1 April 2021. That means that future business rates bills will reflect the impact of the pandemic on the commercial property market.

Outside general revaluations, rateable values can be altered only to correct an inaccuracy or to reflect a material change of circumstance, such as a physical change to a property or locality. For example, a successful material change in circumstances challenge might be made on the basis of significant roadworks in a property’s immediate area. The material change in circumstances legislation itself, which is set out in the 1988 Act, was not designed with pandemics or coronavirus in mind, and the material change in circumstances system was not intended to be used in response to matters with economy-wide impacts. Relying on the MCC system, rather than on targeted business rates reliefs, is not in line with the original intention of the law and would not be the right approach to take to support businesses that have been impacted during the pandemic. Clause 1 of the Bill therefore clarifies that the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, and the Government’s response to it, should be reflected at the next general revaluation on 1 April 2023.

Business rates are devolved, so clause 1 applies to England. Decisions on whether to take similar steps in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are for the respective Governments to make. I understand that in Northern Ireland the matter is still under consideration. The Scottish Government have recently announced that they agree with our position that it is not appropriate to use the MCC appeals system in relation to covid-19 or related restrictions. Yesterday, the Welsh Government announced that they also agree with our position, and set out their intention to seek to include provisions covering Wales in the Bill. We will work closely with the Welsh Government on this, and I will keep Members, including those on the Opposition Front Bench, updated on any amendments to the Bill that might be required. I am glad to say that the largely cross-party support that we have received for this measure is now spreading to cross-territorial support.

As I said on Second Reading, the measures in clause 1 do not mean that we have not provided significant support to businesses during the pandemic; there has been a £16 billion package of support for business rates. We have also announced £1.5 billion in relief to be targeted at ratepayers who have not already benefited from support linked to business rates. The additional business rates relief will be administered by councils, and my Department will continue to work closely with local government to enable ratepayers to apply for the support as soon as possible, subject to the passing of the Bill.

New clause 2 would require an assessment of the effectiveness of the provisions in clause 1 to be made within one year of Royal Assent. It would require the Secretary of State’s assessment to consider

“the interaction of the provisions with other law and policy relating to coronavirus support for business and business rates”,

as well as the Government’s overall package of support for businesses impacted by the pandemic. We completely understand hon. Members’ concern to ensure that the business rates system is kept under review.

The objective of the Bill, which is to ensure that successful MCC appeals cannot be made on the basis of the pandemic or the Government’s response to it, will be met as soon as the Bill is enacted, so I can certainly assure the Committee that there will be no need to monitor the implementation of any changes to the rating list or any new practices by the Valuation Office Agency once the Bill is passed. That is simply because the VOA has not, to date, been amending the rating list to reflect covid-19. I hope the Committee will see that new clause 2 is therefore unnecessary.

I appreciate, however, that interest extends beyond the provisions in the Bill to the design of the wider business rates system. This matter will therefore be considered as part of the fundamental review of business rates, which is currently being carried out by the Chancellor. We published the consultation earlier this month to set out proposals for moving to a system of three-yearly evaluations. As part of ensuring the sustainability of that three-yearly cycle, we are reviewing the MCC system. It is clear from our need to bring forward this piece of legislation that the MCC system has not worked as expected in this instance.

I can certainly assure the Committee that we will be looking more generally at the MCC rules as we see how they can be improved to avoid this type of situation arising again. We will work with the VOA, stakeholders and, I hope, our Opposition colleagues to understand how we can improve the system and track and monitor its operation. We absolutely monitor and track changes to the business rates yield through our regular returns from local government. The VOA publishes regular statistics on the rating list and, of course, keeps us fully informed of activity on the rating list. I am confident we can find a sustainable system that we can monitor effectively and that will stand the test of time.

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Rees. May I start by wishing the Minister a happy birthday? What better way to spend a birthday than in a Bill Committee? I am grateful to him for setting out the rationale for clause 1, which would rule out covid-related material change in circumstances claims for business rates appeals.

As we outlined on Second Reading, the Opposition broadly recognise the rationale for the Bill as a whole, and we accept the logic for the provisions in clause 1. Material change in circumstances claims related to covid restrictions would not be the most effective way to provide help for business that have been—I hope only temporarily—badly hit by the pandemic. Indeed, many of those who most need the extra help might struggle with the time-consuming process of such an appeal. We appreciate that a large number of covid-related appeals could lead to what has been described as an effective shadow revaluation, which could put a real strain on the Valuation Office Agency, when its time and expertise would be better used on the upcoming general revaluation of business rates in 2023.

There is also a risk that new MCC-related changes would have to be made every time Government restrictions on businesses changed. It remains to be seen whether we have seen the last of the restrictions and business closures as a result of the pandemic—we hope we have—but if not, a further wave of such applications in the wake of further restrictions could cause future problems for the VOA.

To go alongside this legislation, the Government have announced an additional relief fund for businesses that have so far not benefited from any rates relief, such as those in the supply chain of retail, hospitality and leisure businesses. In principle, that seems a sensible way of administering targeted support without the need for MCC claims, but questions remain: first on the adequacy of the £1.5 billion figure, especially for certain sectors such as large airports, and secondly on the guidance and eligibility criteria for the fund.

We welcome that clause 1 gives local authorities some guarantee that their income from business rates will remain reasonably stable for the immediate future. With business rates forming such a substantial part of local authorities’ income, they need that stability. The uncertainty that would be caused by a potential income reduction as a result of large numbers of MCCs could cause real problems, particularly following such a difficult period for local government, marred by covid pressures after 10 years of austerity and broken promises from the Government about their support.

As I said during the evidence sessions, this legislation can be considered to be shifting the financial risk, or burden, from local government to the national Government by means of support for businesses. That seems reasonable, given the financial difficulties that local government is facing, but it is reasonable only if the funding available is sufficient to guarantee businesses the support they need. On Second Reading, we raised concerns about whether the £1.5 billion package that goes alongside the Bill would be enough to support all those businesses that have missed out on rates relief and other support so far, and the Government still have not clarified how they arrived at that figure or who exactly they envisage it supporting. It would be helpful if the Minister referred to that in his response.

I raise the example of large airports, which have been among the sectors worst affected by the pandemic. They pay huge amounts of business rates, but have been able to access only limited rates relief. Many were planning to put in MCC claims to try to recoup some of that money and stay afloat, but this legislation rules that out. I would therefore be grateful if the Minister could clarify whether the £1.5 billion fund is supposed to cover airports as well as all the other businesses that have missed out.

During the evidence sessions, David Magor, the chief executive officer of the Institute of Revenues Rating and Valuation, said of the £1.5 billion:

“the amount does not appear to be sufficient to meet the desires of all the ratepayers who had outstanding challenges and large assessments, like the airports. The challenge for the Government is to ensure that those particular ratepayers are satisfied.”––[Official Report, Rating (Coronavirus) and Directors Disqualification (Dissolved Companies) Public Bill Committee, 6 July 2021; c. 28, Q41.]

Heathrow, for example, had losses in 2020 exceeding £2 billion, including a business rates bill of £120 million— the biggest in the UK. It has been given £8 million in business rates relief. If the £1.5 billion pot is to support large airports too, it would appear to be inadequate. If not, what are larger airports supposed to do as an alternative to claiming for MCC, and will the Government come forward with further funding for large airports and critical infrastructure?

Even taking the airports and critical infrastructure out of the equation, there is serious concern about the £1.5 billion figure, which is shared by some of the experts we heard from at the evidence sessions earlier in the week. We have since had written evidence from the car parking sector, which is another one that has expressed real concerns. The consensus appears to be that we simply will not know whether it is enough or not until the Government publish the guidance for the scheme—something that businesses and local authorities are hoping happens urgently.

Even though it is usual for guidance to be published after the accompanying legislation has completed its passage through Parliament, there seems to be no reason why the Government could not publish draft guidance now and an indicative figure on the amount for each local authority immediately. The Opposition strongly urge the Government to do so, and given that the passing of the legislation is not actually required in order for the £1.5 billion to be released, we encourage the Government to get on with it quickly. There are businesses out there in real financial difficulty that are desperate for rapid help.

I also wonder whether the Minister can address concerns raised during the evidence sessions about the timing of the legislation and its impact on the release of funding. As we heard on Tuesday from Adrian Blaylock of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy and Sarah Pickup of the Local Government Association, there is a concern about timing related to section 47 of the Local Government Finance Act 1988. In essence, a local authority cannot take financial decisions more than six months after the financial year to which the decision relates. As we know, the majority of covid restrictions applied during financial year 2020-21 rather than 2021-22, so there is a question about whether a local authority can grant these reliefs to cover losses incurred during the 2020-21 financial year. Local authorities need reassurance that they can; otherwise, strictly speaking, all the local schemes will need to be set up and be running by the end of September.

As of this morning, we have the legislative timetable until the summer recess, and while the Government thought it appropriate to schedule two days for the Second Reading of the Nationality and Borders Bill, they could not find time for the remaining stages of the Bill we are discussing today. Given that there will be Lords consideration, as well as the conference recess, I do not see how the Bill will get through all its stages before the middle to end of October. If the Minister can correct me on the timescales, I will happily give way. If not, I hope that he will explain how this will affect the timescale for payments.

We have received supplementary evidence from the Institute of Revenues Rating and Valuation suggesting that a way around this problem might be to amend the Bill, effectively to exclude it from section 47 of the 1988 Act. I am interested to know whether the Government might consider such an amendment on Report to give local authorities and businesses reassurance.

--- Later in debate ---

The Opposition recognise the rationale for the Bill. We have tried to engage constructively to raise the questions that need to be clarified, and I look forward to the Minister doing so in his response.

[Luke Hall]

I thank the hon. Gentlemen for the constructive way in which he has held this discussion and raised legitimate points, especially following the sittings on Tuesday, which I thought were useful and informative. I will try to address all those points.

On funding, the £1.5 billion comes on top of a significant package of business rates support: £16 billion of relief over two years for the retail, hospitality, leisure and nursery ratepayers most affected by the pandemic. The new scheme will be targeted at the sectors that are most affected by covid-19 but have not benefited from that type of business rates support. It will enable councils to award relief to businesses that they consider to have been most affected, using their local knowledge, contacts and systems for determining who will be eligible. Councils will ultimately be responsible for decisions on the award of the relief. The crux of the issue is that it is about ensuring that relief is targeted at the businesses most affected by covid-19 and providing certainty for ratepayers and councils—it is not about saving money. It is never easy to draw the line, but we think that this strikes the right balance between supporting ratepayers and maintaining a tax base that continues to fund vital services in local government, which are more important than they ever have been.

On the point about airports, it is a core principle of the business rates system that MCC challenges should be used between revaluations to address issues of a discrete geographic, sectoral or temporal nature. The drop in demand for airports in the light of the pandemic is exactly the sort of market-wide economic change affecting property values that should be considered only at revaluations. Airports have received significant support for their fixed costs during this period from the airport and ground operations support scheme, and the Chancellor announced in his recent Budget a further six months’ support up to the equivalent of their business rate liabilities for the first half of 2021, subject to certain conditions under the £4 million cap.

The hon. Gentleman asked when the guidance for councils would be published. As we heard earlier this week, we absolutely recognise the importance of getting the guidance published as soon as we can. We want to do that, and I will clarify one of the points that was raised on Tuesday. We have shared the draft guidance with the LGA, officers from the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, and the Institute of Revenues Rating and Valuation. We are now discussing the parameters of the scheme with them in order to help shape the final document, so I offer the Committee some reassurance on that. We have done that in parallel here, to try to ensure that we can get it published as quickly as we can. We will absolutely be working with local government to help ratepayers apply for the new relief as soon as they can once the Bill has passed and they have set up their schemes.

[Jeff Smith]

Does the Minister accept that there is absolutely no reason to wait for the Bill to pass to put the scheme in place? The Government could distribute the £1.5 billion today, if they wanted.

[Luke Hall]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. The point is that we are still working on the final points in the guidance. The LGA made the point that it desperately wants to be involved in the drawing up of the guidance and in setting the framework and parameters. That is what we are doing and going through now. As soon as we are ready to do that, of course that is what we will do. We are as keen as everybody for the support to be available to local authorities, so as soon as the Bill has passed, we will ensure that we get the support out to councils and businesses as soon as we can. It is a point that has been well made by the Opposition and by people who contributed written evidence and who participated in the session earlier this week and the Second Reading debate, so we are acutely aware of that point.

Another temporal question was raised on Tuesday that the hon. Gentleman asked me to clarify today—whether the legislation will prevent councils from awarding rate relief after the end of September. I want to offer some reassurance on that, and I will perhaps do so in writing after the Committee as well, just to provide some more detail. There is a requirement in primary legislation that certain decisions on the use of a discretionary rate relief scheme must be made by a local authority by the end of the September following the year in question. For the year 2021, that deadline is fast approaching. Given the scrutiny that a Bill of this nature deserves, we do not expect councils to be in a position to award the whole £1.5 billion relief scheme in respect of liabilities for 2020-21. Instead, we can simply ensure that the scheme will apply to 2021-22 liabilities, and local authorities have over a year until the deadline for that period. Ratepayers will still be receiving rate relief, which councils can award on the basis of how ratepayers have been affected by covid-19, but it will be against their liability for this year rather than last year, so we can still ensure that ratepayers quickly receive support against their rates bill once the Bill receives Royal Assent. As that is a slightly technical point, perhaps I will put that in writing before Report, so that it can be scrutinised properly by the Opposition and we can discuss the point further.

I appreciate that concerns have been raised about VOA funding. I agree that the Bill will help the VOA to focus on delivering its important functions, such as the wider 2023 revaluation. The Treasury is working closely with the VOA and HMRC to understand the resourcing requirements. We have provided the VOA with £22 million to update its IT systems, enabling it to become more flexible, more efficient and more resilient, and we have provided £31 million to support the revaluation in 2023. Of course, we will continue to assess the VOA’s funding in the spending review as well.

The hon. Gentleman rightly highlighted the pressures on local government and the new burdens that the Bill could create. It is right that when the Government ask councils to deliver new activity we consider new burdens. I assure the Committee that we will work closely with local government to consider, and assess the funding of, any new burdens in the administration of the relief as they arise. We have tried to do that in good faith throughout the pandemic, and will continue to ensure that that is the case.

I thank the hon. Gentleman again for his contribution. I am happy to try to clarify any further points that he wants to raise between now and Report. I look forward to continuing discussions throughout the passage of the Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2

Unfit directors of dissolved companies: Great Britain

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Clause 3 stand part.

New clause 1—Duty to report on directors of dissolved companies—

“(1) The Secretary of State must lay a report before each House of Parliament no later than three months after the day on which this Act is passed, and during each three month period thereafter.

(2) Each report under subsection (1) must include the number of former directors of dissolved companies the Insolvency Service has—

(a) investigated; and

(b) disqualified

both in the three-month period prior to the report being published, and in total since section 1 came into force.”

This new clause would place an obligation on the Secretary of State to report the number of former directors of dissolved companies investigated and disqualified by the Insolvency Service.

New clause 3—Effectiveness of provisions on former directors of dissolved companies—

“(1) The Secretary of State must, no later than the end of the period of one year after the day on which sections 2 and 3 come into force, lay before Parliament an assessment of the effectiveness of the provisions in section 2 and 3 of this Act.

(2) The assessment must include consideration of—

(a) the extent to which the provisions have achieved their objectives;

(b) the interaction of the provisions with other law and policy relating to the investigation and disqualification of directors; and

(c) possible related changes to law and policy.”

This new clause would place an obligation on the Secretary of State to publish an assessment of the provisions in section 2 and 3 of this Act.

[Luke Hall]

I am grateful to the Committee for its useful input in the discussion so far. I welcome the opportunity to talk further about our insolvency regime, which is an international leader on speed and efficiency, returns to creditors and cost. A strong insolvency regime must be backed up by efficient and robust enforcement to tackle wrongdoing, and the UK has a first-class regime to deal with regulatory breaches, whether through criminal proceedings or disqualifying individuals who have shown themselves unfit to act in the management of a limited company.

It will not escape the Committee’s notice that the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986 contains provisions that allow disqualification proceedings to be sought in live companies and in insolvent companies but not in dissolved companies. That is a loophole that has been exploited by unscrupulous company directors, and we heard many examples of that earlier in the week. For example, we have seen many instances where a company is dissolved in order to dump debts, such as those owed to the taxman or employment tribunal awards, only for a new company to pop up, running with the same directors in the same building, sometimes even with the same staff.

The process of allowing one company with debts to drop off the register and starting a new company without the burden of debt is sometimes known as phoenixism. We heard many worrying examples of that earlier this week and on Second Reading. We are therefore seeking to increase the scope of the CDDA to make it possible to challenge director misconduct, even where a company has been struck off the register and dissolved. The clause amends various sections of the CDDA, which will improve the enforcement regime by applying investigation and disqualification processes to former directors of dissolved companies.

On the whole, the amendments apply similar processes and standards to those cases as already exist for disqualification of directors of insolvent companies. That includes the option for a former director of a dissolved company to provide a disqualification undertaking to the Secretary of State rather than face court proceedings. Clause 2(2) amends section 6 of the CDDA to give a power to the court to make a disqualification order on the application of the Secretary of State where it is satisfied that a person was a company director of a dissolved company, and that their conduct makes them unfit to be concerned in the management of a limited company. It also clarifies which court has jurisdiction to make an order for the winding up of the company.

Clause 2(3) amends section 7 of the CDDA. It sets out that, where an application for a disqualification order against a former director of a dissolved company is made, it must be before the end of the three years, starting with the date of dissolution of the company. That mirrors the situation for insolvent companies, where a disqualification order must be made within three years of the date of insolvency. Clause 2(3) also makes an important amendment to section 7(4) of the CDDA to expand the power of the Secretary of State to investigate director conduct in dissolved companies. The outcome of such investigations will provide the evidence for disqualification proceedings and establish that public interest criteria are met.

Section 8ZA of the CDDA allows for the disqualification of a person where they have exerted influence over another person who has been disqualified as a result of their conduct as a director of an insolvent company. If the court is satisfied that the disqualified person acted under the instructions of another person, it may also disqualify that person on an application made by the Secretary of State under section 8ZB. Clause 2(4) and (5) amend those sections of the CDDA so that a similar application may be made by the Secretary of State where a former director of a dissolved company has been disqualified but acted under the instructions of another person. Again, that mirrors the current position with regard to disqualification in insolvent companies.

--- Later in debate ---

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Rees. I thank the Minister for outlining in some detail the legislation before us and the rationale for clauses 2 and 3 of this short but important Bill. As my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington stated, and as we both outlined at Second Reading, Labour is broadly supportive of the Bill, including the measures to close the dissolution loophole, which are needed to help tackle phoenixism, and which had almost unanimous support in all the oral and written evidence that the Committee received. There was also support for allowing action retrospectively; it is a welcome addition to the insolvency framework.

As the Committee heard from witnesses on Tuesday, unscrupulous directors can cause significant suffering to those who have invested in, or provided loans to, their company. We have also heard that the payment of employment tribunal awards can be affected. Too often, corrupt directors are able to absolve themselves of their financial responsibilities through dissolution, due to the time and money required for creditors to restore the company before being able to take action against it or the directors. As we heard in evidence, the Bill should therefore positively impact on creditor confidence. We also know that the taxpayer is now becoming a victim of this process, and that the action being taken is more limited due to the blunt tools and insufficient powers currently available, as unscrupulous directors seek to avoid paying back covid support loans.

It is therefore welcome that clauses 2 and 3, which deal with Great Britain and Northern Ireland respectively, remove the requirement for a dissolved company to be restored before the Government can act. The key change being made is that the powers available to the Secretary of State to investigate former directors of insolvent companies will be extended to cover dissolved companies. It will become easier for the Government to investigate the conduct of dissolved companies and, consequently, to seek disqualification orders or undertakings if desired.

However, although the clauses are a positive step, there are a number of concerns, most notably around the resourcing of the Insolvency Service, the Government’s plans and performance in relation to action taken in the investigation and disqualification of directors, and Parliament’s ability to scrutinise the outcomes of the legislation. Those gaps will, in our view, significantly limit the potential effectiveness of the Bill in its efforts to tackle financial corruption—potentially costing creditors, the Government and the public billions of pounds. Labour is calling for new clauses 1 and 3, tabled in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington, to be added to the Bill to address those gaps.

New clause 1 would place an obligation on the Secretary of State to lay a report before the House every three months following the passing of the Bill, outlining how many directors have been investigated and disqualified by the Insolvency Service. New clause 3 would place an obligation on the Secretary of State to publish an assessment of the provisions in clauses 2 and 3 of the Bill a year after it comes into force. That assessment would consider the extent to which the provisions have achieved their objectives, the interaction of the provisions with other law and policy relating to the investigation and disqualification of directors, and possible changes to law and policy.

In relation to new clause 1, I will outline some concerns on resourcing for investigations and action, including disqualifications. As Duncan Swift, the former president of R3, highlighted on Tuesday, the Bill could result in the Insolvency Service taking on “10 to 15 times” the number of investigations that it currently undertakes. However, there is no indication in the Bill, or in the Government’s intentions around it, that the Government plan to increase funding and resources at all for the Insolvency Service, let alone by 10 to 15 times, to allow it to cope with that potentially huge increase in workload.

That is despite the fact that R3 members, as identified in its evidence, often report encountering cases showing significant legal breaches by directors that, to their surprise, do not lead to disqualification. Several witnesses have suggested that the Insolvency Service is woefully under-resourced as it is. Without the necessary extra funding and resources for the Insolvency Service, the Bill’s aims of disqualifying unscrupulous directors or seeking undertakings simply will not be met. In fact, the measures introduced by the Bill may come at the expense of what the Insolvency Service is currently able to do in terms of investigating insolvent companies.

On top of that, we know that the Insolvency Service cannot apply to court for the disqualification of a director whose company has been dissolved for three years or more. That means that the Insolvency Service does not just need the extra resources to carry out those additional investigations, but needs to carry them out promptly and within the three-year timeframe. As Dr Tribe summarised on Tuesday, the Insolvency Service

“needs to be properly funded to ensure that this additional disqualification work can happen.”––[Official Report, Rating (Coronavirus) and Directors Disqualification (Dissolved Companies) Public Bill Committee, 6 July 2021; c. 18, Q29.]

All may go smoothly. There may be no backlog, no issues and no need to review the effectiveness of the legislation in meeting its goals, but we need to know that, and Parliament must be able to scrutinise in a timely and effective way. I hope that the Minister will support Labour’s call for new clause 1 to be added to the Bill, because surely this will be a report that he, too, will want to receive. On Second Reading, the Minister for Small Business, Consumers and Labour Markets said that the Government

“will be working with the Insolvency Service to ensure that it has the resources to do its job.”—[Official Report, 28 June 2021; Vol. 698, c. 83.]

Those may have been reassuring words to get us through this week, but we want to be able to see the outcomes of the process and how well the system is working. Surely that is in all our interests, both as parliamentarians and as constituency MPs.

New clause 1 would ensure regular reporting on the number of directors of dissolved companies investigated and disqualified by the Insolvency Service. In doing so, it would provide oversight and scrutiny around the Insolvency Service’s ability to implement the measures in the Bill. It would alert the House to any resourcing issues facing the Insolvency Service and evidence the need for extra funding in order to fulfil the aims of this Bill.

Another significant gap in the Bill is the lack of detail surrounding how the Government plan to act following the potential disqualification of directors. Disqualification itself does not provide measures for repayment so, on its own, it is not enough of a deterrent to prevent directors from acting unscrupulously. As Duncan Swift summarised on Tuesday:

“The serious rogue directors do not see being disqualified as a significant deterrent.”––[Official Report, Rating (Coronavirus) and Directors Disqualification (Dissolved Companies) Public Bill Committee, 6 July 2021; c. 60, Q96.]

What does represent a deterrent is being held to account for misappropriated assets and having personal liability for actions wrongfully undertaken as a director. Compensation orders are mentioned in the Bill. Since they have been introduced, very few compensation orders have been issued and their effectiveness has been unclear. Insolvency is a tried and tested way of recovering monies owed to creditors. Thousands of insolvency procedures take place every year that return hundreds of millions of pounds to creditors, but these processes are not without time, cost and considerable stress.

In order for the Insolvency Service, the courts and creditors to have clarity over what this Bill means, the Government should address the legislative gap. In order for the Bill to be effective, they must ensure this policy acts as a deterrent to unscrupulous directors and allows the aims of this Bill to be met.

That is why Labour has tabled new clause 3, which I am speaking to now. It would ensure that an annual assessment was made of the Bill’s effectiveness in acting as a deterrent to unscrupulous directors and at recouping owed monies. It will encourage the consideration of changes to the Bill to aid its effectiveness, making up for the current gaps in the Bill’s detail.

Clauses 2 and 3, which makes the same change to legislation in Northern Ireland, are broadly welcomed by the Labour party. We are pleased that a legal loophole, exploited for too long by unscrupulous directors, will finally be closed, but the Bill does not contain the details and or provide the oversight that Parliament needs to scrutinise its effectiveness and the outcomes it seeks to achieve. That was why we tabled new clauses 1 and 3: to ensure that the Insolvency Service is given the funding it needs to carry out the Bill’s goals, and to see disqualified directors repaying their loans and being held accountable for their liabilities in the most effective way.

I hope that the Committee sees the value of these new clauses and what they bring to the Bill, and I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Luke Hall]

I again thank the Opposition for the constructive way in which they have approached this useful discussion throughout the passage of the Bill. I am grateful for the contributions on new clauses 1 and 3, which would require the Secretary of State to make reports every three months to Parliament on the number of directors investigated and disqualified under the provisions in the Bill, and to report their effectiveness after one year.

I reassure the Committee that the Insolvency Service routinely produces insolvency statistics, covering company insolvencies in the UK and individual insolvencies in England and Wales, as well as some of the underlying data alongside that. These are published online, available to everybody, every three months. At the start of the pandemic, the Insolvency Service undertook to provisionally add experimental monthly data releases concerning insolvency numbers. In this way, the statistics could act as an indicator on the pandemic’s impact on insolvencies.

As well as the quarterly releases of insolvency statistics, information about the Insolvency Service’s enforcement activities is published and updated monthly. This data includes the number of companies wound up in the public interest and the number of disqualification orders and undertakings, broken down by the relevant section of the CDDA under which they were sought. Information on the length of the periods of disqualification is included and there is an annual report on the nature of the misconduct being alleged.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I am very grateful for your understanding, Ms Rees, in allowing me to speak. I would like to make some comments on clause 2. I think that the new clauses are good and I hope that the Committee will agree to them.

There is widespread agreement that clause 2, or something very like it, is needed. We have seen only one dissenting submission from anybody, and that was from an individual solicitor. Speaking as a legal layperson, I thought that that submission contained inconsistencies and seemed almost to miss the point of the legislation. Although I respect the right of that individual to express their views, I cannot agree with them.

We already have legislation that gives the Insolvency Service three years to apply for a disqualification order against the director of a company that goes through a full liquidation if it finds evidence of misconduct in the running of the liquidated company. If the director chooses to dissolve the company without going through liquidation first, the Insolvency Service cannot move to have them disqualified from other directorships for misconduct in the running of the dissolved company.

To indicate how untenable that inconsistency is now that it has been identified, I invite the Committee to imagine that the clause we are debating had been included in the Company Directors Disqualification Act right at the beginning. If somebody had come forward with a proposal to change the Act to create a special exemption for directors who deliberately dissolved their company as a way of dodging the consequences of the own misconduct, nobody would have taken it seriously. We would not create a loophole deliberately. The only disappointment I have is that the proposal to close this loophole has taken so long and that there are still far too many other loopholes for criminals to exploit.

I want to repeat a comment I made on Second Reading, and on which I asked a number of the witnesses to comment on Tuesday. The Government rightly point to the increase in phoenix companies that are set up as part of, or immediately after the dissolution of, a dodgy company. A similar abuse can and does take place where the phoenix company is a long-established associate company of the one being dissolved. The abuse does not rely on a new company being set up if the directors have a few handy replacement companies already in the bank, or on the Companies House register.

During the evidence sessions, I asked a number of witnesses if they had any concerns about the retrospective nature of clause 2. It is important to remember, as the Minister has pointed out, that we are not retrospectively outlawing something that was legal at the time; all we are saying that if someone is strongly suspected of having acted improperly or illegally in the past, that misconduct can be properly investigated. We are not even giving additional powers to the regulator to act; we are removing an artificial barrier that should probably never have been there in the first place to allow that investigation.

We heard an interesting range of views from witnesses on the three-year time limit. As the Minister pointed out, that limit applies from the date of dissolution, not the date of misconduct. If, for example, the directors of a company dissolved it in 2019 because they realised that their misconduct of 2015 was beginning to be picked up by the Insolvency Service or anyone else, they would not get away with it. For now, I think it makes sense to retain the three-year limit that applies elsewhere in the original Act, but I ask the Minister to give careful consideration to extending the limit in future legislation.

In other debates, I have referred to the scandalous way in which Blackmore Bond plc targeted very high-risk investments at people it knew were looking for quite the opposite—a safe place to invest money they could not afford to lose, as they had told the directors of Blackmore Bond. The investors have lost pensions and life savings totalling £46 million. The shareholder directors, Phillip Nunn and Patrick McCreesh, still appear to be doing very nicely indeed, thank you very much.

In 2015, the Insolvency Service, as part of a much bigger investigation into at least one other company, found that through an earlier company called Nunn McCreesh limited liability partnership, the same Phillip Nunn and Patrick McCreesh had been paid nearly £900,000 to identify investors for Capita Oak—an investment scheme that is now under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office. At the very least, there are major questions about what Nunn and McCreesh did for their £900,000 and about whether it was legal or proper. Perhaps by complete coincidence, also in 2015, Nunn and McCreesh dissolved the limited liability partnership.

Under the existing legislation, the Insolvency Service would not have been able to use any misconduct in the running of Nunn McCreesh llp to apply for disqualification orders against Nunn and McCreesh. It could not have stopped them from setting up the much more lucrative Blackmore Bond in 2016. The Bill still would not allow it to do so because of the three-year time limit. That is one reason I am asking the Minister to consider the three-year limit in future.

At least this legislation means that if another Nunn McCreesh llp comes along now, the Insolvency Service will have one small but important additional weapon in its armoury to stop it. It came too late to stop Blackmore Bond making £46 million by making other people’s money—other people’s life savings and pensions—disappear. Hopefully, the next Blackmore Bond will be stopped in time and that will not happen again.

It took only the briefest of searches this morning to find that Phillip Nunn, one of the directors of Blackmore Bond and Nunn McCreesh, was a director of no fewer than 10 different companies that have been dissolved in the past year. For most of them, the only other director was Patrick McCreesh. I do not know whether Mr Nunn or Mr McCreesh was ever placed under formal investigation for their part in Capita Oak, and I do not know what was in the liquidator’s report that was submitted to the Secretary of State about their conduct, as happens with any insolvency case, but surely the fact that they were able to dissolve the company in 2015 should not make any difference to the investigations to which they can be subjected now or the sanctions they can face if they are found or suspected to be guilty of serious misconduct in the operation of Nunn McCreesh llp or any of their other companies. When I was looking at the activities of Blackmore Bond, one of the other companies with which it went into what was called a strategic partnership led to another of these fascinating spider’s webs of dissolved companies and resurrected companies, one of which has an ultimate owner that is a limited liability partnership registered in England with five partners who appear to be members of the same family—two people of similar age who are the designated partners, and three people about 25 to 30 years younger than them who are partners but not designated. It looks like mum, dad and kids—why not?

According to documents that the senior designated partner certified and submitted to Companies House, which Companies House accepted and still has displayed on its website, one of those younger partners consented to the responsibility of being a partner in that partnership when she was 16 years old. One of them, according to those documents, consented to those responsibilities when she was 14 years old. One of them was 10 years old.

Some of our witnesses referred to the gross inadequacies in the processes of Companies House for checking the documents that are submitted to it. Those documents are being used to demonstrate that a company is genuine and bona fide. Those kinds of thing make it clear to me that while the Bill should be supported today and while the clause should be adopted with or without the related new clauses suggested by the main Opposition party, there are still massive holes in our regulation of companies through the Financial Conduct Authority, Companies House and the register of companies, the Financial Reporting Council and the professional auditing bodies.

Not a single part of the regulatory framework is working properly. Sometimes that is because the regulators are not doing the jobs that they are there to do. Sometimes it is because they are not resourced and do not have the firepower to compete with some of what they are faced with. Sometimes it is because the legislation we have provided them with is not fit for purpose. When those three things come together in so many regulators at the same time, it is no wonder, as one of our witnesses pointed out, that the United Kingdom is seen as one of the softest of soft touches for fraudulent companies. An entire company can be set up for no other reason than to steal people’s money.

I welcome the Bill, I certainly support clauses 2 and 3, and I will recommend that the Bill be supported when it returns to the House on Third Reading, but it is only a tiny step on a much longer journey. I urge the Minister and his colleagues in Government not to see the Bill as the last step, but to see it as the first in making the United Kingdom, whatever format it might take in the future, and all our four nations no-go areas for the scammers, chancers and charlatans for whom we have been far too soft a touch for far too long.

[Luke Hall]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his powerful contribution; he is extremely well informed on these matters. I thank him also for his support and take into account his comments on the three-year limit. I am grateful for that.

The Government are certainly not pretending that the work stops here. However, the Bill is a positive step forward in the right direction and it is taking action. I will raise the points the hon. Gentleman has made today with the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 2 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 3 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 4

Extent, commencement and short title

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Luke Hall]

The clause covers technical areas such as the Bill’s territorial extent, the commencement and the short title. Clause 4(1) sets out that the business rates measure relating to material changes of circumstance in clause 1 extends to England and Wales. However, the application of clause 1 is to England, meaning that in effect it applies only to England. As I said earlier, the Welsh Government yesterday announced their intention to include in the Bill provisions applying to Wales. We will work closely with them on that and take the necessary steps.

Clause 4(2) confirms that the extent of the directors disqualification measure is the same as for the provisions being amended, which means that clause 2 extends to Great Britain and clause 3 to Northern Ireland. The effect is that the measure extends to the whole UK.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeff Smith]

I thank the Minister. Obviously, this is a technical clause that we have no problem with. I just want to make this point again: the extent and the commencement are important, but the distribution of the £1.5 billion to businesses that desperately need help does not rest on the passing of the Bill and its clauses. The commencement of the help to businesses could start as soon as the guidance is ready.

[Luke Hall]

I thank the hon. Gentleman. That is why we are so keen that we work at pace with the LGA and others to make sure that the guidance is in the right place to distribute so that we can get the support out as quickly as possible.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 4 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

[The Chair]

Does the hon. Lady want to move new clause 1 formally?

--- Later in debate ---

Question proposed, That the Chair do report the Bill to the House.

[Luke Hall]

I put on record my thanks to the Committee, the Clerks of the Committee for their work, the Opposition for being so constructive, and all hon. Members. I also thank the Opposition for wishing me a very happy birthday. If I am honest with myself, I have never had this many people at one of my birthdays, so it is an absolute pleasure. I thank the Committee for its work in the consideration of this important Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly to be reported, without amendment.

Rating (Coronavirus) and Directors Disqualification (Dissolved Companies) Bill

Luke Hall Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading
Thursday 9th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant]

I beg your pardon, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am standing to speak to the wrong provision.

[The Minister for Regional Growth and Local Government (Luke Hall)]

I welcome the contribution from the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith). I shall start by responding to new clause 1, tabled by the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) and the hon. Gentleman. I am grateful to him for his constructive words and the way in which he has approached the debate.

The new clause would require the Secretary of State to report to Parliament on the number of directors investigated and disqualified under the new provisions in the Bill every three months from the date that the Act is passed. I am grateful to hon. Members for the opportunity to confirm to the House that statistical reporting is routinely undertaken by the Insolvency Service. Regular three-monthly releases cover company insolvencies across the whole UK as well as individual insolvencies in England and Wales. The releases also contain underlying data and are published and available online to everybody.

As well as that, since the start of the pandemic, the Insolvency Service has been publishing experimental monthly releases of data concerning insolvency numbers. This was so that the statistics could act as an indicator of the impact of the pandemic on insolvencies. It may be of particular interest to hon. Members that the Insolvency Service also releases monthly updates about its enforcement activities. This information includes not only the number of companies wound up in the public interest, but the number of disqualification orders and undertakings broken down by the relevant section of the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986, under which they were sought. Going forward, these numbers will include any orders or undertakings obtained as a result of this new provision. The reports also include information on lengths of periods of disqualification. Furthermore, there is an annual report on the nature of the misconduct being alleged.

I hope that the hon. Gentleman is reassured that a large amount of information is already provided that can be accessed easily through a quick online search and that future reports of enforcement outcomes will include any disqualifications made against former directors of dissolved companies. I would be grateful to him for withdrawing his new clause.

Let me just add one last point. The hon. Gentleman also mentioned the new burdens on councils. I somewhat couched my answer the last time we spoke about it, so I just want to put on record that we will absolutely be meeting the new burdens cost, including the associated administrative and IT costs.

[Jeff Smith]

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 1

Determinations in respect of certain non-domestic rating lists

Amendments made: 1, page 1, line 2, for “an English” substitute “a rating”.

This amendment and Amendments 2 to 6 extend the application of Clause 1 to non-domestic rating lists compiled for the purposes of business rates in Wales (as well as lists for England).

Amendment 2, page 1, line 5, for “an English” substitute “a rating”.

See the explanatory statement for Amendment 1.

Amendment 3, page 1, line 8, for “an English” substitute “a rating”.—

See the explanatory statement for Amendment 1.

Amendment 4, page 2, leave out lines 22 and 23.

See the explanatory statement for Amendment 1.

Amendment 5, page 2, leave out lines 28 to 35.

See the explanatory statement for Amendment 1.

Amendment 6, page 2, line 40, at end insert—

‘“rating list” means a local non-domestic rating list or central nondomestic rating list under Part 3 of the LGFA 1988.’.—(Luke Hall.)

See the explanatory statement for Amendment 1.

Third Reading

[Luke Hall]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

It is a pleasure to lead this two-part Bill on Third Reading after a series of constructive debates and scrutiny sessions. The contributions of Members from across the House have underlined the importance of these business rates and insolvency measures being on the statute book and will stand the Bill in good stead as it passes to the other place.

The business rates element of the Bill is a sensible measure that will mean that the application of the material change of circumstances process meets the law’s original intention. The MCC process is designed to be used in cases such as localised roadworks, not in response to market-wide economic changes. The passage of the Bill would ensure that this continues to be the case. Instead of business rates bills potentially being reduced following lengthy appeals processes, ratepayers will instead be able to benefit from a £1.5 billion relief package to be targeted at those businesses that have not benefited from the support linked to business rates during the pandemic.

The relief will be available as soon as possible once the Bill has passed and local authorities have set up their local schemes. This approach has been welcomed by the Public Accounts Committee and will be mirrored by the Scottish and Welsh Governments. That means that this measure has wide support, both in respect of the English business rates system and across the other nations of the UK, where ratings are a devolved matter.

Similarly, we have also seen widespread support for the second measure, which brings the conduct of former directors of dissolved companies into scope for investigation and potential disqualification proceedings. This measure is a valuable addition that will be an important tool to help to combat bounce back loan fraud and to deter others from acting in breach of their duties as company directors. I am pleased that the measure will apply across the United Kingdom, protecting our businesses and increasing confidence in doing business in all four nations.

I am grateful for the contribution of all Members throughout the Bill’s earlier passage and today. I thank them for the attention that they have paid to the Bill. I am particularly grateful to the shadow Ministers, the hon. Members for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith) and for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra), for their constructive scrutiny of the Bill.

Finally, I thank the Clerks of the House and my excellent Bill team at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, who have supported us in steering this piece of important legislation through the House. This important Bill speaks to the Government’s commitment to maintaining sensible and fair rating and director disqualification regimes, and I am pleased to have supported it in its passage so far. I commend it to the House.