| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
'a money market contract or a related contract,'.
No. 11, in page 19, line 35, after "charge", insert--
', a money market charge or a system-charge'.
No. 12, in page 19, line 46, after first "charge", insert--
', a money market charge, a system-charge'.
No. 13, in page 22, line 8, leave out from "period" to "and" in line 9 and insert--
'for the time being specified in paragraph 8(3))'.--[Mr. Pope.]
Mr. Page: I beg to move amendment No. 30, in page 28, line 33, leave out--
'to the value of £500 or more'.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 21, in page 28, line 35, leave out--
'to the value of £500 or more'.
Mr. Page: One of the penalties of growing older--albeit not old--is that one's memory starts to play tricks with one. I have a persistent memory of the then Labour Opposition claiming that they would be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime--indeed, I seem to recall their making such statements in government.
Mr. Page: Perhaps my hon. Friend is about to tell me that my memory is not playing tricks and mention the reduction in police numbers.
Mr. Butterfill: I am tempted to do so, but I think that I should be likely to incur your wrath, Mr. Deputy Speaker, were I to pursue that route. However, I can confirm that my recollection of the Government's words is precisely the same as that of my hon. Friend.
Mr. Page: I thank my hon. Friend for assuring me that I am right, which enables me to proceed with greater confidence--I would have hated to start on dodgy or shaky ground.
In Committee, I definitely remember the Minister defending the £500 minimum in respect of the offence of removing any part of a company's property. He appealed to the provisions of insolvency law dating back as far as the Bankruptcy Act 1914.
Dr. Howells: I have no desire to delay the House, but I am delighted to be able to tell the hon. Gentleman that we have tracked back as far as the Bankruptcy Act 1824, which also imposed a £10 threshold.
Mr. Page: I am glad to learn that the Minister has been ferreting around, but I, too, have done a little ferreting and it may be that I shall be able to trump him by going back a few more years.
The Minister has now told us that the £10 threshold was in place almost 100 years before the Act to which he referred in Committee was passed. However, my historical research has revealed that, in 1811, Members of Parliament debated at some length whether stealing goods from a house to a value of more than 40 shillings should be a capital offence, whereas the threshold in respect of stealing from a shop was only 5 shillings. Evidently, they were worried about their servants stealing from them--the Minister will understand that problem. I wonder what punishment those Members of Parliament would have
thought appropriate had they heard today's news that a wedding gift worth £1 million has gone walkabout from a house in London.However, life moved on and in 1860, stealing goods worth £10 or more led to hard labour or transportation. The judiciary was obviously having difficulty in obtaining convictions leading to capital punishment for the theft of sums larger than 40 shillings, so transportation was introduced. As the crime was stealing goods worth £10 or more, that meant that we were sending only the bigger and better operators over to Australia. That must be the genetic reason why the Australians regularly thrash us at all forms of sport.
I make no apology for returning to the subject. Although the Minister's historical examples were extremely interesting, they were not matched by the soundness of his arguments. He told us that during a moratorium, directors were unlikely to spirit away the various assets. Human nature being what it is, if a director thinks that the moratorium will fail, the temptation to spirit away assets during that period of grace will in certain cases become irresistible.
As I understand it, it is the nominee's duty to monitor the company's affairs so that he or she may come to an opinion whether a proposed voluntary arrangement has a reasonable prospect of being approved and implemented. Furthermore, the nominee is required to be satisfied that the company will have sufficient funds to carry on its business during a moratorium. In reaching those conclusions, the nominee must rely on the information supplied by the directors.
I am therefore curious to learn where in the Bill the nominee is granted powers to make his or her own inquiries and to watch over the physical assets of the company worth £500 or more. The Minister surely does not believe that the directors or anyone intending to remove property from the company's premises will be daft enough to inform the nominee of the plans.
A moratorium may provide more opportunities for a director or employees to remove property than would occur when an administrative receiver or provisional liquidators were appointed. It would be so easy to get the proverbial white van up to the door, open it and steal items worth up to £499.99. It is still not clear from the Bill whether a blind eye will be turned to the removal of items with a cumulative value of £499.99, or whether that represents a single item. I naturally condemn such offences.
In certain respects the Government have been generous and given a 100 per cent. write-off. A piece of electrical equipment could appear on the books at zero, having been written off during the year. If such an item were stolen from the company, would that be stealing, or would it be taking away nothing? I do not condone such activities, but they are a fact of life.
We discussed the matter in Committee. I raise it again in the hope that since then the Minister will have read his various manifesto commitments and will present a more powerful argument, supporting our police force and the law and order of this land. I look forward to his response.
There is another gap in the Bill which we did not discuss in Committee. I refer to the concealing of part of a company's property worth less than £500. We hope that the Minister will tell us what he intends to do to block that loophole. If it is not blocked, it will be exploited by unscrupulous people during a moratorium.
Under the Bill's provisions, holders of floating charges cannot appoint administrative receivers. I remind the Minister that administrative receivers have powers to prevent directors from concealing any part of a company's property. In the Bill directors are given the open door. Small items will undoubtedly go missing. We do not believe in turning a blind eye to crimes. We do not believe in supporting moves that will enable the white van to come to the door and pick up goods that will later be sold as having fallen off the back of a lorry.
The Government have an opportunity today to eschew the spin and put some substance behind their law and order policies.
6.45 pm
Dr. Howells: This issue was raised in relation to previous amendments, which were debated extensively in Committee and another place. We are puzzled by the hon. Gentleman's concerns about the £500 limit referred to in paragraphs 41(4)(a) and (b) of proposed new schedule A1 to the Insolvency Act 1986. I put it to him that such provisions have worked perfectly satisfactorily for at least the 176 years that I managed to track them back, and I do not understand why he should find the £500 limit unacceptable.
I remind hon. Members that similar offences exist elsewhere in the 1986 Act, which was enacted by the previous Government. Both measures involve a £500 minimum limit and have worked perfectly satisfactorily. Those provisions were introduced by a Conservative Government, and I find the hon. Gentleman's objections odd.
Mr. Burnett: For the benefit of those hon. Members who were not in Committee, does the Minister agree that it might be wise to remind the House that there is such a thing as the Theft Act 1968, and that the theft of any item, of any value, is an offence and is punishable as such?
Dr. Howells: Absolutely. The hon. Gentleman gives us a valuable lesson in the law--and for free, despite the fact that he is a lawyer. We should be grateful for that.
The amendments do not address the issue across the piece. There are similar offences in sections 206 and 354 of the 1986 Act, but the amendments would not apply to them. The issue has been debated extensively in Committee and in another place and I give the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Page) the undertaking that we shall consider it in the context of the two reviews that my Department is conducting. I hope that that will satisfy him and that he will withdraw the amendment.
Mr. Page: In view of the fact that the Minister will consider the matter in the context of the reviews, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment made: No. 53, in page 30, line 21, at end insert--
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |