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Viscount Bledisloe had given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 19:
- Paragraph, page 7, line 17, at end insert—
The noble Viscount said: I understood that the Leader of the House was sympathetic to my suggestion. I hope that means that he will do his best to ensure that such business does not occur on Thursday mornings. On that basis, I am delighted not to move the amendment.
Lord Williams of Mostyn: In case there is any misunderstanding, I said that I would give careful attention to the suggestion. I cannot dictate the conduct of the House's business on my own.
Lady Saltoun of Abernethy moved Amendment No. 21:
The noble Lady said: On 21st May, at col. 697, I wondered what consultations had taken place with Black Rod and the superintendent of the Refreshment Department on sittings in September. I did not receive an answer, so I wrote to the Procedure Committee and asked what consultations had taken place with either of those persons.
As far as Black Rod is concerned, I was concerned about repair and maintenance work to the Palace, for which it is necessary to have at least two clear months—probably longer—in the summer holidays. Extra weeks at Christmas and Easter are no use, because for serious structural work it is necessary to have a long unbroken period at a time when tradesmen are not on holiday.
For the rest, it is not only a question of the Refreshment Department staff, but also the cleaners, the security staff, the Doorkeepers and Clerks, all of whose holidays will be affected. That is why I should like to know that a report will be received from all the departments concerned before any decision is taken for the House to sit in September. That applies also to Grand Committees, because they affect the House's staff, unless they can be arranged to sit somewhere else.
I feel strongly about the staff and inconvenience to them regarding their holidays. We all know how willingly they return for emergency debates, such as on 14th September last year, and for the tributes to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, and we are grateful to them. But that is no excuse for them to be imposed on. I beg to move.
Lord Higgins: The amendment is concerned with paragraph 27. In seeking to establish the way in which the committee's thoughts had developed on the issue, I looked at the appendix to the report. All one finds is that,
Presumably, this is a summary. As the noble and learned Lord the Leader of the House pointed out earlier, the appendix contains extracts, not the full minutes of the proceedings. I asked on an earlier amendment why only extracts were provided and not the whole minutes of proceedings. The noble and learned Lord did not answer that question. Perhaps he will do so now.
The noble and learned Lord also replied that the full version was in the Library. It is not. The Library staff are unable to find it.
Lord Williams of Mostyn: My advice, which I am having re-checked, is that the minutes are in the Library. I have not examined them, but that was the advice that I was given in answer to the noble Lord's question earlier. That is why I replied in the way I did.
The amendment would delay all reform until there had been a full analysis of the effects on the works programme and so forth. Your Lordships will remember that we had a very full debate on the subject on Amendment No. 2. It would be discourteous of me to rehearse the arguments again. I simply invite your Lordships to remember what was said earlier.
Lord Higgins: I still do not understand why we have only the extracts of the minutes and not the full minutes.
Lord Williams of Mostyn: I do not have encyclopaedic experience of such matters, but as far as I know this is not uncommon.
Lady Saltoun of Abernethy: I seem to recollect that on Amendment No. 2 the noble and learned Lord said that contractors would be given very long notice that the House would be sitting in September. I do not recollect him saying anything about notice that would be given to the staff. I am still not very happy about the issue, but in view of the lateness of the hour, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Crickhowell had given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 22:
The noble Lord said: I have two or three very brief comments. More than seven hours ago, I set out a number of issues that I thought ought to be looked at thoroughly before we started rising in mid-July and sitting in September. I leave those on the record.
I have to be in an important Joint Committee of both Houses not at 11 o'clock tomorrow morning, but at 9 o'clock. I have no reason to wish to delay the proceedings of the Committee further. It would also be wrong to ask the Committee to vote on such an important issue when there was thin attendance late at night. We will have the opportunity to vote on any specific proposal for a September sitting. We have already been told that substantial notice will have to be given. The Clerk of the Parliaments informed the Procedure Committee that at least six months' notice would be needed if the contractual arrangements were to be made satisfactorily.
For those reasons, I do not intend to pursue the matter further this evening. If any other Member wishes to speak, they have an opportunity to do so.
[Amendments Nos. 23 and 24 not moved.]
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Report from the Select Committee reported without amendment; report received.
The Deputy Speaker (Viscount Simon): My Lords, I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified her Royal Assent to the following Acts:
Finance Act, European Parliamentary Elections Act,
Copyright, etc. and Trade Marks (Offences and Enforcement) Act,
Justice (Northern Ireland) Act,
Divorce (Religious Marriages) Act,
Export Control Act,
Proceeds of Crime Act,
Police Reform Act,
Education Act,
Mobile Telephones (Re-programming) Act.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey rose to move, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 26th June be approved [34th Report from the Joint Committee].
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Insolvency Act 2000 provides small viable companies in financial trouble with a better chance of survival. It does that by allowing the company a short moratorium while a rescue proposal, in the form of a company voluntary arrangement, is put to its creditors.
However, it is clear that, as the provisions in the Insolvency Act 2000 are expressed, some companies that noble Lords and I would not think of as small would also qualify to use the new procedure by virtue of what might be termed a "technicality". Those
That possibility has caused some consternation in the City where these types of deal are done. The last thing that the City wants is for those types of company to be eligible for a CVA moratorium. If they were, this valuable market would be seriously damaged and that would be to no one's benefit. Therefore, we have considered the matter very carefully and have concluded that we should bring forward these regulations to ensure that they cannot.
In recent years, a significant market and expertise has developed in the City of London for securitisation and related bond issues. That demand is dependent on the fact that UK law, unlike that of much of the rest of the world, allows a lender or funder to take a floating charge over the assets of the borrowing company. That charge allows the lender to appoint an administrative receiver, more or less immediately, if things go wrong. His job is to get the lender's money back by realising the charged assets.
Although we think it most unlikely that a company involved in such a transaction would be able to obtain a moratorium, if it did, the right to appoint an administrative receiver would be stayed for as long as the moratorium lasted. It has been impressed on us that that possibility would be likely to damage the attractiveness of the UK as a base for doing these types of deal, and that would have obvious unwelcome consequences for the City.
The right to appoint an administrative receiver is also important in the structured finance market—again, because of the level of control that it brings.
As a consequence of the Public Finance Initiative and public/private finance partnerships, large amounts of private money are now being made available to fund public projects. The availability of funds in that market is dependent on the financier having the right to step in and take over the contract if the borrower fails to deliver. That could not happen sufficiently quickly if the moratorium was in place. Clearly, we could not contemplate the idea of essential public services being interrupted in that way.
Under the eligibility criteria, the holding company of a large group of companies might also qualify for a moratorium, particularly if all the group's trading is done by its subsidiaries. For such a company to qualify for the moratorium when it is worth millions of pounds runs counter to our policy. It would also be bizarre if a company with a liability of £10 million or more could qualify for a small company moratorium simply because it otherwise satisfied the eligibility criteria set out in the Act.
Your Lordships will appreciate from what I have said that we obviously need to make sure that those particular kinds of larger company do not qualify for a company voluntary arrangement moratorium intended only for the genuinely smaller company. They are clearly not the kinds of company that we were aiming to help or that should be able to avail themselves of a CVA moratorium.
I am sure that on all sides we shall be able to see the sense of excluding them and agree that no harm whatever will be done to our principal aim of giving the smaller company a short breathing space in which to mount a rescue attempt. Once these regulations are made, we shall be able to make the company voluntary arrangement moratorium available to those who really need it—small companies in need of a breathing space.
It is normal practice for a Minister inviting Parliament to approve a draft statutory instrument to volunteer a view on its compatibility with the convention rights as defined in Section 1 of the Human Rights Act 1998. I confirm that in my view the provisions of the draft order are compatible. I beg to move.
Moved, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 26th June be approved [34th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Lord McIntosh of Haringey.)
"Save in exceptional circumstances the Committee stage, the Report stage or the Third Reading of a public bill shall not take place during the above period of lla.m.-1.30p.m. unless it is expected that that stage of that bill can be completed wholly within that period."
Paragraph 27, page 8, line 17, at end insert—
"None of the proposals in this report shall take effect until the Procedure Committee has received a full analysis of their impact on
—the parliamentary works programme
—the House of Lords Refreshment Department
—Black Rod's office
––staff in the House of Lords administration"
"Paragraphs 7-28 were read, amended and agreed to".
We have no idea whether they were all amended or what the amendments are.
Page 8, leave out paragraph 27 and insert—
"27. We do not endorse, Group recommendation (l) that the House should be willing to sit in September and we recommend that the House should not normally sit in September."
11.16 p.m.
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