Enterprise Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 5:30 pm on 21 October 2002.

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Photo of Lord McIntosh of Haringey Lord McIntosh of Haringey Deputy Chief Whip (House of Lords), HM Household, Captain of the Queen's Bodyguard of the Yeomen of the Guard (HM Household) (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Lords) 5:30, 21 October 2002

My Lords, I must confess to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, that, after I said in Committee that I would do my best to get a copy of the first draft of the rules to noble Lords in good time, I was greeted with a storm of protest by officials. They said, "It's impossible to achieve this. We are nowhere near doing that and there are all sorts of consultations still in process. We cannot do it". To their immense credit, they have succeeded in getting something both to the Opposition Front Benches and to me in time for the debate this afternoon. However, I acknowledge, of course, that that is not in time for the draft to be fully studied and taken account of. If, as a result of studying the draft rules, amendments are tabled at Third Reading, I shall not complain.

I turn to Amendment No. 207, which is familiar because it has been debated on a number of occasions. I think we are all agreed that the holder of a floating charge should be one of the people who has access to a "quick route" into administration. The Bill achieves that. However, as I said previously—I know that my colleagues in the Commons have said the same thing—where the court has already appointed a provisional liquidator, it is right that only the court can replace that person with an administrator. To allow otherwise would be to usurp the powers of the court. It is not a matter between a creditor and the company; it is a question of the court making the appointment.

I want to say a word about Amendments Nos. 208 and 209, although the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has made conciliatory noises about them. Following our discussion in Committee about the "weekend" situation—that is, the problem of court opening hours—I want to acknowledge that it is a real problem. Administration is fundamentally a court-based procedure. Therefore, we do not intend to amend the provision concerning when the administrator's appointment takes effect. However, we do intend that the amended insolvency rules will allow for appointments to be made other than during court opening hours.

I believe it was the noble Lord, Lord Sharman, who called it the "weekend problem"—that is, the question of what happens when the court adjourns on a Friday afternoon. The noble Lord, Lord Freeman, who I am sorry to see is not in his place today, raised the issue of a kind of fax-back arrangement, whereby something would be faxed to the court and the court's fax would acknowledge it by sending a reply. The Notice of Appointment would be sent to a dedicated central point by fax and the subsequent acknowledgement would show the date and time of receipt—that is, the date and time of appointment. The appointor would then be required to attend at the appropriate court at the first opportunity in order to file the original documents in the relevant court. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Freeman, for putting forward the suggestion, which forms the basis of the amendments that we shall make to the insolvency rules.

With my renewed apologies for not getting the draft rules to the Opposition Benches before today, and with my renewed appreciation of officials for their achievement in getting the draft to those Benches, I hope that Amendment No. 207 will not be pursued.