Legislative Reform

I am tempted to use that tremendously flexible parliamentary word, "soon" in respect of the introduction of the order. We hope to introduce it within the April-May timetable. The hon. Gentleman said that he wanted to be clear—it is a perfectly fair request—that although we would be less prescriptive about the method of trying to contact unidentified creditors, the duty would still exist. I refer him to paragraph 3(b) of the order, which states that""the liquidator—""(a) shall summon a meeting of creditors . . . not later than the 28th day after the day on which he formed"" the opinion;"(b) shall send notices . . . by post to the creditors"" shall advertise—I shall return to our friend the Gazette—""in such other manner as he thinks fit"" and shall""furnish creditors free of charge with such information concerning the affairs of the company as they may reasonably require"." So there are still important duties to try to identify creditors. My hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller) spoke about the costs and fees involved, and a number of other hon. Members also referred to those. As I said in my opening remarks, there is recourse to the court on these charges, and we are bringing in measures to achieve greater transparency and accountability, which the House will have a chance to discuss, through the methods that I outlined. I want to respond to my hon. Friend's point about steamrollering, which was also the subject of the speech from the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming). That is not at all what we are doing. As my hon. Friend said, the Committee had some sympathy with the substance of our proposals, but questioned their scope and effect. Other options were open to the Committee, which they did not take. Following the Committee's consideration, it is perfectly proper to allow the House, as we are doing, to have a full debate and to ask the House to approve the order. I must pick up on a point made several times both before and, more worryingly, after my intervention that the only beneficiary would be the Government. As I said, HMRC stopped being a preferential creditor some years ago. In the hierarchy of creditors, there are, first, the expenses connected with the liquidation, which we are trying to reduce through the order. Then there are the preferential creditors. In practice, the employees are high on the list, and rightly so. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Chorley (Mr. Hoyle) about that. Next in the hierarchy are banks, followed by unsecured creditors. It is not the case that HMRC stands first in line to benefit from the changes that we are proposing.