First, I thank all noble Lords for their interesting and, as always, valuable contributions to this debate.
It is worth reiterating that, since the emergence of Covid-19, businesses have received billions in loans, tax deferrals, business rate relief and grants to support them and, vitally, to help them to preserve jobs. The Government’s road map for the staged lifting of restrictions has in my view been a success in protecting the UK from the spread of Covid-19 while the vaccine programme was rolled out, and we can all begin slowly to return to normality.
However, we must recognise that many businesses and others have suffered from the impact of the pandemic for over a year now, and in many cases it will take time to return to full pre-Covid financial health. The Government will continue to do what it takes to support businesses through this period of economic recovery.
The points raised have highlighted the importance of the measure being extended by these regulations and the necessity of extending it once more so that businesses can continue to benefit from it. These regulations will provide the much-needed continued support for businesses to concentrate their best efforts on continuing to trade, preserve jobs and build the foundations for our economic recovery. I sincerely hope that companies and their creditors will come together in good faith to maintain their future trading relationships and secure the benefits for both themselves and the economy as a whole.
I will answer some of the points that were quite fairly put to me in the debate. The noble Lord, Lord Sikka, and my noble friend Lord Leigh asked a very pertinent and relevant question about what will happen when these measures come to an end in a little over three weeks’ time. The Government recognise that there is potential for what I think both noble Lords referred to as a cliff-edge scenario involving the accumulation of unpaid debts becoming due when these restrictions and government fiscal support expire. I can tell noble Lords that work is ongoing with businesses and key stakeholders to develop solutions to enable a viable exit from these measures. All options are being considered, and I hope to make an announcement on this very shortly.
The noble Lord, Lord Sikka, asked what the Government are doing to support creditors who are unable to recover their debts and who are putting their own businesses at risk. To reiterate, this is a temporary measure that is intended to help struggling businesses during the continuation of the pandemic. It does not, as I said initially, permanently prevent the possibility of a creditor serving a statutory demand and/or presenting a winding-up petition. When the legislation expires, a creditor will be able to pursue their debt. We expect this to encourage businesses to continue, wherever possible, to meet their ongoing liabilities as far as they are able to do so.
There is a range of other legal options available to creditors seeking to recover debts which are unaffected by the changes being made here. If is, for example, possible to bring a civil claim to recover a debt. Also, where a company’s inability to pay is not related to Covid-19, it will still be possible to present a petition for winding it up, notwithstanding the points correctly raised by my noble friend Lord Hodgson. There is evidence to suggest that winding-up petitions are still being presented in appropriate cases.
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My noble friend Lord Hodgson also raised an important point about what the Government are doing to support landlords. We recognise the current challenges facing commercial landlords and the significant impact these are having on their business models. We also recognise that many landlords are demonstrating what we would regard as best practice by working closely with tenants to find solutions that work for both parties, and we are grateful to see many of these discussions continuing to take place.
The Government have extended the commercial rents moratorium to March 2022 and will introduce legislation to support the orderly resolution of commercial rent arrears where tenants are affected by restrictions during the pandemic. The legislation will ring-fence rent debt accrued and set out a process of binding arbitration between landlords and tenants.
My noble friend Lord Hodgson also raised many points regarding landlord restructuring plans and—one of my favourite phrases to emerge from all this—cross-class cram down: I managed to say it. I recognise the concerns about restructuring plans and how the new cross-class cram-down provisions are working, and indeed I have been approached separately by landlords, as have officials, and have recently written to them on this; I can share the correspondence with my noble friend Lord Hodgson if that would be helpful. However, the provisions are still relatively new and there have already been some very successful rescue plans. We will, as always, monitor the situation closely, and I pay tribute to him for all the work that he does on this and for his suggestion for the use of powers under the Act. We are more than happy to work with commercial landlords going forward, as my noble friend has suggested.
The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, asked why some of the temporary measures, such as the exclusion of small businesses from termination clauses and the return of personal liability for wrongful trading, were allowed to lapse at the end of June. The answer is that we use a range of evidence and criteria to make such decisions, and we took the view that returning the regime to its normal operation was of vital importance as the economy reopens and we start to get back to normal. Impact assessments will be published in due course.
I hope that I have answered most of the questions that were put to me, and yet again I thank the small number of specialists in this field from whom this House has once again benefited in their useful contributions to this debate.