Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester, Gorton)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, how many international trade advisors are employed by her Department; and in which regions of the UK they are located.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
In England, DBT has 154 International Trade Advisers (ITAs) and at the time of writing a further 10 are currently undergoing the on-boarding process. ITAs are located across our three Super Region teams; Southern England, Midlands and the North. There are currently no DBT ITAs in the Nations, but we are engaging on how to introduce new resource that complements existing services offered by the Devolved Administrations and their agencies.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester, Gorton)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits a statutory duty on insolvency practitioners to pay outstanding (a) wages and (b) notice pay as the first duty when a company ceases to trade as a result of insolvency.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Raising the priority of payment for employee claims would inevitably reduce the sums that may be paid to other unsecured creditors, including small businesses.
Former employees of insolvent employers can claim redundancy payments and other contractual debts from the National Insurance Fund, subject to statutory limits. Those claims will be paid whether or not there are sufficient funds in the insolvent company and will be paid much quicker than if they were elevated higher than other creditors in law.
As part of their statutory duties, Insolvency Practitioners must provide the necessary information to the government administered Redundancy Payments Service to facilitate the processing of employee claims as quickly as possible.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester, Gorton)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of (a) introducing measures to hold company directors to account for businesses going into administration, (b) giving employees more security by way of secured creditor status in respect of redundancy payments and arrears of pay, (c) putting in place a statutory duty on insolvency practitioners to pay out outstanding wages and notice pay as the first duty when a company ceases to trade as a result of an insolvency.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Measures to hold directors to account already exist. When a company enters administration, the administrator has a legal duty to report to the Insolvency Service on the directors’ conduct. The Insolvency Service may seek the directors’ disqualification where there is evidence of their misconduct, and it is in the public interest. Potential criminal offences are referred to the appropriate authority.
To ensure fairness, the law requires that available funds in an insolvency are distributed in a certain order and Government has no current plans to change this.
As part of their statutory duties, Insolvency Practitioners must provide necessary information to the Redundancy Payments Service to facilitate the processing of employee claims when their employer enters insolvency.
The Government recently announced a strengthening of the Insolvency Practitioner regulatory framework aimed at increasing transparency and bolstering confidence in regulation.