Corporate Insolvency and Governance Bill — House of Commons, 2020-06-03
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Jonathan Simon Djanogly (Conservative, Centre-right): Not necessarily. These are the sorts of things that I would like to have heard debated, frankly The provisions have a limited time exclusion of, I think, one month for small companies. I am not sure of the worth of that. If a large company entered into a very large contract and failed to be paid yet was still forced to supply, that could be just as devastating as a scenario in which a small company had to do likewise on a smaller order. In my experience, not only are these clauses often negotiated, but there are standard gives and takes to be had. For instance, a hard termination clause for any type of insolvency event may be narrowed down to exclude deals with creditors or waived if the debt is repaid, say after a month, despite an insolvency event having occurred Removing the ability for negotiation in the way the Bill does may have a minimal impact at the cost of damaging our reputation as a place for free contracting. I can see that there are safeguards for suppliers to go to court on the grounds of hardship to the supplier, but going to the court in that way will not be a cheap process, and it will run the risk of throwing good money, which the supplier may not have, after the existing debt I agree with the proposals to enable AGMs to be held flexibly, but why mess about with the filing deadlines? If companies have filing problems, the current system allows for that to be quietly considered by the Department. Why publicly undermine our corporate governance and national economic credibility, especially on the filing of accounts My concern is that the Bill, although well meant, may not properly work for lack of scrutiny, or may provide dubious short-term benefit at the cost of longer-term distrust in our economic system. In market economies, weaker businesses will sometimes fail, particularly in a downturn. I suggest that the Government’s role is to ensure confidence in the marketplace rather than in companies themselves One thing that has been missing from the debate so far is the question of corporate governance in the wider sense. I notice—the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell), nods—that the Opposition have tabled new clause 3, which addresses that. As it happens, I do not agree with all the things in that new clause. However, I do recognise, and it is important to say, that a lot of companies have been conducting excellent corporate governance. A lot of directors have forgone salaries. A lot of companies have not paid dividends and are doing the right thing. A lot of good work has been going on, and I would like to see more recognition of that; let us recognise the good Although corporate governance is mentioned on the front of the Bill, it is about how we will suspend corporate governance. That may be for good reasons, but we should use the opportunity of the Bill, and particularly its Second Reading, to discuss how we are going to move corporate governance forward too. I would like to hear a little about that from the Minister when he winds up the debate.