Who Will Pay For A Poorly-considered Bill?

The Corporate Insolvency and Governance Bill is currently being fast-tracked through Parliament, but is the Government making a mistake in seeking to combine a short-term breathing space for businesses during the current Covid-19 crisis with introducing the greatest changes we have seen to UK insolvency laws for decades?

The Government appears to be aiming for the Bill to become law by the beginning of July, but recent reports by two Parliamentary Committees involved in scrutinising the Bill suggest that its passage might not be as smooth as the Government had hoped.  The House of Lords Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Select Committee expressed concerns last week about various details of the Bill and the extent to which ministers will be able to introduce regulations to amend areas of insolvency law without Parliamentary scrutiny.  These concerns appear to be shared by the Constitution Committee, whose report last week reminded the Government that: