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Insolvency (Northern Ireland) Order 2005

My Lords, I, too, welcome the Minister to his post, but I shall reserve a little more to say about him when we debate Northern Ireland on 9 June. We look forward very much to a good working relationship and I am sure that we will move forward in that spirit. We also welcome the order and the consultation process that resulted in the change to Article 17(6) so that it defines a pre-commencement bankrupt in terms of bankruptcy rather than the presentation of a bankruptcy petition, having occurred before the coming into operation of paragraph (1) of that article. There is also a change to paragraph 8 of Schedule 5, which has been amended to refer to interim bankruptcy restrictions orders. Although it is helpful to bring Northern Ireland into line with the rest of the UK, we must continue to take into account the different experiences in different parts of the United Kingdom and make changes where appropriate.