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Pensions Bill

moved Amendment No. 98: 98: Clause 43, page 20, line 16, at end insert— ““( ) Notwithstanding anything provided in regulations under subsection (1), there shall be no requirement placed on any person to keep the records of a company which has been wound up.”” The noble Baroness said: This is a small probing amendment. In Clause 43 there is a regulation-making power, backed up by criminal sanctions, allowing record-keeping periods of up to six years to be prescribed. I can completely understand the thinking behind that. The question posed by my amendment is: does that apply to the records of a company which has been wound up? I am not an expert in insolvency law, but I had understood that the records of a company which had been voluntarily wound up could be destroyed by the last liquidator of the company after one year. In a court winding up, the official receiver gives the authorisation on destruction at any time. That is provided by Regulation 16 of the Insolvency Regulations 1994. Could the Minister explain the relationship between the Bill and the Insolvency Regulations? Do the Government intend that the Secretary of State will override insolvency law and, if so, have the Government thought about the logistics for insolvency practitioners of keeping records for long periods after the dissolution of a company? I beg to move.