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523886

registered interest
date	08/06/2016
answering body	Attorney General
answering dept id	88
answering dept short name	Attorney General
answering dept sort name	Attorney General
hansard heading	Games
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have asked the Serious Fraud Office to investigate matters related to the sale and purchase of BHS.
tabling member printed	Lord Myners
uin	HL561
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 21/06/2016 answer text In all cases decisions to investigate are made by the Director of the Serious Fraud Office, who acts independently. In respect of BHS, the SFO has confirmed that it is reviewing material in its possession. If the Director considers there are reasonable grounds to suspect serious or complex fraud which meets his Statement of Principle, he will open a formal criminal investigation. answering member printed Lord Keen of Elie question first answered 21/06/2016 12:52:35 answering member 4538 label Biography information for Lord Keen of Elie
tabling member	3869 label Biography information for Lord Myners

523671

registered interest
date	07/06/2016
answering body	Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
answering dept id	26
answering dept short name	Business, Innovation and Skills
answering dept sort name	Business, Innovation and Skills
hansard heading	Department for International Trade: Operating Costs
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will publish the report of the Insolvency Service into the collapse of BHS.
tabling member printed	Lord Myners
uin	HL486
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 15/06/2016 answer text <p><strong> </strong></p><p>It would not be appropriate for details of the ongoing investigation to be made public as that may prejudice the outcome of any criminal or civil cases which arise from it.</p><p> </p><p>If any directors are disqualified the Insolvency Service will publish the details of the disqualification on its website (for three months) and will notify Companies House, which keeps the statutory register of disqualifications. In addition, where the investigation uncovers matters of potential criminal misconduct or other regulatory breaches then this will be reported to the relevant authority for further action.</p><p> </p><p>Once the investigation is completed the Government will consider what detail it is appropriate to publish having full regard to any legal restrictions on publication, and also the legitimate public interest in the cause of the BHS failure.</p> answering member printed Baroness Neville-Rolfe question first answered 15/06/2016 14:50:02 answering member 4284 label Biography information for Baroness Neville-Rolfe
tabling member	3869 label Biography information for Lord Myners

523690

registered interest
date	07/06/2016
answering body	Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
answering dept id	26
answering dept short name	Business, Innovation and Skills
answering dept sort name	Business, Innovation and Skills
hansard heading	Trees: Urban Areas
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether, in the light of the current situation facing the UK's retail industry, they will reconsider their decision not to publish the report by the Insolvency Service into the collapse of Comet Group plc.
tabling member printed	Lord Myners
uin	HL505
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 15/06/2016 answer text <p>The Insolvency Service’s fact-finding inquiry into Comet was conducted under Section 447 of the Companies Act 1985. Section 449 of that Act makes it a criminal offence to share any information gathered in the course of the investigation with any person, other than in the strictly prescribed circumstances laid out in the Act.</p><p> </p><p>In the light of this legal position I am unable to reconsider the request to publish the report.</p><p> </p><p> </p> answering member printed Baroness Neville-Rolfe question first answered 15/06/2016 14:49:25 answering member 4284 label Biography information for Baroness Neville-Rolfe
tabling member	3869 label Biography information for Lord Myners

523691

registered interest
date	07/06/2016
answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
answering dept id	29
answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
hansard heading	Brexit: Gibraltar
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the answer by Baroness Neville-Rolfe on 6 June (HL Deb, col 626), on how many occasions since its inception has the Pensions Regulator used provisions for dawn raids, and how it determines the circumstances in which such provisions should be employed.
tabling member printed	Lord Myners
uin	HL506
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 10/06/2016 answer text <p>The Pensions Regulator has a power to request information which it exercises regularly and successfully. This means that it is often not necessary to use the powers under section 73 (inspection) or section 78 (warrants) of the Pensions Act 2004.</p><p> </p><p>Under section 78, a justice of the peace may issue a warrant where there are reasonable grounds for believing that there are -</p><p> </p><ul><li>relevant documents which would be removed, or made inaccessible, from the premises, or hidden, tampered with or destroyed,</li></ul><p>or that</p><ul><li>an offence has been committed, or</li><li>a person will do any act which constitutes a misuse or misappropriation of the assets of an occupational pension scheme or a personal pension scheme.</li></ul><p> </p><p>This power is only used in extreme circumstances, and such cases usually involve suspicions of wider criminal activity. Since 2004, the Regulator has used its powers to either inspect premises or issue a warrant on five occasions.</p> answering member printed Baroness Altmann question first answered 10/06/2016 11:05:52 answering member 4533 label Biography information for Baroness Altmann
tabling member	3869 label Biography information for Lord Myners

523692

registered interest
date	07/06/2016
answering body	Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
answering dept id	26
answering dept short name	Business, Innovation and Skills
answering dept sort name	Business, Innovation and Skills
hansard heading	Home Education
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the answer by Baroness Neville-Rolfe on 6 June (HL Deb, col 625), what factors make it difficult to estimate the cost to the taxpayer of the failure of BHS; and in what ways those costs can be covered by existing BHS resources.
tabling member printed	Lord Myners
uin	HL507
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 20/06/2016 answer text <p>It is too early to determine the cost to the taxpayer of BHS’ insolvency.</p><p> </p><p>When a company becomes insolvent, redundancy costs are paid from the National Insurance Fund, up to legal limits, as part of a statutory guarantee scheme administered by the Insolvency Service’s Redundancy Payments Service. The Redundancy Payments Service then becomes a creditor in the insolvency and can recover some of the debt should any assets be sold as part of the insolvency process. If an employee has a claim over and above the statutory amount paid by the Redundancy Payment Service, then they can also claim as a creditor in the insolvency.</p><p> </p><p>Therefore, the cost to the Government depends on the number of people made redundant, the amount paid to them and the amount recovered from the insolvency as a creditor.</p><p> </p> answering member printed Baroness Neville-Rolfe question first answered 20/06/2016 12:24:19 answering member 4284 label Biography information for Baroness Neville-Rolfe
tabling member	3869 label Biography information for Lord Myners

523693

registered interest
date	07/06/2016
answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
answering dept id	29
answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
hansard heading	Workplace Pensions
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the answer by Baroness Neville-Rolfe on 6 June (HL Deb, col 627), whether they have the necessary power to pursue pension contribution payments from companies where the parent company is based in the Cayman Islands, the British Virgin Islands, or Monaco.
tabling member printed	Lord Myners
uin	HL508
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 16/06/2016 answer text <p>Each case will need to be considered on its own merits but the Pensions Regulator can use its anti-avoidance powers against targets that are based abroad. Section 303 of the Pensions Act 2004, governing the service of documents abroad, is intended to operate outside the UK jurisdiction The power to enforce any regulatory action against a non-UK company is likely to require the approval or cooperation of the relevant overseas authorities. By and large, these provisions should be enforceable in other EU and Commonwealth jurisdictions.</p><p> </p><p>The Pensions Regulator has demonstrated that it is prepared to use its anti-avoidance powers against targets that are based abroad, as was shown in its handling of the cases involving Sea Containers and the Lehman Brothers group and a complex investigation into the Carrington Wire Defined Benefit Pension Scheme resulted in a £8.5m settlement with two Russian companies.</p> answering member printed Baroness Altmann question first answered 16/06/2016 13:48:07 answering member 4533 label Biography information for Baroness Altmann
tabling member	3869 label Biography information for Lord Myners

522876

registered interest
date	06/06/2016
answering body	Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
answering dept id	26
answering dept short name	Business, Innovation and Skills
answering dept sort name	Business, Innovation and Skills
hansard heading	Russia: Jehovah's Witnesses
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will consider linking the interest rate on student loans to the Consumer Price Index rather than the Retail Price Index.
tabling member printed	Lord Myners
uin	HL427
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 16/06/2016 answer text <p>The Government has no plans to link the interest rate on student loans to the Consumer Prices Index, rather than the Retail Prices Index. The Retail Prices Index has been used as the basis for calculating the interest rates applied to income-contingent student loans since they were introduced in 1998.</p> answering member printed Baroness Neville-Rolfe question first answered 16/06/2016 12:32:49 answering member 4284 label Biography information for Baroness Neville-Rolfe
tabling member	3869 label Biography information for Lord Myners

522877

registered interest
date	06/06/2016
answering body	Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
answering dept id	26
answering dept short name	Business, Innovation and Skills
answering dept sort name	Business, Innovation and Skills
hansard heading	Central African Republic: Peace Negotiations
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact on graduates of freezing the income level at which student loans become repayable, and what estimate they have made of the number of students who would be rendered liable if that level were frozen.
tabling member printed	Lord Myners
uin	HL428
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 15/06/2016 answer text <p>The impact of freezing the repayment threshold for 5 years was described in the government’s consultation document, which was published in July 2015.</p><p><a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/freezing-the-student-loan-repayment-threshold" target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/freezing-the-student-loan-repayment-threshold</a></p><p> </p><p>Those who earn above the £21,000 threshold can expect to repay nearly £6 extra per week by 2021 (in 2021 prices), or around £306 per year.</p><p> </p><p>We expect that an additional 9% of graduates will start to repay as a result of the threshold freeze. This equates to 190,000 of the 2.1 million Plan 2 graduates expected to be in repayment by 2020/21.</p><p> </p><p>The £21,000 threshold remains higher in real terms than that applicable to student loans taken out before 2012.</p> answering member printed Baroness Evans of Bowes Park question first answered 15/06/2016 15:13:19 answering member 4329 label Biography information for Baroness Evans of Bowes Park attachment 1 file name HL428 - student-loan-repayment-threshold-consultation.pdf title student-loan-repayment-threshold-consultation
tabling member	3869 label Biography information for Lord Myners

522907

registered interest
date	06/06/2016
answering body	HM Treasury
answering dept id	14
answering dept short name	Treasury
answering dept sort name	CaTreasury
hansard heading	Medical Records: Data Protection
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the financial regulators have completed their review of the risk algorithms to be used to permit cross-margining by central counterparties to facilitate the takeover of the London Stock Exchange by Deutsche Borse; whether the results of this review will be published, and whether any further steps will be taken to strengthen confidence in central clearing houses.
tabling member printed	Lord Myners
uin	HL458
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 15/06/2016 answer text <p>The timings of regulatory reviews of any proposal by a CCP to make significant changes to its margining arrangements would be a matter for the company and regulators acting in accordance with the relevant legislation. The Bank of England's 2016 Annual Report on the supervision of financial market infrastructures, laid before Parliament on 4 March 2016, provides further information about ongoing regulatory initiatives in relation to CCPs.</p> answering member printed Lord O'Neill of Gatley question first answered 15/06/2016 14:48:03 answering member 4536 label Biography information for Lord O'Neill of Gatley
tabling member	3869 label Biography information for Lord Myners

521491

registered interest
date	25/05/2016
answering body	HM Treasury
answering dept id	14
answering dept short name	Treasury
answering dept sort name	CaTreasury
hansard heading	UK Consumer Product Recall Review
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask Her Majesty’s Government who has regulatory responsibility for approving cross-margining agreements between central clearing houses and the determination of priority in the event of default.
tabling member printed	Lord Myners
uin	HL348
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 06/06/2016 answer text <p>Under European Regulation No 648/2012 (EMIR) CCPs in the UK are regulated by the Bank of England. For other information I refer the noble Lord to my written answers of 1 April (HL7153) and 26 April (HL7583, HL7584, HL7585, and HL7586).</p><p> </p> answering member printed Lord O'Neill of Gatley grouped question UIN HL349 question first answered 06/06/2016 11:48:42 answering member 4536 label Biography information for Lord O'Neill of Gatley
tabling member	3869 label Biography information for Lord Myners