I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make a holding company responsible for certain debts of its wholly-owned subsidiary in liquidation; and to make other provision for such circumstances. The Bill is aimed at preventing holding companies from retaining factories, machinery, and assets while putting wholly owned subsidiaries with no assets into liquidation, and passing the costs of redundancy payments, holiday pay, national insurance, PAYE, income tax and VAT to the taxpayer.

The Bill will achieve that by transferring statutory debts to the holding company when a wholly owned subsidiary is put into liquidation. It will defeat the practice of creating subsidiaries to avoid statutory debts, and will deal with the problem of what are known as phoenix companies—which effectively rise from the ashes of a liquidated company.

The impact of that practice is best illustrated by a recent example from my own constituency, in Skelmersdale, involving a company named Coppernob Group Holdings plc, which recently made 510 north-west workers redundant.

Before I continue, I want to show the House the most recent fax that I received from that company's solicitors, in which they attempt to prevent me from—