§ 9. Mr. Hector Hughesasked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that the Assurance Companies Act, 1909, and subsequent amending Acts, fail to require a financial deposit to be made by a company where the carrying on of employers' liability insurance is not the main business but is only incidental to the business of marine insurance, and that, on liquidation of 833 such a company, loss and injustice are thereby inflicted on insured persons, and other creditors; and if he will take steps so to amend the law as to prevent such loss and injustice.
§ Mr. MaudlingThis deposit requirement was abolished by the Assurance Companies Act, 1946, now consolidated as the Insurance Companies Act, 1958. It was replaced by a solvency margin requirement which applies to employers' liability insurance as to other classes of insurance, whether or not it is subsidiary to other insurance business. Accordingly the question of amending the law does not arise.
§ Mr. HughesIf that is so and there is no gap in the law in this respect, how is it that the case concerning which I have written to the right hon. Gentleman, which is mentioned in the next Question, has not been satisfied? Why is it that this gentleman suffers from the wrong about which I wrote to the Minister?
§ Mr. MaudlingI am not necessarily admitting that it is a wrong, but I should point out that the Act I referred to was passed in 1946 and the company in question went into liquidation in 1938.
§ 10. Mr. Hector Hughesasked the President of the Board of Trade, in view of the correspondence lasting over a year which he has had with the hon. and learned Member for Aberdeen, North, about the case of Mr. Robert Walker, of Aberdeen, insured with the United Kingdom Steam Tug and Trawler Insurance and Indemnity Association Limited, registered under the Assurance Companies Act, 1909, and now in liquidation, what steps he is taking to ensure that insured persons, such as Mr. Walker, an insured person, and other creditors will be paid by the liquidator of that company.
§ Mr. MaudlingThis is a voluntary liquidation and my Department has no powers to expedite matters. If the creditors are dissatisfied with the conduct of the liquidator it is open to them to apply to the Court under Section 304 of the Companies Act. It is also open to creditors to petition the Court for a winding up order under Section 310. I understand that the liquidator has found the liquidation anything but straightforward.
§ Mr. HughesWill the right hon. Gentleman send the papers to the Director of Public Prosecutions?
§ Mr. MaudlingI do not think that arises at all. As I say, the creditors have power under the Companies Act which they can exercise if they think fit.