§ Mr. Bernard JenkinTo ask the President of the Board of Trade if the inspectors appointed to investigate the affairs of Pennine Commercial Holdings plc have completed their report; and when it will be published. [3407]
§ Mr. LangThe inspectors, Elizabeth Appleby QC and Peter Foss FCA, signed their report on 26 July 1996, thus completing the final stage of a series of inquiries, which commenced in 1983, into a group of six connected companies all of which were subsequently put into liquidation.
By November 1989, the only report outstanding was that into Pennine. Although substantially complete, it remained unsigned until July, pending the outcome of appeals by individuals connected with Pennine against convictions on criminal charges relating to, among other things, the subject matter of the inspectors' inquiries.
While the Department's general practice has been to publish reports by inspectors into public quoted companies, as Pennine formerly was, the Secretary of State has concluded that, in this case, publication is not justified.