Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the oral contribution of the Minister of State for Apprenticeships and Skills of 9 January 2017, Official Report, column 115, whether any challenge by creditors to the education administrator's sale of assets accrued by further education colleges would be settled by the courts.
Answer
Schedule 3, paragraph 21 and Schedule 4, paragraph 21 of the Technical and Further Education Bill 2016 modify Schedule B1 of the Insolvency Act 1986 (latest text of Bill: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/lbill/2016-2017/0088/17088.pdf), as it applies to colleges that are statutory corporations and those that are conducted by companies, to provide that, where a creditor considers that the Education Administrator is not carrying out their duties in accordance with Clause 22(4) of the Bill – i.e. that they must, so far as is consistent with the objective of the education administration, carry out their functions in a way that achieves the best result for the further education body’s creditors as a whole – then they may make an application to the court. The Court may take action to remedy any failure if it considers it appropriate, after it has given the Secretary of State or the Welsh Ministers a reasonable opportunity to make representations about the claim and the proposed remedy, relief or order.