To ask the President of the Board of Trade what factors governed those interests represented on the sponsored Insolvency Regulation Working Party. [31233]

The Insolvency Regulation Working Party was established by the insolvency recognised professional bodies and The Insolvency Service and its members are representatives of them.

To ask the President of the Board of Trade if she will list (a) the number of complaints per annum received by each of the bodies responsible for regulating insolvency practitioners, (b) the nature of the complaints, (c) the average and the longest time taken to investigate the complaints and (d) the nature of the outcomes in each of the last five years. [31200]

The number of complaints about insolvency practitioners received by each of the bodies for the period in question are in the table.

	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997
Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales	272	263	246	325	319
Insolvency Practitioners Association	166	161	160	115	120
Law Society	1	7	3	3	0
Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland	12	47	39	18	11
Association of Chartered Certified Accountants	5	23	38	41	30
Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland	4	2	0	2	9
The Law Society of Scotland	0	0	0	0	0
Secretary of State	72	84	81	36	45
Total	532	587	567	540	534

Information about the nature of the complaints, the average and longest time taken to investigate the complaints and the nature of the outcome is either not available or could be provided only at disproportionate cost. Regulatory action was taken by the professional bodies in appropriate cases but the majority of complaints, after investigation, revealed no evidence of misconduct.

To ask the President of the Board of Trade how many (a) firms and (b) individuals are registered with each of the bodies responsible for authorising insolvency practitioners under the Insolvency Act 1986. [31234]

Only individuals may be authorised to act as insolvency practitioners. The numbers authorised by each of the bodies are as follows:

	Number
Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales	844
Insolvency Practitioners Association	308
Law Society	184
Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland	168
Association of Chartered Certified Accountants	127
Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland	73
The Law Society of Scotland	22
Secretary of State	125

These figures will be published in the next Insolvency Service Annual Report.

To ask the President of the Board of Trade what proposals she has for requiring those licensed under the Insolvency Act 1986 to publish information about their affairs. [31339]

None at this stage. However, I will give careful consideration to any submissions that my hon. Friend may wish to make about this matter.