LYNDALE FOODS LIMITED AND SAYERS THE BAKERS LIMITED

That this House notes that on 9th June Lyndale Foods Limited was placed into administration; further notes that the Lyndale Chairman and Chief Executive then bought Sayers the Bakers Limited, which was only established on 1st May 2008, and to whom the profitable parts of Lyndale Foods Limited had been sold; is concerned that 450 workers have lost their jobs in this process, and another 250 at Peter Hunts remain at risk, who will have to wait six weeks for redundancy payments, which will now be paid by Government; is further concerned by the apparent conflict of interest of BDO Stoy Hayward LLP which acted both as business restructuring consultants to Lyndale and as administrators when Lyndale was deliberately put into administration; and therefore calls on the Government to close the loophole in the law that allows employers to evade their legal duties to consult and to abandon their financial responsibilities to their staff and to defraud the taxpayer in this way.