Company bosses who dissolve their firms to avoid paying off staff or meeting pension commitments will risk being hit with fines, under new government plans.

Ministers want tougher insolvency laws, after recent high-profile collapses devastated workers and pension schemes.

The Insolvency Service could also make companies prove they can afford to pay salaries and pension payments if they are also paying dividends to investors.

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The TUC says the plan does not go far enough and is “tinkering at the edges”.

It wants the government to enforce a more radical overhaul of corporate governance in the UK, which would include honouring its commitment to have workers represented on company boards.

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At least 40 Conservative MPs will vote to prevent a “no-deal” exit from the EU, a former minister has predicted.

Nick Boles, the former skills and housing minister, says he thinks “there is not going to be a no-deal Brexit” because of the views of a bloc of Tory MPs.

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Millions of low-income households have found extra cash to put into a pension in the latest success for the government’s auto-enrolment scheme, quelling fears that opt-out rates would jump after higher contributions began in April.

Workers were then forced to begin paying 3% of their salary into a pension, up from 1% before, with the option to drop out if they could not afford it.

Analysis by Legal & General Investment Management found that since April, opt-out rates at workplace schemes it manages have not risen as anticipated.