Given increasing recognition of problems associated with high household debt levels, and particularly after the role household debt played in the global financial crisis, one might have expected progressive bankruptcy law reforms to have featured prominently among post-crisis policy responses. This chapter argues, however, that the past decade has seen a retreat of English bankruptcy law. Hundreds of thousands of debtors have become trapped in Debt Management Plans (DMPs) and Individual Voluntary Arrangements (IVA) - consensual, contractual and voluntary repayment arrangements agreed with creditors and delivered by intermediaries, which offer little debt reduction and may persist for years or even decades. Only a minority avail of the more generous debt relief offered in theory by the Debt Relief Order (DRO) and bankruptcy procedures, but often inaccessible in practice. Debt relief is available to most debtors only on contractarian market terms, rather than as of right.