Access to Redress Schemes

Debate between Alex Burghart and Lord Beamish

Thursday 18th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I do not disagree with the Minister— I agree that victims should be at the centre, and that no two schemes will ever be perfectly the same—but there are broad frameworks. What tends to happen—it certainly did with the Horizon scheme—is that people try to reinvent the thing every time. Surely we could put in place some parameters that civil servants could use as a template when faced with a future compensation scheme.

[Alex Burghart]

I was going to come to that point. Although the right hon. Gentleman is right that there is currently no public guidance, that does not limit the sharing of knowledge between Departments and policy areas. There is a great deal of dialogue and shared learning between officials when schemes come into existence. The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord) suggested in his opening remarks that the wheel was always being reinvented. That is not the case; a learning process happens within Government.

[Alex Burghart]

The point I was making was very much that we have internal schemes of learning, and we ensure that each new scheme learns from the experiences of those that have gone before it.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

rose—

[Alex Burghart]

I will give way one more time to the right hon. Gentleman, but I am running out of time.

[Mr Jones]

That is not my experience. When we were setting up the advisory board for the Horizon compensation scheme, I asked officials to look at the mineworkers’ compensation scheme, which was a massive scheme. The problem is that, with the turnover of civil servants, corporate knowledge is lost. We need corporate knowledge to be held centrally in Departments—possibly in the Cabinet Office; otherwise, things left to Departments do not happen because people leave.

[Alex Burghart]

The right hon. Gentleman is right: the Government require a means of retaining corporate knowledge. That is something that I have been working on since I came to the Cabinet Office 18 months ago. I will not go into it now, but we are putting in place a number of novel programmes to ensure that, as people move on, we retain their learning—not just with regard to redress schemes, but more broadly across Government. He is right about that. Although there is a richness in having civil servants who have worked in many different Departments and have a broad understanding of how Government works, there is sometimes a danger that, in having that rotation, we lose expert knowledge.

I will move on to some of the progress that has been made on the major schemes that the Government have under way. In respect of the Horizon IT scandal, let me reassure the House that the Government are determined for postmasters to receive the compensation that they deserve. As of 31 March this year, approximately £190 million had been paid to over 2,800 claimants across three schemes: £111 million on the Horizon shortfall scheme; £39 million for all payments, including interim payments, on the group litigation order scheme; and a total of £41 million for all payments, including further interim payments, on the overturned convictions scheme. With regard to the Windrush scandal, as of February this year the Home Office had paid over £83 million across 2,307 claims. On infected blood, as I mentioned earlier, the Government have paid over £400 million in interim compensation to those infected, and bereaved partners, registered with existing support schemes since 2022.

Let me turn to the specific points made by other contributors. Alas, my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) ascribes to me a greater power than I possess: I am unable today to respond formally to the Cumberlege review, but he will be aware that the Government are in the midst of very serious consideration of its findings and recommendations, and I know that he will hold our feet to the fire to ensure that that formal response comes soon. To go back one more time to the right hon. Member for North Durham, I am grateful for his acknowledgment of the work done by my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake). His comments about lawyers aside, I very much agree that we need schemes that reduce the opportunities for legal opportunism—we owe that to our tax-paying constituents, and also to those who have been wronged.

The Government understand that there are broad lessons to be learned from schemes that have gone on in the past, but also from the four big schemes that are currently under way. It will also be necessary for us to consider the response of the National Audit Office to the letter written earlier this year by the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), so that we can better understand how we can build on the good work that has already been done to help our constituents when similar wrongs befall them in future.

Independent Adviser on Ministerial Interests

Debate between Alex Burghart and Lord Beamish

Wednesday 30th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alex Burghart]

I refer the right hon. Gentleman to the answer I gave a few moments ago. He seems terribly well informed, but he seems to have stopped short of reading Lord Geidt’s response to the changes in the terms of reference, where he said that

“this would be a workable scheme”.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

I hear what the Minister says, but can he give any timescale of when the appointment will be made? In the meantime, can I ask specifically what advice is being given to Ministers and, more importantly, their special advisers on the use of private email and WhatsApp groups?

[Alex Burghart]

As I have said, there is a process ongoing to appoint an independent adviser as fast as possible. The Prime Minister has been in post for 31 days, and there is standing advice on the use of WhatsApp and private messaging.