IMF

Baroness Bray of Coln Excerpts

Monday 23rd April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I find myself in agreement with the hon. Gentleman who speaks for the Scottish National party. One of the consequences of what has happened over the past year or two in the eurozone is that countries that want to join the eurozone now need to ante-up a huge sum of money into the bail-out fund. No doubt that is something he will be explaining to Scottish voters as we discuss whether Scotland should ditch the pound and join the euro.

[Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)]

I support the Chancellor’s decision to make this additional loan to the IMF because of the important work that the IMF does in stabilising the economy across the world, not just in the EU. Can he reassure my constituents in Ealing and Acton that the loan will be repaid with interest?

[Mr Osborne]

Yes, I can. IMF loans are repaid and they always have been in the past. No country has lost money giving resources to the IMF and such loans are repaid with interest. Indeed, if I can find the quotation—[Interruption.] It is worth waiting for, because it is from the shadow Chancellor. When the shadow Chancellor was in the Treasury, he said that IMF lending to

“countries is invariably repaid with interest.”

That is what he said in 2003. I can give my hon. Friend the assurance that loans to the IMF are made to the most creditworthy institution in the world and are repaid.

Amendment of the Law

Baroness Bray of Coln Excerpts

Thursday 22nd March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Ed Balls]

I think we should leave people’s trust funds out of this. I will come back to that in a moment, but I will not press the Government on it.

The Chancellor took a reckless gamble on jobs and the economy, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have taken a reckless gamble on NHS reform and police cuts, and now the Chancellor is taking a reckless gamble with the fairness of our tax system by handing out massive tax cuts to legitimate taxpayers in the hope—based on no evidence—that the cuts will pay for themselves by somehow bringing all the tax avoiders back into the fold. That is a fact.

[Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that under the previous Labour Government the 50p tax rate applied for just 37 miserable days and that for the rest of the time their tax on the highest income earners was lower than under the coalition Government?

[Ed Balls]

In reply, let me quote what the Chancellor said in October 2010:

“The public must know that the burden is being fairly shared. That's why I said last year: we are all in this together. And I am clear…that those with the most, need to pay more. That is why… I have stuck with the 50p tax”—

the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Conservative party conference, October 2010. Eighteen months on, what has changed? The public still want the burden to be fairly shared, but far from keeping the top rate of tax, he is ditching it.

Let me read another quote. In October 2009, the Chancellor said:

“we could not even think of abolishing the 50p rate on the rich while at the same time I am asking many of our public sector workers to accept a pay freeze to protect their jobs. I think we can all agree that would be grossly unfair.”

We can all agree on that. What has changed? What is the truth? It was all a con. The mask has slipped. To 200,000 families struggling on less than £17,000 a year, he says, “I’m going to cut your tax credits to make you work harder”, but to the highest earners, he says, “I’m going to cut your taxes because if I don’t, you won’t work hard and pay your taxes.” That is it. To make the poor work harder, the Chancellor makes them poorer. To make the rich work harder, he makes them richer. Does that not tell us everything we need to know about the Chancellor? He is cutting tax credits for the poor, cutting child benefit in the middle, cutting tax help for pensioners and cutting taxes at the top. That is his priority.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jack Dromey]

I stand corrected, Mr Deputy Speaker.

This Government are oblivious to the consequences of their actions. I am proud to represent Birmingham, Erdington. It is a constituency that is rich in talent but it is one of the 12 poorest in Britain. I see what too many Conservative Members shut their eyes to, which is the pain being felt in such constituencies as a consequence of the Government’s actions. Let us take as an example the hard-working Castle Vale family who have two wonderful children and earn just over £20,000. They face a £253 cut to their tax credits in April. Let us consider the one in four young people in Kingstanding who are unemployed. They are desperate for a job, but the Budget offers them no hope. Alongside the victims of the shameful changes to housing benefit and the changes in the Welfare Reform Act 2012, there are 1,333 households in my constituency who are now facing the iniquitous consequences of the bedroom tax.

Grotesque unfairness runs through everything that this Government do. For example, let us contrast how Birmingham and Wokingham have been treated. High-need, high-unemployment Birmingham has had £313 million of cuts to its local budget over the past two years, resulting in every citizen in Birmingham losing £164. In leafy Wokingham, the figure is £19. Whether we are talking about police budgets, fire budgets or the voluntary sector, why have the Government got it in for cities such as Birmingham? They should be standing by such cities; at a time of rising unemployment, they need more help, not less.

Now we are to have regional pay. I declare an interest, in that I have led many national bargaining arrangements in the national health service, in local government and in the Ministry of Defence. I worked with some Conservative Members when they performed various ministerial duties in that regard. For example, I was chair of the MOD unions at a time when a Conservative Minister was chair for the Government side. Anyone who has experience of national bargaining knows that it is efficient, that it is increasingly flexible in its approach and, crucially, that it is fair. The Government’s proposal will say to nurses, teachers, doctors, firefighters and home carers in Birmingham that they are worth less than their counterparts in Surrey.

[Angie Bray]

Does the hon. Gentleman’s dislike of regional variations mean that he does not support his own party’s take on the possibility of regional benefits?

--- Later in debate ---

[Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)]

A little over a year ago I stood here and drew the Chancellor’s attention to the level of debt hanging over the heads of every single voter in my constituency. The amount—the generous legacy the Labour Government bequeathed to the people of Ealing and Acton—was an astonishing £37,000. I asked the Treasury team for reassurance that they were committed to putting that right. The answer was a resounding yes. Yesterday, a year on, the Chancellor’s Budget reconfirmed that. By sticking to his original plan he is reducing the structural deficit every day and lessening the burden on my constituents, their children and their children’s children.

Many of my constituents own their own businesses locally. The Budget will encourage them because it sends out the crystal-clear message that the Government are behind them and back aspiration, new ideas and creativity. Now these businesses know that from next month their corporation tax bill will be reduced to 24% and that it will drop still further to 22% by 2014, and hopefully 20% thereafter. They know that London’s coffers will be boosted to the tune of £70 million by a new development fund to attract new business and jobs and that the national loan guarantee scheme will step up to the plate and make bank loans easier by making them cheaper.

When those measures are allied to the reduction in the top rate of income tax to 45% from next year, it is clear that the Government are serious about supporting enterprise and encouraging aspiration. Long-term measures such as those help to instil confidence and encourage businesses to take the bold decisions needed to thrive. Only by allowing them to thrive will we create the conditions for growth and go some way to addressing the related problems of getting more of our young people into work and improving our communities.

Young people in my constituency can be encouraged, too. The Chancellor announced the introduction of enterprise loans to help 18 to 24-year-olds to set up and grow their own businesses. They will get the opportunity to pitch their ideas before a panel and, if they have a viable business plan, get a cash injection of between £5,000 and £10,000 to help them start up. So often it is the young, creative, positive ideas people who are stymied by a wall of red tape when they try to start up on their own. In the long term, schemes such as that can go some way to bridging the gap between great ideas and the start of a great business.

Already in my constituency I know of a number of set-ups that could benefit from that kind of scheme. The Doughnut Factory in Acton is supported by a number of organisations, including Action Acton and the university of West London. It is a creative hub where local entrepreneurs can rent affordable office space. Many of the young people based there would be eager to pitch their plans. I spent a happy morning there meeting a group of young, enthusiastic students, all looking to start their own businesses, the very people that that scheme is aimed at helping. It is just the latest in a raft of hugely positive measures that the Government have already introduced to help young people: the upcoming youth contract, the Work programme, a dramatic increase in apprenticeship places and the national citizen service for 16-year-olds, which is now entering into its second year.

The real headline news from the Budget has to be the largest real increase in the personal tax allowance for 30 years. An additional 840,000 people will be lifted out of income tax, meaning that altogether the Government will have taken 2 million people on the lowest incomes out of tax altogether. The personal tax allowance will go up to over £9,000, and we are well on our way to our target of taking everyone earning up to £10,000 out of tax. Of course, even those earning above that stand to benefit as well. That will help a great many of my hard-working constituents. It is also part of the Government’s overall strategy, sitting alongside the benefit reforms that ensure that work always pays.

London has done well out of the Budget. The Chancellor announced vital cash for London rail; £15 million for Transport for London, specifically for cycle safety; accelerated broadband; more support for the enterprise zones—please can we have one in west London?—new funds to help young people into work; and £70 million for the Mayor to help London businesses grow. As I have said, London has done well out of this Budget. Enterprise and aspiration have done well out of this Budget. In tough times, this is the right Budget for the country.

The Economy

Baroness Bray of Coln Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

No, I will make the point in another way. If a person borrows money to employ somebody and then claims that they will get back more than the cost of employing that person through tax and lower unemployment benefits, the Government would have to pay more to themselves in tax than they spend in tax. That cannot be true in logic let alone in economics.

[Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)]

Is the point not being missed by the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore)? On this Keynesian argument, a person would have had to be saving during the good times, and that is what was missing from the programme of expenditure of the Labour party.

Autumn Statement

Baroness Bray of Coln Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I think I had better capture the moment when I get a compliment from the hon. Gentleman. We have acted quickly on a specific proposal that was made for the port of Blyth. We are going to consult on it and get the detail right. I am happy to consider the proposal that he makes. It has to be affordable, of course, and it has to work in terms of encouraging enterprise and new business, but we are absolutely committed to the north-eastern zone and to the port of Blyth being a successful part of it.

[Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)]

I congratulate the Chancellor on a statement that is absolutely right for these tough times and, particularly for Londoners, on his investment in infrastructure projects. Will he consider, in discussion with the Transport Secretary, bringing forward the Crossrail infrastructure project to parts of London? That would be good not only for parts of London, but especially for my constituents. We have a station—Ealing Broadway station—that has been urgently in need of an upgrade for many years now.

[Mr Osborne]

I can give my hon. Friend an assurance that we are certainly not going to delay on Crossrail, which is currently being built—we can see that at the moment around London. We have looked at this, but with such a complicated project, I do not think that it is possible to advance it faster than it is going at the moment, because it is going as fast as it can.

Regulatory and Banking Reform

Baroness Bray of Coln Excerpts

Thursday 16th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hoban]

The challenge is to make sure that we tackle the legacy that we have been left and that we get the banking system back on a firm footing. What we have announced today is a process in which the Government will cease to be a long-term investor in the banking system. We would all agree that that is the right approach.

[Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)]

I welcome the reforms, particularly the separation of investment banking from retail banking. However, do we not still have the problem that some of our banks are literally too big to fail?

[Mr Hoban]

The package of proposals that the Independent Commission on Banking is developing is aimed at tackling that. It is one of the reasons why it proposed a retail ring-fence and increased capital so that the ring-fenced retail business will continue to be strong. But we need to make sure that we have the right resolution tools in place in the event of a bank failure. I commend the previous Government for their introduction of the special resolution regime, to which I referred in my statement in the context of Southsea Mortgage and Investment Company Ltd. We need to continue to work on tools that will help us resolve a bank failure without the taxpayer having to pick up the bill. That is the position that we ought to be in.

Amendment of the Law

Baroness Bray of Coln Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)]

Let me start by saying how welcome the Chancellor’s measures to remove red tape are. By freeing up small businesses and start-ups from the burden of excessive regulation, we will encourage a new generation of entrepreneurs and create for them the conditions in which they can thrive and kick-start our economy again. So often, it is young, creative and dynamic people who are penalised for their endeavours by becoming entangled in too much red tape. I am really pleased that the Government are taking steps to put their trust in these people and I am sure that we will soon reap the rewards.

It must be said too—I know many of my hon. Friends agree—that this is hardly the easiest time to produce a Budget to cheer us all up. With the problems in the middle east, tragic events in Japan and worrying developments again in Portugal, producing such a balanced, fiscally neutral Budget, which none the less contains a number of positive moves, is a feat in itself.

Lest we forget—as I note many on the Opposition Benches are still wont to do—we are still in the big old mess inherited from the previous Labour Government. It was a faintly depressing experience to listen to the Leader of the Opposition as he moaned on in response to the Budget statement, constantly barracking us for taking difficult decisions and suggesting that we enjoy imposing hardship on communities across the country. That is just childish politics that does nothing to further the public debate.

It is quite scandalous that Opposition Members now absent themselves from any responsibility for the spectacular mess the Government have inherited. They desperately avoid the fact that we faced the same banking crisis as every other country, but, separately, we were left with the largest deficit in the G7. It is because of the Labour party that Britain is spending £120 million a day just on servicing the interest on Labour’s debt.

The Chancellor has shown that we remain firmly committed to turning the country around. His decision to double the first cut in corporation tax is a huge step forward and comes on top of measures to help smaller businesses, such as extending the business rate relief for another year. Those proposals, plus the 50,000 extra apprenticeships that will bring the total funded by Government to 250,000 over the next four years, demonstrate a Budget with a vision for growth. The 1p cut in petrol duty, on top of the cancellation of Labour’s extra 5p tax on fuel that was in the pipeline, is also a welcome relief for hard-strapped motorists and businesses. The reduced freight costs should also help to bear down on inflation, but shame on those petrol stations that are not passing on the cuts.

The introduction of the new enterprise zones only further confirms the Government’s intention to make it as easy as possible to start up and grow new businesses, but I must throw my hat into the ring and stand up for my patch on this issue. London is to have one enterprise zone in the royal docks area and the Mayor has announced that he is going for another two—one in Croydon and one in Tottenham. My question, as the Member of Parliament for Ealing Central and Acton, is, what about west London? With the focus on the Olympics in east London, other parts of London have missed out on regeneration programmes and I hope that City Hall will soon start to look west once again.

Moving to a smaller, but significant, aspect of the Budget, I welcome the removal of the requirement on charities to document gift aid for donations of £10 or less. That will be of considerable assistance to churches, along with all charities, around the country. Those beautiful buildings are maintained without support from the Government or the Church Commissioners, often by small bands of dedicated people within their parishes. The move could mean, even for smaller churches, a positive gain to cash flow of £1,000 or more. In many cases, it will make all the difference between keeping them open or having to shut them. This measure is clearly a big shot in the arm for the big society. Allied with the Chancellor’s promise to cut the inheritance tax rate by 10% for those who leave 10% of their estates to charity, which could benefit charities by as much as £300 million, it firmly underlines the Government’s commitment to supporting volunteering, philanthropy and social action.

In conclusion, I support the Budget proposals at a time when the whole country is still struggling to emerge from Labour’s recession. The measures are not individually huge, but put together they provide good reasons to be a little more cheerful during these difficult days. After all, the Government have also taken decisive action to lift more than 1 million people out of paying tax altogether and have restored some sanity to prices at the petrol pumps up and down the country—and let us not forget their initiative to freeze council tax across the country. The measures in the Chancellor’s Budget point the way towards a far stronger economy—a rebalanced economy with a successful private sector powering ahead. We should not forget that without a thriving private sector, we can never afford efficient and sustainable public services.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

The Government have had to face up to two challenges in this Budget. The first was to do with growth, on which the news presented to the Chancellor as he drew up his Budget was not good. The UK economy shrank by 0.6% in the last quarter and the Office for Budget Responsibility was forced to revise downwards its growth forecast for the next two years. Unemployment is more than 2.5 million, a 17-year high, and is rising rapidly, and again the OBR has had to raise its forecast. The Chancellor must know in his heart of hearts that it is simply not possible to reduce the deficit while the economy is shrinking, tax revenues are falling and the number of unemployed people is rising.

[Angie Bray]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Kerry McCarthy]

I am afraid I do not have time, as I want others to be able to speak.

Instead of listening to the mounting evidence that the plan is not working and preparing a fiscal plan B, the Chancellor is not for turning. He has stuck to his plan of cutting too far and too fast, and instead of a plan for growth that would create jobs, he has gone back to the failed Thatcherite ideology of the ’80s—that by simply removing regulations and lowering taxes, the private sector will rush in and save the day.

I welcome the announcement of a local enterprise zone for Bristol, of course—this Government have so little to offer us that we have to grab what we are given—but how long will it be before we see the benefits of such a move, and how will we ensure that this does not simply displace investment from other areas that need it just as much? The Work Foundation says that up to four fifths of the jobs created by enterprise zones in the 1980s were merely shifted from other areas. It also says the cost of creating such jobs was in today’s money £26,000 per person. We should compare that with the £6,500 cost per job created under the future jobs fund, which, as I recall, not very long ago the Conservatives were decrying as a waste of public money.

With the regional development agency axed, where is the strategic overview for the wider city region of Bristol to come from? Where are the sources of match funding? Where is the focus on, or funding for, our infrastructure needs? On infrastructure, may I once again make a plea for an integrated transport authority for the Bristol area, as that is badly needed? On housing, I agree with the National Housing Federation, whose representative said:

“Removing regional spatial strategies, without putting anything in their place, was a short-term mistake”.

The NHF has estimated that local authorities have already scrapped plans for more than 200,000 homes as a result of that, and that there may be no new social homes built until 2015. In Bristol alone, 9,600 planned homes were scrapped by the city council. Shelter says that only 39% of housing need is met in Bristol. Last year, about 10,500 people were on the waiting list for social housing, and with transfers included, the number was as high as 15,000, but only a few thousand people a year are being rehoused. There is a clear need for a strategic level of planning to ensure that local need is met.

The Government now promise a presumption in favour of sustainable development in the planning system, but neither that nor the promised national planning framework were set down in the Localism Bill, and that presumption would appear to be at odds with the Localism Bill itself, which gives nimby power to small sections of a community to block developments in a local area. It is therefore unclear whether or not local people have been given more say over planning decisions in their area.

I welcome the Budget’s proposal to speed up major planning decisions. Developers in Bristol have in the past complained to me that it takes a long time—years sometimes—to get approval for their big projects and that it is simply not financially viable to hang on in there and wait. I accept that the planning authorities do need a rocket put under them, but that must not lead to decisions being railroaded through without local people being given a proper say.

The second challenge the Chancellor faced in his Budget was to deliver help for ordinary people, and again he comprehensively failed. The economic crisis began in the financial sector, but ordinary working families are paying the highest price for it. The cost of living is now rising by over 5% per year on the retail price index measure. That is in no small part due to the Government’s decision to raise VAT. Meanwhile, average wages grow at just 2.3%.

At the same time, cuts to services are also affecting the quality of life of ordinary people. Councils are grappling with cuts to their formula grant of 28% over four years. The Communities Secretary said that councils should be able to find efficiency savings rather than make front-line cuts, and the Deputy Prime Minister said that

“they shouldn’t immediately start issuing redundancy notices for savings that they can phase in over four years”,

but the Local Government Association believes councils will make 140,000 redundancies next year across the UK, and the Liberal Democrat-controlled Bristol city council is making 340 people redundant next year alone, and it is reported that 600 jobs are now under review. The Communities Secretary told councillors last year:

“You are now in charge of something like £38 billion every year, no strings attached.”

He also said that they were back

“in charge of the decisions which matter”,

but in fact the only decision that councillors are now empowered to make is the decision to slash services on which local people rely.

The Chancellor could have chosen to implement a real strategy for growth by keeping people in work, building homes and infrastructure, and investing in businesses and industry. Instead he is cutting too far, too fast, and his Government have removed the strategic mechanisms for delivering the investment we think is needed. Even staying within his fiscal plans he could have chosen to put a greater share of the tax burden on the banks by reintroducing the bankers bonus tax. That money could have been used to create jobs and homes, as we suggested. He could have chosen to smooth the cuts to local authority budgets and protect the most vulnerable groups from sudden front-line reductions, rather than front-loading the cuts. The Chancellor is not listening. I predict that in time he will wish that he had.

Amendment of the Law

Baroness Bray of Coln Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Richard Harrington]

The comments that the hon. Lady somewhat generously applied to my erudition can also be applied to hers. To respond to her question on growth forecasts, we cannot select one figure and say that it makes a fundamental difference, because assessments of growth must be made over a period of time. In my experience, the most important factor for growth is the confidence people have in the economy, and that will definitely come about because of the Government’s sensible approach, as opposed to the reckless irresponsibility of their predecessor.

[Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)]

Is it not the case that in almost every recession that this country has had to fight its way out of, there have been choppy times and there has never been a smooth upward trajectory? It is always the case that some quarters are better than others.

[Richard Harrington]

With the possible exception of the la-la land factor, my hon. Friend is absolutely right.

I want to talk about some specific factors that are important to business people, and therefore important to growth. There is a lot of talk about banks and the availability of capital, and about what the Government should do and what they have not done. Again, I want to comment based on my experiences in the constituency. The bank lending situation is getting better; there is no doubt about that, as the loans are beginning to come through. In Watford alone, under the enterprise finance guarantee loan scheme, 23 companies have already borrowed money amounting to £4 million. That is a comparatively small sample and it reassures me for the future that this scheme, which is to be expanded, does work, and that it does so in a comparatively short period of time.

It is very fortunate for us that interest rates are low, but the decisions made by businesses do not change when fluctuations are minor, such as 1% up or 2% down. Their decisions do change when the situation reaches a ludicrous point; I was once left with a loan on which I was paying 2% over base when the base rate was 15%. Variations such as 1%, 3% or 5% make little difference. Again, what matters is confidence in the economy and confidence that the Chancellor has done the right thing today. So I must encourage what the Government are doing on the fundamentals, because people and businesses will want to borrow money only when there is confidence in the future and confidence that we are doing the right thing.

My next point relates to the availability of skilled staff. Despite the fact that 3.7% of people in Watford—more than 2,000 people—are on jobseeker’s allowance and 700 or 800 young people there are not in education, employment or training, I visit factories and businesses that cannot recruit staff of the right calibre every week. A few weeks ago, I visited Davin Optronics, a manufacturing company that uses skilled labour to make lenses—it deals with complicated stuff. Its fear was that its work force were getting older and younger people did not want to join manufacturing businesses. That is a fundamental issue and we have to change attitudes.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Bray of Coln Excerpts

Tuesday 8th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)]

8. What recent estimate he has made of the level of Government debt.

[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Justine Greening)]

Public sector net debt doubled in the decade from 2000-01. By the end of last year, it stood at £900 billion. Servicing it costs the taxpayer £120 million every day.

[Angie Bray]

I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. As I am sure she is aware, a debt of some £37,000 hangs over the head of every voter in my constituency of Ealing Central and Acton, thanks to the Labour party. Can she reassure us that there will be no deviation from the path, regardless of siren calls, of getting rid of the deficit as soon as possible, so that this country can move forward to prosperity once again?

[Justine Greening]

Yes, I can, and of course my hon. Friend is not the only person to hold that view. The secretary-general of the OECD said only last week that Britain needed to “stay the course”. He realises, as did the Bank of England Governor Mervyn King when he talked about our deficit as being “clearly unsustainable”, that if we had not set out a credible plan and got a grip on our public finances to tackle the deficit, we would have run the risk of an even sharper fiscal tightening later down the road, a loss of confidence and higher interest rates in future.

Equitable Life (Payments) Bill

Baroness Bray of Coln Excerpts

Wednesday 10th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hoban]

I take the same view as the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds) on the responsibility of Ministers. Civil servants provide advice but Ministers decide and act and we cannot ignore that responsibility. We have taken this matter very seriously and have sought, over the past six months, to drive through a speedy resolution to the problem. I echo the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) on tackling this matter.

On the amendments before us, the purpose of amendment 3 is to make the design and operational mechanism of the scheme “independent of government”. I understand the need for independence in the design of the payment scheme, which is why I established the Independent Commission on Equitable Life Payments. The commission’s advice will necessarily form the basis of the scheme’s design. It will advise on how best fairly to allocate payments among policyholders, with the exception of with-profits annuitants, and it will consider which groups, if any, should be prioritised. It is right that that process should be independent, so the scheme will be independently designed.

The Government have considered whether the scheme should also be operated independently of the Government, as amendment 3 proposes, and have concluded that that would not be appropriate for three key reasons. First, it would delay the commencement of payments. Our ambition is to start making payments in the middle of next year using our preferred delivery partner National Savings and Investment. I shall say more about that on amendment 6. If amendment 3 were accepted, NS&I, which is an Executive agency of the Treasury, could not be used as the delivery partner as it would not be operating independently of the Treasury, which would therefore have to establish a new, independent body or identify an existing such body that could operate the scheme. It is also likely that legislation would be required to task the independent body with the design and operation of the scheme, which would delay significantly the making of payments to policyholders.

Secondly, the Government have established an independent commission to advise on the allocation of payments. This function is independent of the Government and is key in determining a fair allocation of payments. Making the operational delivery provider, whose job is largely about sending out the payments and making sure that cheques get to the people who are entitled to receive them, independent of the Treasury would not add significant value to that task.

Finally, it is important to ensure that value for money is considered when deciding on a delivery partner. The Treasury has satisfied itself that NS&I has the capacity and the capability to deliver the scheme, while at the same time providing value for money. The Government consider that by establishing the Independent Commission on Equitable Life Payments on 22 July, we achieved the aim that is at the heart of the amendment.

I turn to amendment 4 and what policyholders should do if they consider that they are not being treated fairly under the scheme. The Government are committed to treating policyholders fairly. In line with that, there will certainly be a means by which policyholders can raise concerns about the incorrect application of scheme rules to individual cases. We have given much thought to how best to deal with complaints and have made a great deal of progress in putting together a process that is fair and thorough. Full details of this process will be included in the document that sets out the scheme design in full.

[Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)]

I spoke about this last time we discussed the matter. Given that the message to savers from the previous Government was non-existent or at least negative, does my hon. Friend think the message that the present Government are sending to savers is adequate? Are we saying clearly, “We understand that you have been badly let down by Government and we want to put things right as much as we can, given the circumstances in which we find ourselves”?

[Mr Hoban]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. There are two aspects to it. First, in respect of Equitable Life, the speed with which we have acted demonstrates our commitment to a resolution of the problem. The second is a forward-looking and prospective issue, which is why we have brought forward proposals to improve the regulation of retail financial services through the establishment of the new Consumer Protection and Markets Authority. That will be a boost to regulation and give confidence to savers that the market will be better regulated. It is important, and we have introduced measures recently, to ensure that if anything goes wrong, there is a proper process in place to tackle that.

I was commenting on the scheme appeals mechanism, which will be published before the scheme begins making payments and will be made available for parliamentary scrutiny. If a policyholder believes that the rules of the scheme have been incorrectly applied to their data, they will be able to raise a query with the delivery body, stating the nature of their concern. The query will be pursued by the delivery body.

If there is merit in the challenge and it is upheld, a recalculation will take place. If the challenge is not agreed by the delivery body, the policyholder will have the option of taking their case to the review panel. The review panel will consider the case in full and be able to make a fresh decision based on the facts of the case. It will be independent of the original decision-making process. If a complainant’s case is upheld, the review panel will ensure that a recalculation is carried out. If the complainant remains unhappy with the review panel’s decision, they will be able to challenge that decision in court by way of judicial review.

Equitable Life (Payments) Bill

Baroness Bray of Coln Excerpts

Tuesday 14th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

I should also like to place on record my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce). I have to confess that, as I listened to her speech, I looked at my road map, having driven through her constituency on many occasions, trying to avoid the traffic on the M6.

We should also congratulate Opposition Members who stood up to the previous Government and said that they were wrong to prevent the policyholders of Equitable Life from receiving just compensation. I also congratulate the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms), who was left in isolation today, without the other members of his Front-Bench team who, under the Labour Government, made the decision to defend the indefensible—namely, 10 years of inaction and putting roadblocks in the way of the policyholders to prevent them from receiving their just compensation.

There are four players in this mix. First, there are the Equitable Life policyholders. They invested for their future and set aside money for their old age. They took a small risk, thinking that they would receive their just rewards in the long term. In normal circumstances, I would maintain that the public purse cannot bail out private investors, but this is a unique position, because those Equitable Life policyholders believed that the Government and the regulator were acting properly. It took court action and the ombudsman’s report to drag out the fact that the reverse was the case. It is right that the policyholders should be compensated in the way that has been proposed.

Members of Parliament are also players, seeking to act as advocates for the policyholders who have been so badly treated. We all want to see just and proper compensation for those policyholders. Treasury Ministers are players, too, and they will have to deal with the politics, and with the financial chaos that the coalition Government have inherited. Finally, we have the Treasury, which will try to minimise the amount of money paid out, in order to safeguard the public purse.

I congratulate the Financial Secretary on taking prompt and appropriate action. He could, presumably, have stopped the Chadwick report in its tracks. However, that would have set us back at least a year, while we sought another approach. Instead, he allowed it to come to fruition. It is quite clear that members of EMAG and MPs of all parties, but particularly Government Members, are unhappy with the Chadwick approach and believe that his report is fundamentally flawed. The resulting issue is whether we are to adopt the approach of Chadwick or of the ombudsman—or some hybrid approach to deal with the disgrace that has happened.

We also have to deal with the fact that policyholders had a range of policies, which means that a range of people are involved. Many complex negotiations and calculations have to be undertaken. Sadly, some policyholders are deceased. For them, whatever we do, it is too late. We should and must compensate their spouses, however, while ensuring that the survivors receive proper and due compensation. That is only right and just.

[Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that at a time when we want to encourage people to become savers again, it is vital to be seen to support these people and do what we can to help them through what turned out to be an absolute disaster? We must send out the right message—that we are here to support savers and that we want to do the right thing by them. Is that not the best way to help get people back to feeling secure in making savings?

[Bob Blackman]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend.

There is a second set of policyholders within Equitable Life, whom I believe are critical—the people who have reached retirement age and are dependent on this income. Telling them that they will not receive any compensation until next summer is a disgrace. We have to do something more quickly to honour those people in their latter years so that they are properly compensated now, not when they are at death’s door. I ask the Treasury team to look urgently at that matter.

Other sets of policyholders will have many years to go before they retire. They can be compensated in many years’ time—with top-ups to their pension pots, for example, or in different ways. On these crucial issues, I hope that the Front-Bench team will confirm in the winding-up speeches what is going be done.

First, I believe we need an appeal process—not relating to the amount of money people receive, but to the structure of the scheme and where people will fit into it so that the payments can be made. That will be a complex area. I doubt very much whether everyone will be completely satisfied with the amount of money they eventually receive, so we really need an appeal process. I would welcome further confirmation from the Front-Bench team that they are considering how to deal with that.

Secondly, there is the issue of the total amount of money to be given to Equitable Life policyholders. It is quite clear from the estimates and all the reports that we are talking about something in the order of between £4.5 billion and £5 billion. I would like to see some recognition, for the benefit of EMAG members, that that is the total sum of money they are due. I think they all live in the real world; they know the financial mess the country is in, as bequeathed by the Labour Government. They will listen when it is explained that the number—whatever it is—needs to be adjusted down as part of the comprehensive spending review.

I have a real fear, however, that if we hear that number as part of the comprehensive spending review, people will start comparing the amount of money justly given in compensation to Equitable Life policyholders with, say, the amount that is being given to education, for schools, to hospitals, universities or old people’s homes. Then we will face the problem of priority. I think everyone recognises that difficult choices lie ahead, but if we can get it recognised that the right sum is something in the order of £4.5 billion to £5 billion, it will be possible for policyholders to recognise that that will not be the full compensation that they will receive—but the right sort of signals will have been sent.

We also need to be clear on the acceptability of the Chadwick report and its methodology. We have heard tonight—every Member is of the same view—that the problem with the Chadwick report is that its methodology is flawed and that the total cap on the money is unacceptable. Let us hear that the Front-Bench team are going to sweep it away and that the figures involved will be taken into account, but will not be the be-all and end-all of the process. Then EMAG could feel that tonight was a good night for its members and we could feel confident in the future.