Post Office: Prosecution Powers

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

I suspect that it will be quite some time before the Post Office embarks upon another adventure of this sort, for many obvious reasons. We need to recognise that a number of manifest failures led to this situation. These need to be understood, and they are being by the new culture inside the Post Office. The reality remains that the Post Office got it wrong. For that, there needs to be a serious change, and at the heart of it must be not just profits but recognising the role of the sub-postmasters themselves.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, as the Minister responsible at the time, I was uneasy because it involved claims of dishonesty by apparently honest citizens. I therefore advised the Post Office to take outside legal counsel to try and get at the truth. Now that we have reached the present stage, what arrangements for compensation have been, are still being or will be made for those affected?

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

My noble friend is right to draw attention to this. As my noble friend Lord Arbuthnot said at the outset, there will be a settlement of nearly £60 million for those who brought the class action itself. There will also need to be individual criminal examination for those who have experienced the sharpest end of the law. I cannot comment on these matters, but I recognise how important they are to bring about the justice required.

Gift Vouchers

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

The logic seems to be there but the reality is that the provider of the voucher cannot add the value to their bottom line—they cannot redeem its value—until either after the expiry date or the voucher is used. Large companies can often extend the expiry period for five to 10 years, but smaller companies would struggle to do so as they would simply lose the money and not be able to recoup it in due course.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

As a former retailer, I remember debates about the accounting treatment of these vouchers. However, I want to make a different point concerning competitiveness. Often vouchers are for British stores, but a modern move is to give people vouchers for major US internet retailers. I worry that, if we were to bring in new regulation, that trend might be encouraged and some of our smaller retailers that we try to shop at would be affected.

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

My noble friend is correct. It is a challenge when we live in an internet age that connects the global marketplace in a competitive sense with smaller businesses on the high street, so we need to be cautious. However, I hope that any rules in this regard would be of the highest possible standard to ensure that people who received gift vouchers did not find themselves penalised by holding them.

Nuclear Power: Emissions

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

There will also be a strategy next year examining gas in the domestic heating system. There are options available to us and decisions will be required. Shall it be electrification, use of hydrogen, or indeed a hybrid of the two? We need to consider that, and the White Paper will help inform our decisions going forward.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, what discussions has my noble friend had with friends and partners internationally on the potential for using UK nuclear expertise and technology in the fight to deal with climate change?

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

As part of my responsibilities as Climate Change Minister, we have engaged with a number of countries to examine what prospects we have to ensure the development of the small modular reactors, which we believe will be key to the development of a workable global strategy. We commit to continuing to do that at a greater pace.

Fracking

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

I would not like to inquire too far into the mystical workings of the Scottish Government. As the noble Lord will be aware, the situation is clear: they have declared it to be a ban but have been shown in court to be guilty only of a moratorium.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, there has been speculation that there might be more support for nuclear, which is a zero-carbon source of energy. Could the Minister comment on that?

Creative Industries: Research and Development

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

The noble Lord makes an important point. I was curious about that this morning as well. I was fearful that a lot of these funds would end up in the larger businesses and industries but, in actual fact, SMEs are disproportionately affected in this area for the very reason that the arts, humanities and wider creative industries are usually small ventures. So there is a significant proportion of benefit in that regard. If the noble Lord will allow it, I will drop him a note on the exact figures and put it in the Library for the edification of all others.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

Can my noble friend also consider as part of his follow-up work the allocation of the R&D spend by government? We are talking about tax, which obviously affects the creative sector and companies. The Government are actually spending more money on R&D, which I very much welcome, but allocation to sectors other than the ones that BEIS considers key is very important. Agriculture, which we discussed earlier, has lost a lot of its R&D in recent years. The creative sector is a new sector and requires attention as well.

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

The simple answer to that question is yes, I will do that.

Grenfell Tower Update

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Monday 3rd July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

We are putting our attention very much on the social housing sector, which, in the light of what has happened, noble Lords will understand.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his helpful Statement on this agonising subject, and I endorse his thanks for all that people are trying to do to improve the situation. As someone who has for many years been either a regulator within government or in business being regulated, I have concluded that in areas such as safety and standards, including fire safety, we need regulations that are balanced, well thought out and cost effective; simply expressed and well communicated to everybody who needs to know what those regulations are; and—this is the important point for today—properly enforced. So often we find that good rules are not enforced and disasters of the tragic sort that we have seen on this occasion ensue. Therefore, I ask my noble friend, and I think that the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, will probably be interested in the answer to this question as well: how can we quickly prioritise and improve enforcement of the regulations in this area—that is, fire safety—and indeed of other regulations, such as product safety, which may be important, and how can we do that at speed? That obviously includes the public sector, where there has been a problem in this area, and business, although in my experience business people are very well aware of the serious health and safety responsibilities they have and the liabilities that they can incur. I would like to feel that the Government were thinking about the wider lessons here and about how we might prevent such tragedies happening in this and other areas.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend very much for her general encapsulation of the principles that should be carried forward in relation to regulations in this field and indeed in many others, as she indicated. I say once again that the judge will no doubt want to look very seriously at the debate on this issue. My noble friend referred to the importance of carrying forward lessons in a timely and urgent way, and that is the purpose of having the expert panel. It will look at these issues urgently, even ahead of the inquiry and the interim report. This is just the sort of issue that the expert panel will want to look at, along with the point about insulation, as I indicated to the noble Lord, Lord Shipley.