Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jonathan Reynolds and Kemi Badenoch

Thursday 7th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)]

Last month, the Secretary of State said at the Dispatch Box that she could state explicitly that trade talks with Canada had not broken down. However, the Canadian high commission has since contradicted that in writing, saying that neither negotiations nor technical discussions with respect to any of the outstanding issues have occurred since the UK unilaterally broke them off on 25 January. Mr Speaker, I just want to know who is telling the truth.

[Kemi Badenoch]

I am very happy to expand on what I said last time I was at the Dispatch Box on this topic. I repeat that our engagement with Canada on trade issues has been extensive across multiple Departments covering the free trade agreement, cheese quotas and rules of origin. On 25 January, the UK confirmed to Canada that we would pause FTA talks on the basis that cheese access had been removed and that Canada had signalled that rules of origin provisions would not be extended. That is how negotiations work.

I can tell the hon. Member that there was a meeting on 8 February between the Foreign Secretary and his Canadian counterpart where the cheese issue was discussed, and I raised cheese and rules of origin directly with the Canadians in Abu Dhabi last week. I must say to the hon. Member that chasing headlines based on things he has been told by the people with whom we are negotiating is not helpful to achieving the outcomes that our businesses, farmers and auto industry want to see.

[Jonathan Reynolds]

That was a lot of words for the Secretary of State to use to say that she believes the Canadian high commission was correct in the answer that it gave.

May I ask an important question about the proposed UK carbon border adjustment mechanism? Labour very much supports the introduction of a UK CBAM, but we are concerned that the Government will do so a year after the EU, resulting in the UK potentially being flooded with carbon-intensive products originally destined for Europe, including steel, cement and fertiliser. Do the Government recognise that danger? If they do, what is their plan?

[Kemi Badenoch]

Just on the first point, if the hon. Member still wants to believe Canada before the UK, that is his business, but we on the Conservative Benches know who we are working for, and we are working for British businesses.

On the hon. Member’s second point, carbon leakage is a global problem facing all countries that are ambitious in tackling climate change, and we are working with international partners on how we tackle it together. We are following developments on the EU CBAM closely, and we are engaging with the European Commission to discuss technical considerations relevant to UK manufacturers. We share its concerns on carbon leakage, but we need to make sure that the UK response, whatever it is, is tailored to what the UK needs, not just a copying and pasting of what others are doing.

Post Office Governance and Horizon Compensation Schemes

Debate between Jonathan Reynolds and Kemi Badenoch

Monday 19th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)]

I firmly agree that the revelations in The Sunday Times at the weekend could not be more serious. In particular, if true, the claim that the Post Office was instructed to deliberately go slow on compensation payments to sub-postmasters in order to push the financial liability into the next Parliament would be a further outrageous insult in a scandal that has already rocked faith in the fairness of the British state. If that is the case, it cannot be allowed to stand, and if it is not, it must be shown to be false in no uncertain terms. We have two completely contrasting accounts: one from the former chair of the Post Office, and one from the Secretary of State. Only one of them can be the truth. I hope that we are all in agreement that Parliament is the correct place for these matters to be raised and clarified. What we need now is transparency and scrutiny.

Will the Secretary of State categorically state that the Post Office was at no point told to delay compensation payments by either an official or a Minister from any Government Department, and that at no point was it suggested that a delay would be of benefit to the Treasury? Will there be a Cabinet Office investigation to ensure that no such instruction or inference was given at any point? Crucially, is the £1 billion figure for compensation, which the Secretary of State helpfully just repeated, already allocated, and sat in the accounts of the Department for Business and Trade, ready to be paid? If it is not, will compensation payments be specifically itemised in the upcoming Budget?

The Secretary of State will also understand that following the story at the weekend, victims of other scandals—especially of the contaminated blood scandal—feel that they need to ask whether they have been the victims of deliberate inaction. Will the Government provide assurances that no such obstruction has been placed on any payments of this kind? If so, can they explain what the delay is in some cases? In the full interests of transparency, and to fully ascertain the veracity of any allegations for sub-postmasters and the general public, will she publish all relevant correspondence, and minutes of meetings between the Department, the Treasury, UK Government Investments and the Post Office during this time? Finally, when can we expect the legislation on exoneration that was promised by the Prime Minister?

I cannot stress enough that the last thing that was needed in this scandal was any further allegation of cover-up or obfuscation at the very top of Government. People’s faith in Government, already damaged by scandals such as Hillsborough, Bloody Sunday and Windrush, is hanging by a thread. This miscarriage of justice has shown the devastation that can occur when institutions are allowed to operate without oversight or are shrouded in secrecy. We should all agree that that secrecy must end, and that the full sunlight of public scrutiny should be brought to bear. If everything the Secretary of State has told us today is correct, surely there will be no objection to that happening fully.

[Kemi Badenoch]

I welcome the tone that the shadow Front-Bench spokesman has taken. There is often a tendency for political point scoring, but I think we both agree that this is very much about the postmasters. That is why I ensured that I was at the Dispatch Box: so that people would know the truth. That is what builds trust.

The shadow Minister asked whether I would categorically state that no instruction was given to delay payments. Yes, I can. We have no evidence whatever that any official said that. If such a thing was said, it is for Mr Staunton to bring the evidence. It is very hard to refute a negative. People making wild, baseless accusations and then demanding proof that they did not happen are making mischief, in my view. As far as I have seen, all the evidence points to the fact that no one gave that instruction.

It is also important to look at whether it would even make sense to do so. There would be no benefit whatever to our delaying the compensation, which has no significant impact on revenues. It would be a mad thing even to suggest. The compensation scheme, which Mr Staunton oversaw, has been completed. My understanding is that 100% of payments have been made, so clearly no such instruction was given. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the infected blood inquiry. This is a good example of how people lose faith in the system because of misinformation. That is why I am here to correct the record.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the £1 billion allocation. We give monthly reports that show exactly what payments are being made. He also asked whether we will publish correspondence. No, we will not publish in full all correspondence between Departments, UKGI and the Post Office. That is because we set up the statutory inquiry, which will examine the important issues related to the Horizon scandal, as well as current governance arrangements. We are fully co-operating with the inquiry, but the inquiry was set up by Parliament specifically to look at that. In addition to the read-out of the true content of my telephone call with Mr Staunton, we will consider publishing correspondence between Departments and Mr Staunton in accordance with freedom of information rules, so that people will know exactly what happened, contrary to his account. The hon. Gentleman asked about legislation. That is something that we are actively working on. I expect that we will be able to deliver on that imminently.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jonathan Reynolds and Kemi Badenoch

Thursday 30th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kemi Badenoch]

I do agree, and my hon. Friend is quite right to praise the progress that has been made on delivering Teesside freeport. The freeport has already been successful in securing several landmark investments, including from SeAH Wind, which is investing £650 million in building an offshore wind manufacturing facility. That will create around 750 high-skilled jobs and builds on the measures announced in the autumn statement last week to further strengthen the offer of UK freeports. My Department will continue to work with freeports, in Teesside and elsewhere, on securing high-value investment.

[Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)]

This is the Department in charge of growth, investment and exports. In the latest figures, following the autumn statement, growth has been downgraded. Business investment is still forecast to be the lowest in the G7, and goods exports have declined, both to the EU and to non-EU countries. Given that there are so many amazing businesses and sectors in the UK, how do the Government account for their poor performance?

[Kemi Badenoch]

I will not allow the hon. Gentleman to spin his way out of what is actually a very good news story for the Government. The fact is that the UK has overtaken France to become the world’s eighth-largest manufacturing nation. We are the world’s fifth-largest exporter. We are growing faster than Germany and France, and have received more investment than them combined. We are the top investment destination, certainly for financial services. We are doing well. Perhaps this is the moment for me to tell him what businesses told me at the global investment summit: that they were unimpressed by the Labour shadow Ministers they had met; that their offer was unimaginative; and that they were repetitive, and had no vision for the future of business in the UK.

[Jonathan Reynolds]

We follow the Secretary of State’s Twitter feed, and quite simply, we do not believe her.

I want to ask the Secretary of State about late payment. In the nine years that the Government have spent consulting on late payments, 450,000 businesses have gone under while waiting to be paid. Why do the Government’s new plans on late payment apply only to firms contracting with the Government? Why do they not rather follow our proposal to make sure that all public companies disclose their payment practices?

[Kemi Badenoch]

I have been working with the Federation of Small Businesses and others on late payments. The hon. Gentleman will have heard the measures announced in the autumn statement; this is an issue that the Government take very seriously. I disagree that we are implementing our plans in a partial way. We will resolve this issue, but I am afraid that I completely disagree with the Opposition: have done quite a lot on this, and many businesses have praised the measures that we announced in the autumn statement.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jonathan Reynolds and Kemi Badenoch

Thursday 18th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)]

It has now been 100 days since we first welcomed the right hon. Lady to her new post. In that time, we have seen steel production fall to record lows; the automotive sector has issued warning cry after warning cry that Government policy risks shipping jobs overseas; and the US has seen incredible sums invested under the Inflation Reduction Act and the EU has put forward its own significant response. Meanwhile, the UK remains trapped in the Conservatives’ low growth, high tax loop, with the lowest business investment in the G7. This morning, three of her predecessors, each from a different political party, have said that the Government need an explicit industrial strategy. Does the current Business Secretary agree with them?

[Kemi Badenoch]

I thank the shadow Minister for highlighting that we have had 100 days as the Department for Business and Trade, during which we have been able to launch the biggest free trade agreement that the UK has seen since we left the EU and since the trade and co-operation agreement. He also mentions a lot of systemic issues, which have been faced globally. He rightly talks about the US IRA and the EU green deal industrial plan, but it is good for me to mention that we are doing a lot in this space. For example, the issue that the automotive industries are talking about relates to rules of origin. This is something that the EU is also worried out, because the costs of the components have risen. This is not to do with Brexit; it is to do with supply chain issues following the pandemic and the war between Russia and Ukraine. I have had meetings with my EU trade counterpart; we are discussing these things and looking at how we can review them, especially as the TCA will be coming into review soon.