Fire Safety: Retirement Communities

Lord Beamish Excerpts

Tuesday 9th November 2021 Commons Chamber

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

I am pleased that I have been able to secure this debate tonight. The impact of fire on any property can be devastating, but the risks are increased when it comes to fires in retirement communities, due to the vulnerability and dependency of the residents who reside in them. While “retirement communities” can refer to a variety of types of housing, it is crucial that any building housing vulnerable and dependent residents has the very highest levels of fire protection arrangements in place.

Many residents who live in retirement communities may be unable to evacuate themselves or may have evacuation plans in place that move them from one part of a building to another part that is safer. There is therefore increased importance on ensuring that the ability of fire to spread in these buildings is contained. Despite that, much of the focus recently, following the tragedy at Grenfell, has been on the height of buildings and not necessarily the protection or lay-out of individual buildings.

I will talk about a specific retirement community in my North Durham constituency, but many of the issues I raise will affect other hon. and right hon. Members’ constituencies throughout the country. Cestrian Court was constructed and opened in 2008 by McCarthy & Stone, a developer and management company for retirement communities. The individual flats were sold to residents, and the lease was sold on. The building is currently managed by FirstPort, which also owns the lease. The issues relating to fire safety at Cestrian Court were first brought to my office in February when a resident passed me a copy of a compliance report stating that certain fire-stopping features were

“not considered to have met the guidance at the time of construction.”

Having looked at the report in more detail, I must say that I was alarmed at the litany of defects at Cestrian Court from the time of its construction. Most notably, a 1.5 metre part of a compartment wall between two flats was missing—in effect, a chunk of a corner of a cavity wall was missing—and cavity barriers on doors were not fire-stopped. Moreover, and as I will come to later, the attic space had numerous fire structures dislodged. That may have been as a result of residents moving structures in the loft or, as the report outlines, due to expansion and contraction of the roof and cavity barriers not being mechanically fixed at the time of construction. Finally, and most importantly, these defects did not meet building regulations at the time of construction: plasterboard joints were not sealed; plasterboard compartment walls were not extended to barge boarding areas; cables penetrated brick dwarf walls; roof voids were not fire-stopped; pipes penetrated cavity barriers; service penetration was not adequately fire-stopped; and communal venting discharged through the roof without fire dampening. All of those defects were serious and weakened the protections for Cestrian Court’s elderly residents. In the event of a fire, they would have had serious consequences.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the right hon. Member on initiating this important debate. Does he agree that the travesty of building regulations that have allowed unsafe building to take place without challenge increases the importance of the duty of care to local residents, which must be addressed not simply for his constituents but for those in every one of the 650 constituencies represented in the House, including my constituency of Strangford?

[Mr Jones]

I very much agree and will come to some of what the Government must do. Local fire boards and fire brigades will need extra enforcement powers.

I expected McCarthy & Stone, as the builder of the retirement community, to show an interest in rectifying its possible mistakes. I believed—foolishly—that it would be horrified at the risks that it might have inflicted on the residents through a litany of fire safety defects and that it would contact FirstPort, the new operator, to co-ordinate ways in which to rectify the situation. I was therefore disappointed when it simply said that the operation of the building had been passed to a new provider and that the warranty period on its construction work was up—it basically washed its hands of the situation.

It is unclear why the new operator, FirstPort, did not discover some of the structural building defects earlier as part of its due diligence when it took over Cestrian Court from McCarthy & Stone. It is also unclear why, given that Cestrian Court had five inspections during its construction, the National House Building Council failed to identify these issues.

On receiving the compliance report, I immediately contacted the chief fire officer at County Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service, who did an audit of the building. Of most concern was the “stay put” policy in place for residents in the event of a fire, which effectively said, “In the event of a fire, do not worry. Stay in your flats. Your flats are fireproof.” Nothing could have been further from the truth. Since construction 11 years ago, residents have been under the impression that “stay put” was the best policy to save them in the event of a fire. That was on the misguided assumption that the fire would be contained. With no fire-proof doors, gaps in cavity walls and loft spaces with missing or dislodged fire safety structures, that advice might have had fatal consequences. Residents were not protected, and we have been lucky that we have not had a national tragedy at this building.

The chief fire officer also found that the fire alarm system did not work, which again calls into question the “stay put” policy for residents in the event of a fire. He therefore escalated the advice from “stay put” to “full evacuation” in the event of a fire at the premises. Unsurprisingly, he also confirmed that the problems had to be treated with such urgency to mitigate the risk that the work would have to be done within three months. In the meantime, the fire risk was so bad that residents would have to pay for someone to stay on the premises 24 hours a day to alert them to possible fires, costing each two-bedroom flat £1,000. I want to formally thank Stuart Errington, our chief fire officer, and his team for the speedy way in which they dealt with this matter.

There have been cases throughout the country, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) highlighted, of fires in retirement communities. There is evidence to suggest that if those fires had taken place at different times of day, they could have had fatal consequences. One fire took place at the Beechmere retirement complex—a four-storey complex of 132 extra-care sheltered flats in Cheshire—in August 2019. The fire rapidly spread through the cavities in the walls and the roof space. The fire service was unable to prevent total loss of the flats, but it was able to prevent any deaths. However, there is evidence that if the fire had taken place during the night, the consequences would have been completely different.

In 2017, a fire took place at the Newgrange care home—a two-storey care home in Herefordshire—resulting in two fatalities. The fire service had to rescue 30 people. Finally, in June 2020 in Sunderland, a fire started in the roof of the Croft care home and quickly spread. Some 27 residents had to be evacuated—some from upper storeys. Again, if the fire had occurred at night, we would have had a large number of fatalities.

Turning back to Cestrian Court, I was told in April this year that full remedial work would cost residents £87,000—around £3,000 per resident. Let me say very clearly that it is plainly wrong that residents are having to pay for remedial work that was the responsibility of McCarthy & Stone, which built the properties in the first place.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I have the same issue at Guardian Court in my constituency, which is owned by Anchor Hanover. Just putting a new fire alarm system in these rented properties would cost £114,000. Along with the residents, I lobbied to reduce the cost and the labour costs to £98,500, but this is extortionate for people who have no additional means.

[Mr Jones]

I agree. These people are on fixed incomes and cannot just lay their hands on this type of money.

Let’s get this in perspective. Before its £647 million buy-out by private equity in February, McCarthy & Stone was listed on the FTSE 250. It handed out multimillion-pound bonuses in 2019. The chief executive officer earns £658,000, and the company has an annual turnover of £725 million—FirstPort has a turnover of £88 million. I have to say that £87,000 is small beer compared with the amounts being paid to the executives of McCarthy & Stone.

The remedial works at Cestrian Court have now been done, but the cost has fallen on the residents, and that cannot be right. It is also causing a huge amount of distress to those individuals, knowing that for the past 11 years they have been living in a building that could have been a tinderbox. I urge the National House Building Council and the two companies I have mentioned to put in place a scheme to compensate my constituents.

Interestingly, I have had one letter from McCarthy and Stone, but I think I have had five phone calls in the past few days, with it suddenly wondering why it is going to be raised in this debate. In the correspondence, McCarthy and Stone and the NHBC clearly have a dangerous misunderstanding of each other’s roles. I urge McCarthy and Stone and FirstPort to look, along with the NHBC, at who is responsible for this. Again, McCarthy and Stone’s attitude is, “It’s not our problem. It’s gone away”, but I think it is.

In conclusion, the Minister needs to consider new clause 1 to the Building Safety Bill, which calls on the Government to establish a review of construction industry payment practices. The current legislation contains no protections for residents such as those at Cestrian Court, given the height of the building. I understand well why the emphasis to date has been on the height of a building, but I urge the Minister to consider some of these buildings, and look at how we can better co-ordinate fire safety at a local level, and ensure that the inspection of new properties does not leave residents vulnerable.

I urge the Minister to take Cestrian Court as a case study that demonstrates the disjointed system for leasehold arrangements in this country, and the impact of that on fire safety. Residents of Cestrian Court have been fortunate that there was no fire, but one wonders what would have been done without their persistence in raising this issue and arguing that things should be done. Companies such as McCarthy and Stone portray the dream of a retirement for the elderly through glossy brochures and TV adverts, but all they have sold in my constituency is a potential nightmare. If a fire had taken place in that building, there would have been a need for some prosecutions.

Importantly, anyone living in a McCarthy and Stone property today should ask what fire certificates and regulations have been put in place. Indeed, I urge every fire authority to go into McCarthy and Stone properties to check that we do not have the horror story that we have at Cestrian Court. I thank the residents of Cestrian Court for their doggedness and determination in raising this issue. I feel heartily sorry for them as they have been left in this position through no fault of their own. It is another example of where people make money out of developments, but those individuals who have often put their life savings into wanting a happy retirement are left out of pocket. I am sorry, but that cannot be right.

[The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)]

I commend and congratulate the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) on securing this debate, and on bringing this important topic before the House. It is a matter that we all believe to be of grave concern.

Let me begin by saying how important I and the Government believe it is that we further develop the later living and retirement housing sector. Many people in our country live in very large homes. That is fine for the many people who are happy to live in those homes, but we know full well that many people would like to downsize. It is economically sensible for them to do so, as well as good for their health and welfare. Unfortunately, however, there are not enough retirement and later living properties in our country in the right places, and with the right quality, care levels and social networks to provide that opportunity. We want to do more to help with that, but it is disappointing and concerning to hear the story that the right hon. Gentleman has presented to the House, so I am very happy to look at the specifics that he has raised and work with him to ensure that the challenges that he has brought to our attention are addressed.

We have, however, introduced substantial reforms through the Building Safety Bill, which, with the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, will strengthen our building safety regime. We have also taken action to ensure that care homes and residential places are safe, because we all want those living and working in retirement communities to feel safe. We have listened to concerns about fire safety in care homes and specialised housing, and we are currently exploring the evidence surrounding risks that may exist in buildings occupied by vulnerable individuals. We are also conducting a full technical review of Approved Document B, which is the statutory guidance to building regulations, where we will look at the fire safety provisions in care homes and specialised housing. As I say, I will also consider the points that the right hon. Gentleman has raised about Cestrian Court and other places.

While we have already made important changes, we fundamentally need to change the culture so that residents’ concerns are listened to and, where problems arise, they are dealt with swiftly and efficiently. The Building Safety Bill is bringing forward the biggest reforms in nearly 40 years and will establish a building safety regulator. That means that in the future, later-living homes and specialised housing that are in scope will be covered by the new, more stringent building control regulatory regime during design and construction. This will ensure that corners are not being cut and buildings are built to a high standard. The new regime will strengthen regulatory oversight before building work commences; throughout construction, including before major changes are made; and when building work is complete.

Importantly, the Bill also paves the way for a national regulator for construction products to oversee a stronger and clearer construction products regulatory regime, which will apply to all four nations—both Great Britain and Northern Ireland. That national regulator, which will be established in the Office for Product Safety and Standards, will have robust market surveillance enforcement capability to take action against companies found to be breaking the rules, including removing unsafe construction products from the market.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I welcome what the Minister is saying about the future. I just wonder what can be done to ensure that not just Cestrian Court but other properties are safe. If Cestrian Court was built by McCarthy and Stone to the shoddy standards that left my constituents in peril, is there any way that McCarthy and Stone could be made to check—or that the Government could perhaps check, through the fire authorities—that the other facilities that it has built meet standards? I would hate to think that one of its other homes might go up in smoke, leading to the tragedy that we have, I think, very narrowly avoided at Cestrian Court.

[Christopher Pincher]

The right hon. Gentleman raises an important point. We certainly want, through the changes that we are making, to improve the building control regime in local authorities around the country, and that is what we will achieve through the Building Safety Bill. I also draw his attention to the changes that we are making in the Bill to amend the Defective Premises Act 1972 to extend the period of retrospective action that people can take if they find their property to be defective. We are also including in that Bill a clause that will ensure that building owners or freeholders must take all reasonable steps to find ways of dealing with remediation, and exhaust those steps, before they pass on costs to the residents and leaseholders. I think those are two important steps in the Bill, which I hope will find support across the House.

Our package of reforms will help to make sure that construction products placed on the market are safe and that the public can be confident that products, including those used in the construction of care homes, will perform as they are intended to. The safety of retirement homes under 18 metres will be overseen by the building safety regulator, as part of its responsibility to oversee the safety and performance of all buildings. The regulator will work with the construction industry and technical experts, commissioning research and conducting consultations where necessary to make recommendations to the Government for improving building regulations. By doing so, it will drive both a culture change in the sector, and improve the safety and performance of all buildings. It will also drive improvements in building safety by overseeing the performance of building control bodies, as I said to the right hon. Gentleman, through a robust professional and regulatory regime for both registered building control approvers and local authority building control departments.

It is vital that the fire safety regime for these buildings is comprehensive and is working as it should. The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 requires those responsible to ensure that they regularly assess risks from fire to ensure they can take mitigating action to reduce the risk, so it is as low as reasonably practicable. This is not a one-off process or tick-box exercise, but one that requires the ongoing, day-to-day consideration and management of fire risks. That is especially important for the safety and wellbeing of residents of care homes, and other later life and specialised premises. The duties placed on building owners and responsible persons under the fire safety order will be further strengthened by clause 136 of the Building Safety Bill, which takes forward proposals to place a small number of additional duties on them. They include improving co-operation and information sharing, providing residents with relevant fire safety information and enforcing compliance through strengthening the standing of guidance. That will help with compliance and more effective enforcement action in the future—the sort of thing the right hon. Gentleman was talking about.

The Home Office also intends to bring forward new regulations that will implement the majority of the recommendations made by the Grenfell Tower inquiry in the phase 1 report, which require changes in the law. The measures will help to make all residential buildings safer by placing new duties on responsible persons, which will improve fire safety for their residents and assist fire and rescue services in planning for, and responding to, a fire.

We want to support people to stay safe in their homes. Fire and rescue services visit homes and offer person-centred fire safety advice, providing smoke alarms and other fire safety equipment where necessary. To support those physical visits, the National Fire Chiefs Council has created an online tool to allow residents to make informed self-assessment choices and be guided on any other steps they can take to improve their fire safety. The Government are also playing their part, working closely with the National Fire Chiefs Council and local fire and rescue services to deliver the long-running “Fire Kills” campaign. Through a mix of media advertising, partnership working and promotional activity, the campaign has helped to drive down the number of fires and fire- related fatalities to its current historic low levels.

I know that there is a united desire across the House to ensure that those living in retirement communities feel safe in their homes, and I am genuinely grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for bringing these issues to our attention tonight. Debates such as this are incredibly important as we work together to protect all residents. I assure him and Members across the House that the Government remain committed to helping residents in what we know is a most challenging situation, because in doing so, we will ensure that there is public confidence in the sector—a sector that we are determined to grow, and we have a mutual interest in doing so—and bring about lasting change in an industry that will put its residents’ welfare first. I am grateful to him and I thank him for his attention.

Question put and agreed to.

Post Office Update

Lord Beamish Excerpts

Wednesday 19th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

I thank my hon. Friend, a former postmaster himself, for that. He absolutely understands the situation and has been a dogged champion. We did say that if things should change, we would change. Things have clearly changed as a result of the Court of Appeal judgment. He raises a pertinent point about Fujitsu. It is for Post Office Ltd to work out the terms of compensation around this issue, but I am sure it will hear what he said and raise that incredibly pertinent point as redress is sought.

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

I thank the Minister for his statement. I also give him credit: in the 10-plus years that I, the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) and Lord Arbuthnot have been campaigning on this issue, this is the first time that a Minister has admitted that when things go wrong he will change them.

It is right that we get full disclosure of the facts and justice for those who have been wronged. May I ask the Minister about disclosure? Will that include the ministerial submissions from the Post Office throughout this scandal and the role of the Government shareholder on the board of the Post Office? That is key to the reasons why things were not questioned. Also remember that in 2019 the Post Office spent £100 million of taxpayers’ money defending a civil case that was, frankly, completely indefensible.

I stress one last thing to the Minister. I know that Ministers like to hide behind the Post Office, saying that this is its fault. It is not: it is a wholly owned company of the Government. The Government have to take responsibility for some of this; they cannot just blame the Post Office.

[Paul Scully]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman, who has rightly been pushing on behalf of postmasters in general for a number of years.

Yes, nothing is off the table. We want to get justice and answers for people, and that clearly includes the role of the Government and shareholders. The fact is that, yes, we are the single shareholder through UK Government Investments, but that allows Post Office Ltd to work operationally independently of the Government —otherwise, there would be no point in splitting it that way. None the less, as I say, our representatives on the board have been asking that question. We were assured that Horizon was robust in all these areas. None the less, within the inquiry those questions will no doubt be asked and I expect them to be answered.

Post Office Court of Appeal Judgment

Lord Beamish Excerpts

Tuesday 27th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

Before we look at wider compensation, I want first to understand and make sure that we can learn the lessons and find out exactly what happened and when. This happened over a 20-year period and we need to unwind those 20 years, but we want to do that as quickly as possible so that we can get a timely response and justice for those people, rather than waiting for the three, four or five years that a statutory inquiry might take.

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

The Minister said that this was a landmark judgment; I just wonder what it is going to take for the Government actually to take action. People’s lives were ruined. People went to prison. People took their own lives. Surely the way forward now is, first, for the Government to put in place a compensation for all those who lost something. The hon. Member for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew) just made a good point: it was the Government and the Post Office that spent £100 million of taxpayers’ money basically to bankrupt people so that they had to settle.

What is actually needed is a judicial inquiry, because the toothless inquiry that the Minister has set up will not have any powers to force people to give evidence. Without that, we are not going to get to the truth, because the guilty people need to be exposed. I know that the Minister has said he is trying but, alas, I have dealt with numerous Ministers over the past 10 years and I think his name is going to be added to the board of useless Ministers we have seen dealing with this issue over the past few years. We need action now, Minister, not more words.

[Paul Scully]

The right hon. Gentleman talks about unpicking something that happened over 20 years and describes a landmark judgment, then expects it to be dealt with within three days. That belies the complexity and depth of the situation. The decisions on Post Office Ltd’s litigation strategy were taken by the Post Office. The Government were not party to the litigation; they monitored the situation and challenged the approach taken by the Post Office.

The right hon. Gentleman also talks about the fact that the non-statutory inquiry led by Sir Wyn Williams cannot compel people to give evidence, but at the moment everybody is participating in that inquiry. If that changes, obviously our view will change.

Council Tax: Government’s Proposed Increase

Lord Beamish Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2021 Commons Chamber

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

Most council tax payers think that their council tax pays for all council services, but that is not the case; it is made up of council tax, central Government grant and business rates. The central Government grant has been cut by 56% in the last 10 years, in a deliberate policy of this Government to move funding away from central Government grant and on to local council tax payers. In County Durham, for example, the council’s budget has been cut by 40%, which is £232 million in central grant. That has hit northern councils harder, because they relied heavily on the central Government grant for a proportion of their income.

It is a double whammy, because the Government are now pushing this on to council tax. In County Durham, 50% of properties are in band A. Surrey, for example, has larger numbers of council tax payers in band H. A 1% increase in Durham raises very little compared with what it raises in Surrey, so northern councils are being penalised through this.

We have heard all the nonsense this afternoon about local government needing to be more efficient. Councils are making efficiencies, but it is not possible to cut 40% of a council’s budget without services being affected. Some 60% of Durham County Council’s budget is spent on social care and looked-after children. The idea portrayed that every council is the same is nonsense, in terms of the demand for social care and care for looked-after children.

The Conservative Government and Government Members then blame councils for putting up parking charges and everything else. The councils have to, because frankly, that is the only way they are going to get their income. They criticise councils for speculative property developments. I would criticise them as well, because the majority of them are by Conservative councils in the south-east of England, and that cannot be right.

The Government’s campaign slogan is about levelling up the north. Well, I am sorry, but this Government and their predecessor have done exactly the opposite for the last 10 years. Pushing the increase in local government funding on to local council tax payers is not about levelling up. It will mean that people pay more in the north than they do in the south. If that is this Government’s idea of levelling up, it is not what is being portrayed by many Government Members. This is a regressive tax that will hit hard-working families in areas such as mine in North Durham.

--- Later in debate ---

[Luke Hall]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that councils should be delivering efficient services with the settlement that they have received from this Government.

If we look at the provisional settlement that the Secretary of State published on 17 December, we see a 4.5% cash-terms increase in core spending power—a real-terms increase for the next financial year. We have also committed at least £3 billion of additional help to councils for next year. That includes the extension of the sales, fees and charges guarantee scheme, which we know has been a lifeline to so many councils during this pandemic. Our commitment to support councils is stronger than ever, and we will ensure that they have the resources they need to deliver first-class public services.

May I thank Members from both sides of the House for their contributions to this debate? I appreciate that it has been hotly contested and contentions, but some important points have been raised. I was surprised, however, to see numerous Opposition Members stand up and say how much they disagreed with the Government’s proposal, given that so many of their councils have not even bothered to respond to our consultation. The hon. Member for West Ham (Ms Brown) said how much she and her council disagreed with it, but Labour-run Newham Council has not responded to our consultation on council tax. The hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) told us how strongly he and his council feel about this issue, but it has not responded to our consultation, either. Perhaps that is because it welcomes fully the 3.9% increase in core spending power that it will receive next year. The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) told us how much he and his local Lib Dem council did not support it, but it has also not bothered to respond to the consultation. It is typical of a Lib Dem administration that it stands up, shouts from the sidelines and fails to do the necessary work.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

It might be because the Government completely ignore them. Durham County Council has lost 40% of its budget—£232 million—in the past 10 years. Under the proposed council tax rises, its limited council tax base will limit what it can raise compared with southern councils. How can that be right, in terms of moving money from the north to the south?

[Luke Hall]

I do not see how it is right for the right hon. Gentleman’s local council to spend millions of pounds on doing up an office building and installing a roof terrace during the middle of the covid pandemic. I shall come to his point about council tax redistribution in a moment.

The hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) talked about Liverpool City Council being forced to raise council tax. That is not the case; councils have a choice. Liverpool has been campaigning to have a higher council tax—

[Mr Jones]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

We are not taking bogus points of order right now, because it is not fair for people who are not here in the Chamber. If the hon. Gentleman has a real point of order, I will listen to him.

[Mr Jones]

The right hon. Member does have a point, because what the Minister has just done is inadvertently misled the House—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. No, no—

[Mr Jones]

Durham County Council is not doing—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. This is a debate; there are, therefore, differing points of view on either side of the House—[Interruption.] Do not shout at me in the Chair.

Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement

Lord Beamish Excerpts

Thursday 17th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care will bring forward proposals in due course. We will meet our manifesto commitment to introduce the long-term reforms that this country urgently needs on social care. I think today’s settlement provides local government with the sustainable finances it needs for social care. It has been widely praised by the sector as meeting the demographic changes that my right hon. Friend mentioned. We are also ensuring that councils such as his have the funding that they need. Bromley will have a 5.5% increase in core spending power from the previous year, in which there was a 4.7% increase. That is two successive years of increases in council funding for his local authority area.

Briefly, in other news for my right hon. Friend, today we have announced funding for waking watches, partly inspired by brilliant campaigners in his constituency.

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

I add my thanks to council staff and councillors for their work during this last year, particularly those at Durham County Council. I particularly thank the chief executive, Terry Collins, who is retiring at the end of the year after 43 years in local government.

The Secretary of State’s announcement is mainly made up of local council tax increases in core spending. Durham County Council has 50% of its council tax properties in band A, which limits its ability to raise large amounts of council tax compared with councils in the south, which have larger numbers of higher band council tax properties. That will mean that Durham County Council has no option but to increase its council tax to the maximum. The Secretary of State and the Government talk about levelling up, but today he is clearly punishing northern council tax payers while rewarding southern council tax payers.

CCRC Decision on 44 Post Office Prosecutions

Lord Beamish Excerpts

Monday 5th October 2020 Commons Chamber

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

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy if he will make a statement on the 44 Post Office prosecutions overturned by the CCRC.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Paul Scully)]

I appreciate the urgent question. The Government recognise that the Horizon dispute has had a hugely damaging effect on the lives of affected postmasters and their families, and its repercussions are still being felt today. I have spoken to a number of postmasters who have been affected by this ordeal.

On 2 October, the Post Office formally responded to the Court of Appeal and Southwark Crown court regarding convicted postmasters whose cases were referred by the Criminal Cases Review Commission. The Post Office has stated that it will not oppose 44 out of the 47 cases. The Post Office also sincerely apologised to postmasters for historical failings and underlined its commitment to delivering a fundamental review of the businesses and to resetting its relationship with postmasters, to ensure that this never happens again.

This decision by the Post Office is an important milestone for postmasters whose convictions are part of this appeals process. Friday’s announcement was not, however, the end of that process. It is now for the courts to decide whether the convictions should be overturned. It would not therefore be appropriate for the Government to comment on these cases until that process is complete.

The Post Office continues to co-operate fully with the CCRC and is in the process of reviewing about 900 historical prosecutions. Should it find any new information that may cast doubt on the safety of a conviction, it has confirmed that it will disclose that information to the person who is convicted. We will continue to monitor the work of the Post Office closely. In addition, I am pleased that the Government last week launched an inquiry, chaired by retired High Court judge Sir Wyn Williams, which will gather relevant available evidence to provide a public summary of the failings that occurred in relation to Horizon and assess whether lessons have been learned and concrete changes have taken place, or at least are under way, at the Post Office.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I had high hopes for the Minister when he was appointed, but unfortunately he is reverting to type, like all his predecessors I have had to deal with over the last eight years. The hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen), Lord Arbuthnot and I have been campaigning on this issue for nearly nine years, and I know that many other Members across the House have individual cases and have been involved in this. It is six years since the three of us met the CCRC, and I am pleased that Friday’s announcement made it clear that the Post Office would not pursue 44 of the cases. But those are simple words, and they belie the agony and torment of these individuals and of hundreds of other individuals who have lost their livelihoods, their good names and, in some cases, their freedom. In other cases, people have lost their lives.

I am sorry, Minister, but what you have said today is not good enough. I cannot get over the fact that this scandal—that is what it is—is still being treated as somehow an issue of the Post Office. The Government are the single shareholder in the Post Office; they are the ones who can actually make some changes, so I would like to ask them some direct questions.

First, as the single shareholder, were the Government involved in the decision not to take forward these prosecutions, in the same way they were involved with the £100 million they spent in defending the civil case last year? Secondly, in terms of the convictions that have been overturned, the Minister said in June that there would be a process in place for compensation. Will he announce a compensation process, or will these people have to pursue cases through the court for compensation? Can I also ask where we are at with the historic compensation process? I understand that 2,000 claims have been made, but not a penny has yet been paid out.

Finally, can I put this issue to the Minister? I am sorry, but the review he has announced is not good enough. It may have a retired judge at its head, but he does not have the powers to summon witnesses and cross-examine them. A full public inquiry is needed. Without that, we will not get to the truth of what is, as I have already said, a national scandal.

[Paul Scully]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for those points, and I will try to deal with them directly. The decision to prosecute postmasters was an operational matter for the Post Office, and the Government are not involved in operational decisions. However, in hindsight, knowing what we know now, it is clear that different conclusions could and should have been reached by the Post Office, and that is why the inquiry is there to look at the lessons.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about a route for compensation, should postmasters who have been convicted have their convictions overturned. There are processes in place for them to receive compensation if appropriate, and that includes a statutory scheme under section 133 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988.

In terms of the latest update on the historical shortfall scheme, the Post Office launched the scheme on 1 May to allow postmasters who were not part of the group litigation to have issues with shortfalls recorded in Horizon investigated and addressed. The window for applications formally closed on 14 August, but late applications are being considered by the Post Office on a case-by-case basis. There have been over 2,200 claims, and the independent panel advising the Post Office on the scheme is now assessing those.

The right hon. Gentleman talked about the inquiry. A judge-led inquiry is very much what was asked for. We have Sir Wyn Williams, a former judge, at the head of that. He will be an independent chair; he will be able to ask the questions, push back at the Government and the Post Office, and get evidence. The reason it is an inquiry rather than a review is that, reflecting on the way its remit was worded, I have always wanted it to be a backward-looking review that enabled evidence to be sought, rather than to be done on just a desktop basis. We have clarified that in the written statement, and I believe this is the inquiry—albeit on a non-statutory basis—that will actually get the answers, and do it in a quick way that hopefully satisfies the sub-postmasters and gets the answers they want.

Draft Enterprise Act 2002 (EU Foreign Direct Investment) (Modifications) Regulations 2020

Lord Beamish Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2020 General Committees

[Paul Scully]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. The regulations will be repealed as part of the wider European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020. They do not interact with the Bill that we are introducing, but add further powers that can be used.

The UK and the EU have both stated that we intend to support ambitious, close and lasting co-operation on external threats. That co-operation should respect both sides’ strategic and security interests and respective legal orders. We are open to participation in security-facing EU programmes and instruments on a case-by-case basis.

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

The right hon. Member for Forest of Dean makes an interesting point. Is there not going to be a gap between the lapsing of this legislation and the new Bill to which the Minister refers? This week, we announced sanctions against a number of individuals—independently of any other country, including the EU. Does that not leave us at a disadvantage if we are not able to get information, perhaps about people we think are a threat but the EU does not?

[Paul Scully]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Both the UK and the EU have expressed our intention to co-operate as best we can. How that is structured will be part of the negotiations. Although this measure does not directly interact with the new Bill, we intend to introduce the Bill very soon.

[Mr Jones]

This is like a lot of things to do with the withdrawal agreement Act—it is wishful thinking, and there will be a gap that will put the UK at a disadvantage. Great fanfare was made this week about the fact that we can now sanction individuals who use investment as a way of hiding money. It was said that that is a great step forward for our freedoms from the EU. If we do not have a seamless connection, this measure will leave us at a huge disadvantage, because there will be no onus on the EU to share any information with us.

[Paul Scully]

As I say, although we are obviously obliged to abide by EU law during the transition period, we do not believe it would be appropriate to remain part of the reciprocal information-sharing channel after the transition period has come to an end. As I say, when the National Security and Investment Bill is introduced, we will be able to debate that fully.

[Paul Scully]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that clarification. We already share a lot of this information on gov.uk, and it is not particularly burdensome on businesses to release the information we are looking for. Much of this work is in effect tidying up, because we have gone that little bit further in the Enterprise Act.

[Mr Jones]

I say in response to the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean that there will be no obligation on Ministers to share information. There might be good will, and it might be in our interest to share the information, but there will be no legal obligation as there is now.

[Paul Scully]

As I said, we already go far enough with the Enterprise Act. The information is released and on gov.uk. This is very much a tidying-up exercise to ensure that the legislation works.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Scully]

I thank my hon. Friend. The UK and the EU will have separate jurisdictions to scrutinise mergers. The EU might look at a merger if it is relevant, but that would not stop the CMA from conducting its own investigation.

[Mr Jones]

The hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner tried to help the Minister out, but I do not think he did: the regulations, which I have no problem with, lapse when the transition period ends. Obviously, the new Bill will try to cover some of these areas. If we believe the Prime Minister, this is all going to be done and dusted by January next year, so that Bill will have to come in before January 2021 if we are to have the seamless transition the Minister has referred to.

[Paul Scully]

That is a topic we will come to when we introduce the Bill. Hopefully, with the co-operation of Her Majesty’s Opposition, we can get that through swiftly and at the appropriate time to allow for that seamless approach.

To conclude, this instrument is not going to make fundamental changes to the UK’s investment screening regime. The UK is going to retain the levers in the Enterprise Act that allow the Secretary of State to intervene in a merger. The instrument will also not affect plans for the forthcoming National Security and Investment Bill, nor will it interact with the two instruments laid before the House on 22 June, which amend the Enterprise Act 2002. However, it is necessary to agree this instrument to ensure that the UK complies with EU law, as is our duty under the withdrawal agreement.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Kevan Jones]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Miller. It is also a pleasure to see the Government squirming when it comes to how shambolic the exit from the EU is becoming. The regulation that we are considering will be in place until the end of the transition period. The Minister cannot say when the new National Security and Investment Bill will come forward, but given the snail’s pace at which the Government are bringing forward legislation at the moment, I doubt it will be in before Christmas, so there will be a gap.

It also concerns me that after the transition period we will be left with what I think the Minister referred to as the “good will of Ministers”. That is not a legislative term that I am aware of—that we are to let the Executive exercise their good will. Interestingly, the explanatory memorandum states that

“An Impact Assessment has not been prepared for this instrument”

because

“no, or no significant, impact”

on the private sector, “voluntary bodies” or “the public sector” is foreseen. I am sorry, but I do not accept that. If there is a gap during which we are relying on Ministers to take case-by-case decisions on whether they share information with the EU, that is quite a significant impact.



As I said to the Minister in my earlier intervention, the Government this week congratulated themselves on having new powers, free from the awful EU, to sanction individuals. Without co-operation with the EU or other nations on information sharing in this and other security sectors, however, we can have all the powers we like but, frankly, if we do not have the information to implement them or to co-operate with other nations, they are pretty meaningless. That gap will be there, which concerns me.

The other thing that concerns me is what the Minister just said. He said that, under the new Bill, we will not have a system of automatic transfer of information with the EU. That is absolutely silly from our point of view, because we do not live in a hermetically sealed bubble in this country where everything that goes on outside our borders can be forgotten and cannot affect us. We are interrelated, whether with the EU or other nations. Some Government Members want to portray the vision that Britain can somehow pull a duvet over its head and ignore the rest of the world but, I am sorry, it cannot. That is quite serious.

Increasingly, as shown this week by the sanctions, people want to hide money. States, individuals and criminals, for whatever purposes, use investment as a way to cleanse that money through the system. When we leave the transition period, it will be vital to share that information with the EU and other countries. If we do not, we will not have the ability to test whether the money is clean or linked to individuals who we do not want to be associated with, or whether for some other reason the money has come from sources that we do not approve of.

It is important for that information to be there. If it is not, and it is left to a Minister after the transition period, we will be at a huge disadvantage without the National Security and Investment Bill. When will that come forward? If the direction of travel in that Bill is that—I know it is like red meat to Tory Back Benchers—we will not share anything with the EU because that nasty old institution will dilute our great freedoms, I come back to the point that, without co-operation with other nations on that area and a whole host of others related to national security co-operation, we will be at a huge disadvantage.

[Jane Hunt (Loughborough) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that we should stick to our knitting? The regulations are a short-term device to get us from A to B. We do not have to consider all the legislation and the whole purpose of leaving the EU with regard to this short piece of legislation.

[Mr Jones]

I say to the hon. Lady that the devil is in the detail. I have sat on a number of these SI Committees and I always like to contribute, because we need to scrutinise them, as their implications are important. They may well be small in terms of their overall impact, but cumulatively, they have an impact. I have sat on many such Committees because of the withdrawal from the EU, and the impact of this SI, without the cover legislation, will be that we are disadvantaged. My plea to the Government is to bring that Bill forward before Christmas—before we leave—because we are going to leave and it will leave us at a disadvantage.

I reiterate the main point, which is, whether the hon. Lady likes it or not, we need to co-operate with everyone in the world to make sure that it is to our advantage and that we are not at a disadvantage in cross-border trade and investment, which is a fact of life. She might not like co-operating with those nasty Europeans, but unfortunately, she will find that, come 31 December, we will have to.

[Jane Hunt]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way again. This is a device for getting from A to B, and nothing else. I do not agree with his comment about “nasty Europeans” either—most decidedly. I am one of those Back Benchers that he is talking about, but I do not agree with that phrase.

[Mr Jones]

It gets from A to B; I do not disagree with the hon. Lady on that, but where is C? Where is the ultimate destination? That is the point, which the Minister has not answered. If we do not have that Bill before us before we end the transition period, we will be at a disadvantage.

This process of withdrawal will not be easy, because there will be huge complications in terms of numerous things that will come up in a number of years, which will hit us in the face. In terms of the security of our country, the idea that we can get investment from individuals—some parts of the Conservative party might welcome that, but my party will not—who we should not [Interruption.]. The hon. Member for Bolsover laughs, but, I am sorry, he should just look at some of the donations taken by his own party from individuals whom I would not want to be associated with, but that is another matter.

If the Minister can assure us that the Bill will be in before Christmas, that will be fine. It makes practical sense to agree this today, but it is important that we have that Bill before we end the transition period.

[Mr Harper]

I have one question and one point. I am conscious of your injunction, Mrs Miller, to stick to the subject. This is directly related to points that are made in the explanatory statement.

I disagree with the hon. Gentleman about the future framework—

[Mr Jones]

Right hon.

[Mr Harper]

The right hon. Gentleman. I disagree with him on the compulsory nature of the information sharing. I am perfectly happy with a co-operative framework. The point I was driving at—I think this is the substance of the regulations—is that in order for the CMA to share information, it has to have the power to share the information. If it shared the information, even if it wants to, that would be unlawful; it does not have the power to do that sharing.

My point, which I think is different from that of the right hon. Gentleman, is that I am perfectly relaxed that we are not able to compel European Union member states, post the transition period, to share information with us, because I am content that they should not be able to compel us to share information with them. I do, however, want to see a structure where we co-operate with them, so that where we choose to share information with them, we are empowered to do so. The regulations specifically address allowing us to share information.

My question to the Minister is about what is intended to come afterwards. Do we intend to replicate the ability for us to share information where we choose to do so? That is a different point from that made by the right hon. Gentleman, which, I think, is about some element of compulsion.

My second point is that the explanatory notes explicitly say that the intention is to revoke not just the instrument we are debating today but the retained version of the foreign direct investment regulations in their entirety at the end of the transition period. Paragraph 7.1 of the explanatory memorandum states that the FDI regulations do not

“affect the UK’s ability to screen investments into the UK”

because we will retain our own responsibility for national security. Once we have removed those FDI regulations, do we currently have domestic powers to do that screening, or is that what the new Bill is for?

That is an important question, because if we currently have powers and the new piece of legislation the Minister refers to is about strengthening or extending them, I am fairly relaxed about whether there is a gap before the Bill comes into force, because if we already have substantial powers and we are talking about beefing them up, I can live with there being a gap. If we revoke the FDI regulations on 31 December, however—and with them, our current ability to do screening for our own national security—the right hon. Member for North Durham is right to say that we would need the new legislation to come into force immediately upon their revocation or there would be a gap, not just in the sharing of information, but in our own national security. That is a point on which I differ from the right hon. Gentleman, but also one very specific question that pertains to points in the explanatory note.

[Paul Scully]

I thank the Committee for its consideration and for the points that have been raised during the debate, which I will try to address. The hon. Member for Manchester Central talked about the CMA and small businesses. Clearly, it is important that we give due consideration to the pressures on small businesses, especially at this particular time. The CMA understands that this is a challenging time for small businesses and encourages them to approach it as soon as possible if they foresee difficulties in meeting the deadline, so that the information request or stipulated response dates can be varied where appropriate. It is important that the CMA works with small businesses in that regard.

The right hon. Member for North Durham raised a few points. On the question of co-operation with the EU, as I have stated, the EU and the UK have said that they both want to co-operate where appropriate. On information sharing, we must not forget that the EU does not equal the rest of the world. It is an important partner for trade, for security and for any number of issues on which we must continue to co-operate, but as we do so, we need to retain our sovereignty at the end of the transition phase, having left the EU in January. The Opposition effectively did not want to bring Parliament back as a result of covid; we wanted to come back so that we could progress the legislation at pace, and we have done a lot since then. The right hon. Gentleman asked whether the legislation places us at a disadvantage. The Enterprise Act already has information-gathering powers when there has been a public interest intervention notice, so we will have the power to share information, as we do now, after the implementation phase.

As I have said, the UK and the EU have stated their intention to support ambitious, close and lasting co-operation. My right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean asked whether Ministers will be able to share information about mergers after December. Yes; that is planned in the National Security and Investment Bill, so we will be able to share information about mergers after that point.

[Mr Jones]

What happens during the gap between these regulations falling and the Bill coming in?

[Paul Scully]

The right hon. Gentleman is talking about a future Bill. If he is happy to work with us, we can make sure that the Bill progresses at pace. We have been introducing a lot of new legislation at pace to respond to covid, and we can do the same with the Bill. We have all learned from the pandemic how to work more closely together when it is in the national interest, instead of playing politics with some of this stuff, and we have moved at pace. The right hon. Gentleman suggests that there will be a gap, but that is not necessarily within the scope of the debate or our intention.

[Mr Jones]

That is a bit rich. I do not control the legislative programme of the House or the Government. The Minister has only to look at the programme for the last few weeks: Opposition days, general debates and the debates on estimates that we have had for the last two days. The idea that there is not enough time—and blaming the Opposition for it—is frankly a bit rich. It is down to the Government to bring the legislation forward.

[The Chair]

Order. Can we keep interventions to the subject of the debate?

[Mr Jones]

He raised it!

[Paul Scully]

To be fair, I was responding. The UK’s investment screening process will continue to operate as it does now, with a few additional steps to ensure that we comply with the regulations. Our sovereign capabilities to intervene in a merger will not be affected. I commend the regulations to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft Enterprise Act 2002 (EU Foreign Direct Investment) (Modifications) Regulations 2020.

Horizon: Sub-Postmaster Convictions

Lord Beamish Excerpts

Wednesday 10th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

The Post Office has acknowledged mistakes in the settlement and the case that we have had. I am glad that both parties to the group litigation were able to reach a settlement. Other sub-postmasters who suffered a shortfall will be able to take advantage of the historical shortfall scheme that the Post Office has launched. They will be able to come forward and have their case investigated, and hopefully those wrongs will be righted.

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

I, the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) and Lord Arbuthnot have been campaigning on this for over seven years. People have been imprisoned; they have been ruined, both financially and mentally. As I have said on the record previously, they have been treated in a way a totalitarian state would treat people. The fact is that only a judge-led inquiry will get to the bottom of what is needed. Over the past seven years, I have cross-examined many of the Minister’s predecessors; today, I urge him to insist on that, because without it we will not get to the truth.

The Post Office is not the only one to blame; the Government are to blame as well, because Government Ministers have shareholder representation on the Post Office board and they have sat back and done absolutely nothing. Last year, they allowed the Post Office to spend nearly £100 million of public money on trying to bankrupt the Justice For Subpostmasters Alliance. That disgrace also needs to be exposed.

[Paul Scully]

I acknowledge the right hon. Gentleman’s long campaign on behalf of the Horizon postmasters, which is to be welcomed. I have been shocked and surprised by the revelations I saw when I took over and continue to see. The terms of reference of the review are the same as those for a public inquiry. It is to work out: who is to blame, can it happen again, how can we prevent it from happening again, what wrongs were done, and how can we right them? The chairman will be independent of both the Post Office and Government.

On the Government’s role as a shareholder, clearly the Post Office has operational independence, but numerous attempts have been made over the years to resolve the dispute, including an independent investigation in 2013 and a mediation scheme in 2015, which was supported by Post Office Ltd and Ministers. All those attempts failed to resolve the issues, leaving the court as the only way to provide the independent review that all sides needed.

Financial and Social Emergency Support Package

Lord Beamish Excerpts

Wednesday 25th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell]

It demonstrates that naming and shaming works, and at some time in the future I might drink to that.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Not in Wetherspoons.

[John McDonnell]

Not necessarily.

Lay-offs are happening at scale, as I said, and hon. Members have mentioned the statistics. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has said that nearly 500,000 people have now applied for universal credit. I welcome, as always, the work that my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) and his Work and Pensions Committee have done in demonstrating the nature of the reforms that are needed to universal credit. We need those reforms rapidly now to be able to assist people and keep them out of poverty.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Clarke]

To put it simply, none of those individuals ought to be going to work at this time; the Government would stand with anyone who refused to go to work because they need to be shielded, and we will stand up for them if any employer is so foolish as to try to press that point.

Those who are being shielded will benefit from a website and a telephone helpline, both of which are now fully operational. We are working with all partners—councils, the food industry, local resilience and emergency partners and voluntary groups—to ensure that essential items can be delivered as soon as possible to those who need them. Deliveries of food will start this week, medicines will be delivered by community pharmacies, and groceries and essential household items will be delivered by local councils and food distributors working with supermarkets to ensure that no one needs to worry about getting the food they need. Parcels will be left on the doorstep.

The Government, the food industry, community pharmacies, councils and emergency services are working around the clock to get this scheme off the ground. I pay tribute to the civil servants who have been working tirelessly throughout this period. I am enormously impressed by the dedication and resolve that they have shown. I can also confirm that, from today, we have deployed military planners to every area of the country to help to co-ordinate this work. We pay tribute also to our armed forces and the role that they will play in this effort.

As Members have highlighted, it is not only the incredibly hard-working medical professionals on the frontline against coronavirus who are under immense pressure. We in my Department know that local authorities, which are essential to the running of this country, are feeling the pressure too. We have already announced £3.4 billion to alleviate that pressure, comprising £1.6 billion of covid-19 pressures funding and the initial £1.8 billion grant for business rates relief measures. We know that immediate pressures require immediate cash, so we can now confirm that the funding will be with every local authority, in its bank account, by Friday. We have said that we will do everything we can to support the sector, and this is us doing it.

When it comes to grants for businesses, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has now issued guidance to all local authorities, and we will provide the full £13 billion of funding for the business grant support scheme at the beginning of April. We must acknowledge that the crisis will not just burden our social care system and affect our most vulnerable; it will also affect our local economies, so local authorities should be confident about contacting businesses in their patch and making arrangements for the grants to be paid as quickly as possible. Time really is a vital factor here.

Further to the targeted funding, we have set out detailed guidance for local authorities on the 100% business rates discount for the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors, which was published by my Department this week. Today, we have announced a further expansion to the discount to remove some of the previous exclusions from the relief, to ensure that businesses that are now required to close—including estate agents, letting agents and bingo halls—will pay no business rates this coming year. My Department will amend guidance as necessary this week. We will, of course, fully compensate local authorities for the costs of this measure.

More broadly, I acknowledge that asking businesses to close their doors is a huge ask—those businesses have often been built up over many years of hard work and sacrifice—but it is only through such measures that we will ensure public safety. By the action that the Government are taking, we will mitigate the effects of the crisis so that once it is over, businesses can bounce back and renew our economy.

The Government’s measures not only are targeted at our businesses and public sectors but will support citizens at an individual level, too. We are working to support those who, through no fault of their own, are facing a sudden drop in income. The Chancellor has announced unprecedented measures to support people by making funding available to cover up to 80% of wages. In response to a point raised by the shadow Chancellor in his speech, I can confirm that apprentices will qualify for that if they are on PAYE. I will write to him on that point, but it is certain that they are included.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I accept what the Minister is saying, but during my contribution I referred to the email that I received from Scott Hawthorne, who runs a recycling business. He wants to do the right thing by his workers but he is still waiting and does not quite understand how to implement the scheme. I urge the Minister to get the information out to businesses as a matter of urgency, because those that want to do the right thing need to be able to implement it.

[Mr Clarke]

I take that point to heart. If the right hon. Gentleman sends me the details, I will write to him after this debate and ensure that that company is contacted personally so that we can provide the guidance needed for his constituents.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I will be quite honest. This is a time when people in the United Kingdom expect the parties to come together to work on behalf of this country, and I do not disagree. This is about ensuring that there is dialogue across the political parties to ensure that we do the right thing by the people in this country.

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

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I echo the sentiments you just outlined—this is a time for coming together and putting political differences aside—but we have been played here. This issue was highlighted by hon. Members last week and into this week. The Government have had time to look at it. I accept that there are complexities in the process, but to have it announced that the statement is going to be made tomorrow in a press conference is totally unacceptable. May I ask your advice? If we were to vote down the motion on the Adjournment for the Easter recess, would that make it possible for us to sit tomorrow to accept this statement?

[Mr Speaker]

It would take us through probably to next Tuesday.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. The Leader of the House is an honourable man. There is a sense of anguish out there among our constituents who are self-employed. He will have had the same emails and phone calls as I have had. The way this is being handled is terrible. Reassurance is being given and I accept that it is not easy to bring these schemes into being, but as my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (John Spellar) has suggested, the announcement could be made tonight instead of tomorrow. A Treasury Minister—the Economic Secretary—is present, or somebody else could be made available in the next few minutes. If the Leader of the House knew that the announcement was going to be made tomorrow, it would have been in order for him to amend the business motion so that we could sit tomorrow to look at it. He is supposed to be our voice in Government, and I suggest that he should have done that. It would have been a good way forward. The alternative is that we vote against the Adjournment tonight.

[Mr Speaker]

I will come back to the Leader of the House. I think it is quite clear that those channels should be opened by the leaders of the parties. Some good offers have been made and I hope that the Leader of the House can respond.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

The only thing I would say in their defence is that I do not think there was much detail in Peston’s tweet. I call Kevan Jones.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition has made a very good suggestion. Could the Leader of the House indicate whether he would be able to take that forward? I think it would be a helpful way of moving this on.

[Mr Speaker]

I think the Leader of the House has a note that he might be able to share.

Horizon Settlement: Future Governance of Post Office Ltd

Lord Beamish Excerpts

Thursday 19th March 2020 Commons Chamber

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

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Horizon settlement and future governance of Post Office Ltd.

Innocent people jailed; individuals having their good name and livelihoods taken away from them; the full use of the state and its finances to persecute individuals. Those are all characteristics of a totalitarian or police state. But that is exactly what we have seen in the 21st century in the way the Government and the Post Office have dealt with sub-postmasters and their use of the Horizon system. The Horizon system was the biggest non-military IT project in Europe. It cost over £1 billion to install and affected 18,000 post offices throughout the UK.

Before I go on, I would like to pay tribute to some individuals who I have been working long and hard with on this campaign. The first is the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen), who cannot be here today because, unfortunately, a family member is ill and he has had to self-isolate. He has been with me from the start in trying to get justice for sub-postmasters, and I will refer to some of his work later. He would like to have been here and sends his apologies; that he is not here does not mean that he is not interested in the outcome. I also thank James Arbuthnot, the former Member for North East Hampshire, who, despite being moved to God’s waiting room further along the corridor, has still consistently pressed the case for justice for sub-postmasters. I pay tribute to the work that he has done in the past and is doing now.

I want to mention two other individuals. Alan Bates is the lead claimant in the class action. Alan has been a stalwart and stuck by his principles—knowing, as he said, that “I am right and I am going to make sure we get the truth out.” The other person is someone who has very helpfully shone a spotlight on the issue, and has spent many hours sitting through long court cases: Nick Wallis is a journalist who has kept this story in the public domain. Alan and Nick both deserve credit for their continued actions now and their work in the past.

I first came to be involved in the issue when a constituent came to see me in my surgery. That constituent was Tom Brown. Tom, like many other thousands of sub-postmasters, was a hard-working and well-respected individual. He had won awards from the Post Office for fighting off an armed robber in his post office, but because of the introduction of the Horizon system, he was accused of stealing £84,000 from the Post Office. Even though he said and demonstrated that that was not the case, the Post Office took him to court, and he went through the agony of being publicly shamed in his local community—we must remember that a lot of these individuals are the stalwarts of their local communities.

Tom went to Newcastle Crown court, and on the day of the trial the Post Office withdrew the case, but the damage had already been done. His good name had been ruined, and he had lost—because he had had to go bankrupt—in excess of nearly half a million pounds in the form of his business, the bungalow that he had bought for his retirement and some investment properties. He now lives with his son in social housing in South Stanley. The man who should have had a nice retirement, and who was well respected in his community, has been completely ruined and is destitute. Despite that—he came to see me last week—he is an individual who still has integrity, because he has always insisted that he is innocent of what he was accused of, and he has not been alone.  Despite that—he came to see me last week— he is an individual who still has integrity, because he has always insisted that he is innocent of what he was accused of, and he has not been alone. The estimate from the class action that has been taken is 555, and there are many others, some unfortunately who have died since the case was taken forward.

The scandal of this—what makes me so angry and why I have persistently hung on to the campaign—is that the Post Office knew all along that the Horizon system was flawed.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. Is not the other scandal in this that the courts time and again failed the victims? In the prosecutions that were taken forward by the Post Office, the courts found in favour of the Post Office, despite it being unable to properly evidence its case. It is absolutely wrong. We must stand up for David versus Goliath in our courts.

[Mr Jones]

I will come back to that, which is something that I think my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) will refer to in his contribution.

The board minutes from 1999 show that the Post Office knew there were bugs in the system and software problems. It denied all the way through that, for example, the amounts that sub-postmasters inputted could be changed. That was just not true. It could be remotely done, and the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire and his constituent Mr Rudkin, who visited the headquarters where the data was being stored, proved that. In classic style, when he raised that the Post Office denied that he had ever visited the data centre in the first place, until he proved that he had. It was just one cover-up after another. The denial culture in the Post Office was described by Judge Fraser, in what I thought was a very good his judgment, as

“the 21st century equivalent of maintaining that the earth is flat”,

because the evidence was there all the way through. There is no way that anyone who took an objective look at the system, in terms of the Post Office or Fujitsu, the contractor, could argue that it was perfect.

[Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)]

It has also come to light that the people who were fixing the system from behind the scenes, as the right hon. Gentleman mentioned, and who could go in and balance the tills as it were, were incentivised and paid to be speedy and quickly fix the issues, which made a lot of these cases even worse, so that balances that were already poor got even worse.

[Mr Jones]

It was even worse than that: for many years the Post Office denied that that could ever be done. It was only in 2011, after campaigning by me and others, that the Post Office had the forensic accountants Second Sight take a look, and it discovered exactly what the hon. Gentleman has just outlined. But what does the Post Office do? It set up a mediation service, but still denied that there was any problem, even though the evidence was there.

As for the operator, Fujitsu, it knew that there were glitches. Indeed, I have to say that it is as guilty of the cover-up as the Post Office. I cannot comment on the judgment—I think the judge has possibly referred the case to the Crown Prosecution Service to get its involvement, so I do not really want to go into the detail—but Fujitsu has a lot to answer for.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is outlining a litany of maladministration at the very least. Have any individuals at management level in either at Post Office Ltd or Fujitsu ever been held accountable for this?

[Mr Jones]

I shall come to that, which is a very good point. The complete opposite: most have been promoted or, in one case, appointed as a Government adviser when she left the Post Office.

That denial then led the postmasters to get the group action together, with 555 taking the Post Office to court. The Post Office was still denying that there was a problem when it went into court; indeed, its consistent approach has been to deny any type of liability.

Let me turn to the role of the Post Office and that of Government. The Post Office is an arm’s length body from Government, but the sole shareholder is the Government. They have a shareholder representative on the board. Despite that, millions of pounds of public money are spent every year. In fact, it is a nationalised company, whether we like it or not.

But we are unable, as parliamentarians, to scrutinise the Post Office. For example, in spite of what it knew, it is estimated that the Post Office spent between £100 million and £120 million defending the indefensible in court. That was basically designed to whittle down the case, so that the other side ran out of money. Trying to scrutinise the Post Office and get it to account for that is virtually impossible. When I have asked parliamentary questions, they are referred to the Post Office. I will come on to the role of Ministers, but I am sorry that the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Sir Edward Davey) is no longer in his place, because I would have liked him to answer for his role—or lack of role—when he was the Minister.

The Post Office falls somewhere between a private company and a public company, but then there are the individuals involved, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (John Spellar) said. Paula Vennells was the chief executive of the Post Office. She left last year. Obviously, as a board member she knew what was going on, including the strategy in the court case and the bugs in the system. What happened? She got a CBE in the new year’s honours list for services to the Post Office. That is just rubbing salt into the wounds of these innocent people. There is a case for her having that honour removed, and I would like to know how she got it in the first place when the court case is ongoing. Added to that, she is now chair of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. Again, I would like to know why and what due diligence was done on her as an individual.

[Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)]

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his excellent speech and his stoical determination in trying to get to the bottom of this. Is he also aware that the head of Fujitsu UK is now working in the Cabinet Office?

[Mr Jones]

I do not know whether the hon. Lady has read my speech, but I am just coming on to the Cabinet Office, because lo and behold, guess where Paula Vennells also ended up? She was a non-executive member of the Cabinet Office. I am told that she was removed from that post yesterday; I do not know whether it was because of this debate. I welcome that, but why is someone who has overseen this absolute scandal still allowed to hold public positions? Worse than that, she is a priest. I respect those who have religious faith, and she does, but the way that she has treated these people cannot be described as very Christian—she certainly would not pass the good Samaritan test, given the way she has ignored their pleas. I hope she thinks about people like Tom, who have lost their livelihoods and are now living in social housing because of her actions. It angers me that these individuals have gone scot-free, and they need to be answerable for their actions.

[John Spellar]

Maybe she fulfils the role of the Pharisee in that parable. Does this not also speak to a deeper problem in our society, where relentlessly, time after time, the great and the good look after each other and hand out these positions to each other, irrespective of whether they have been successful or a massive failure? We see that particularly in the health service, where people move from job to job, taking payments each time they go and leaving catastrophic failures. Is this not a deeper failure in the system?

[Mr Jones]

It is, but how could somebody be given a CBE when this scandal was out there? How could somebody be appointed to the non-executive board of the Cabinet Office and a healthcare trust, given what is coming out of this court case? I find that remarkable.

Then there is the role of Government. When the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton was the Minister, he said that the Post Office

“continues to express full confidence in the integrity and robustness of the Horizon system and also categorically states that there is no remote access to the system or to individual branch terminals which would allow accounting records to be manipulated in any way.”

That is despite a board minute of 2009 which said that remote access was possible. What his role in it was I do not know, but he clearly did not ask many searching questions of the Post Office.

I turn to how we scrutinise the Post Office. I have tabled numerous written parliamentary questions, but because the Post Office is an arm’s length body, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy shift them over to the Post Office—it is at arm’s length, and therefore it is nothing to do with the Department. There is a question here about how we can scrutinise the Post Office. This week, I asked a question about what the complex case review team in the Post Office is. My able assistant rang BEIS and asked, “What is it?” BEIS did not even know about it. The parliamentary question has now been given to the Ministry of Justice, but it does not know what that team is. I know that last week two cases were settled out of court, each for £300,000. This is public money we are talking about here, and we need full scrutiny. I would love to see whether the Minister can shed some light on what this organisation actually is.

Then we come to the role of Ministers. I have already mentioned the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton, but Jo Swinson, Claire Perry and the Minister’s immediate predecessor the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Kelly Tolhurst) were all involved. They all completely believed what they were being told by the Post Office, never asked any questions about how public money was being spent and allowed the Post Office to continue what it has been doing. The Government cannot say that they never knew about this, because when the new Government came to power in 2010, myself, James Arbuthnot and the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire went to see Oliver Letwin, then a Cabinet Office Minister, to put our case to him. He had sympathy for it, because he had a similar case in his constituency. What happened to that? Nothing happened at all. Clearly there is an issue that the Government cannot hide from it.

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is making an excellent case. I want to raise with him this issue about MPs not being able to find out what happened. In the Hillsborough inquiry, the Bishop of Liverpool talked about

“The patronising disposition of unaccountable power”.

This is a classic case of exactly that.

I also want to put on the record how grateful my constituent Janet Skinner is that MPs such as my right hon. Friend and others have pursued this matter for many years to try to get justice for the people involved.

[Mr Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend for that. She uses a great description.

We then come on to the issue of compensation.

[Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the issue of Ministers. Of course the Post Office has a non-executive director appointed by the Government. One must assume that that non-executive director is reporting to Ministers. Would that not be an interesting topic for the inquiry?

[Mr Jones]

Yes, and I was going come on to that, because I would love to know who those non-executive directors have been over the years and what they said to Ministers. If I had been the Minister, I would have had that person in and scrutinised what was going on, as I am sure the right hon. Gentleman would. That would certainly have applied in the past few months, given the hundreds of millions of pounds that have been spent defending the indefensible.

In December, the Post Office agreed a settlement worth £57 million. Unfortunately, most of that has been swallowed up in the fees and the after-the-event insurance that the litigants had to afford. I do not criticise the lawyers—the people who funded this—because without them we would not have got justice, but that leaves about £15,000 for each of the successful people in the class action. We must recall that my constituent has lost more than half a million pounds, and the Post Office is settling cases outside this settlement for £300,000. What has to happen now is that a scheme has to be set up to compensate individuals properly. We must remember that £15 million of those costs were legal costs for pursuing the case, and £4 million of that is VAT, which will go straight back to the Government. Over the time that Paula Vennells was at the Post Office, she earned nearly £5 million, which just shows how the individuals who have been affected are not having happy retirements and peace of mind, but have been put through this system. The issue is clear to me: the figures that are being paid out now privately need a scheme.

I wish to make a couple of further points before I finish. The first is that the National Federation of SubPostmasters needs winding up now. It is not independent, nobody joins it—sub-postmasters are auto-enrolled. It is basically an arm of the Post Office and is paid for by the Post Office. Surely if it is going to be an independent voice for sub-postmasters, it should be that.

If anyone saw the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee hearing last week, they will have seen the chief executive, who could not answer on how many of his members had been affected by Horizon or what his organisation had done about it. I will tell the House exactly what it did: nothing. In Tom Brown’s case it just said that the Post Office must be right. The organisation is a sham and it needs to be wound up now. We need an independent organisation to represent sub-postmasters—including through the recognition of the Communication Workers Union, which some people are members of—that can actually be an independent voice for sub-postmasters.

The other thing that I, the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire and James Arbuthnot did was to take some cases to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, because there are people who have been found guilty and in some cases jailed unfairly. I pay tribute to that body, which took the issue seriously and took on a number of cases. It has stayed those cases—quite rightly, in my opinion—until the outcome of the civil litigation. It is important that those cases are now moved on and considered, because there are miscarriages of justice in some of those cases that need to be put right very quickly.

The right of the Post Office to take forward its own prosecutions needs to be removed. This issue goes back many centuries in the Post Office’s history. When Tom Brown asked whether he could get the police or the Crown Prosecution Service involved in looking at the evidence against him, he was told no. Likewise, it was the same for everyone else. Removing that right is something that the Government could do straight away, because there is no adequate oversight of how cases are being prosecuted. In Judge Fraser’s summing up, he described the contract and the way in which the Post Office acted as

“capricious or arbitrary ways which would not be unfamiliar to a mid-Victorian factory-owner”,

and said that the Post Office appears to

“conduct itself as though it is answerable only to itself.”

That is the case: it was answerable only to itself, with little or no insight in terms of oversight from Government.

Let me say what needs to be put right now. I have already mentioned that compensation needs to be put in place. We now need a full independent inquiry, and in a response in Prime Minister’s questions on 26 February, the Prime Minister indicated that that might be the case, calling the issue a “scandal”. In response to Lord Arbuthnot in the other place on 5 March, Lord Callanan said that the issue would be under consideration. We need as a matter of urgency an inquiry to cover not just what has gone on but how we can improve the situation for the future, and it has to be independent of Government. The Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee is looking into the matter, and I give credit to it for doing that, but we need some recommendations about what went on in the past. I am sorry, but as my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley said, we need to expose who did what. I have to say, if in some cases what I would argue was criminal activity took place, people have to be prosecuted. Given their involvement, they certainly need to be removed from any public bodies on which they currently serve.

The Minister’s predecessors have not been good at looking into this issue. They have not asked the right questions—they have not asked questions of their officials or the Post Office. The Minister now has a chance to put this right. I know that he spoke to Alan Bates yesterday, and I know that he is hiding behind the court case in terms of compensation—his officials are saying that they cannot get any more. I have to say: please do not do that. It is now time for bold action. If we do not take action, this injustice will continue.

Let me finish with this: my constituent Tom Brown should be enjoying a happy, well-funded retirement, but he is not. He is still a proud man, as I said—he is a man who has not lost his dignity—but he is living in social housing with his son, and that is not his fault; it is down to people such as Paula Vennells and the board at the Post Office, and the failure and cover-ups that have been perpetrated by individuals. The Government, who should have stood up for him, have turned a blind eye.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

Scandals come and scandals go, and both as a former barrister and as a new Member of this House, it is all too easy when we see a raft of paperwork coming across our desks to scan through the details and forget that each of these scandals is made up of individual cases—individual human stories—so I beg the indulgence of the House and ask to reprise the story of Siobhan Sayer, a constituent of mine who 14 years ago was a sub-postmistress and had trouble balancing accounts. She did not hide this issue; she highlighted it and asked for help—indeed, she asked for help from the Post Office. Eventually, that help came, in the form of three auditors. They did not assist her in balancing the books. Instead, they suspended her, they accused her of theft, they searched her house, asking her where she had hidden the money, and then they interrogated her to such an extent that it stopped only when she physically collapsed. But it did not end there: they took the further step of prosecuting her, both for theft and for false accounting.

That young lady was pressurised to plead guilty to the lesser charge of false accounting in order to avoid a prison sentence for theft. As a former barrister, I can understand why, in the face of the seemingly impenetrable evidence of a robust system in the form of Horizon, that advice might have been given. Having pleaded guilty, she was sentenced to 10 months’ imprisonment, suspended for two years, and 200 hours of community service. That is terrible. That is a true scandal. But it is worse than that, because she was shamed in her community, she was ostracised by her friends, and her mental and emotional health was hit to such an extent that she was unable to leave her home for two years. That is the consequence of the actions and inactions of the Post Office and its servant, Fujitsu.

Why did that happen? Undoubtedly, it happened because the Post Office did not care to believe in the honesty of its own staff. It refused to believe that the system could be wrong, despite its own evidence mounting up to the contrary.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is remarkable that there is a minute showing that the Post Office board knew in 1999 that the system had its faults?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I thank all hon. and right hon. Members who took part in the debate. Could I say one thing to the Minister? He should not just parrot what his civil servants say to him. The court case did not result in a comprehensive settlement. He has admitted that the Criminal Cases Review Commission is settling cases that did not come before the court. His Department did not even know what that was when we rang it this week. Two such cases were settled in the last month for £300,000 each. If we are to get justice, we have to look at giving the same amount of compensation to those who took the court case forward.

The Minister has an opportunity here. I have been a Minister, and it is a great privilege, but it is not about sitting on that Front Bench or carrying the red box; it is about making a difference. The Minister has an opportunity to make a real difference and put right a wrong. He cannot carry on as his predecessors have done and ignore the truth. I challenge him: be brave, Minister. Please, put this right; it is in your hands. No matter what obstruction he has from his officials, he should challenge them.

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 9(3)).