Economic Update

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Hunt]

We have an absolute responsibility as a Government to do everything we can to hold increases in mortgage rates down as much as is possible, insofar as the Government have an influence on them through their actions. That is why I have taken, I think, very strong and quick steps to demonstrate the Government’s commitment to fiscal balance, but we are in a world in which, unfortunately, interest rates are going up everywhere and everyone is having to deal with increases in mortgage rates. We are thinking about the challenge for people who have those mortgages, but I want to make sure that that does not happen as a result of actions by this Government.

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

I welcome all the measures in the Chancellor’s statement. It is absolutely right that we look for better value for the taxpayer through spending restraints, but will he confirm that any cuts to spending will not impact on capital expenditure—infrastructure expenditure, particularly across the north—and that we will fully deliver on projects that we have already committed to, such as Northern Powerhouse Rail?

[Jeremy Hunt]

As my hon. Friend will know—sorry; my voice is a bit croaky at the moment, because I have probably been talking too much over the last few days—there are very important projects that we all care about a great deal, but given the severity of the situation at the moment, we are not taking anything off the table, whether that means tax increases or spending reductions. But I do not believe that it is possible to have a long-term, credible economic growth strategy that does not recognise the vital importance of capital spending.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Tuesday 11th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

My right hon. Friend the Chancellor says that that is something we are examining carefully. The hon. Gentleman’s characterisation of the growth plan is extremely unfair. The real risk is in not having a growth plan. The real risk is in having taxes that are too high. The real risk is not investing in infrastructure. It is clear that this Government have a growth plan and the Opposition have no plan.

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

Of course it is always right to look for efficiencies and try to get better value for money for the taxpayer. As we look for spending cuts, could my right hon. Friend confirm that they will not come at the expense of reductions in vital infrastructure spending in our regions, not least in the north of England?

[Chris Philp]

I am pleased to say, as my right hon. Friend the Chancellor said when he introduced the growth plan, that expediting critical infrastructure was an important part of that plan. Without critical infrastructure, we are not going to see the growth in jobs or wages and the prosperity that we all want. The Government will do everything that they can to speed up the delivery of those projects.

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[Mr Speaker]

I call Mr Hollinrake for the final question.

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

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The UK has rightly frozen around £30 billion of Russian foreign currency reserves. A number of countries are moving from freezing those assets to seizing them to pay reparations to Ukraine. Will my right hon. Friend look at similar measures from the UK?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

Those measures have been discussed in the past; I think my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) talked about that earlier in the year. Those schemes are always being looked at in the light of what is an increasingly bleak and volatile situation in Russia and Ukraine.

The Growth Plan

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Friday 23rd September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

What the hon. Lady did not mention in her question was the fact that a growing economy creates growing tax revenues, which pay for public services. Her high-tax, high-spend approach leads to a cycle of stagnation. We want to break free of that.

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

Growth and cutting taxes are true Conservative principles, and so is balancing the books. By my calculations, based on the Chancellor’s announcements, the deficit this year will be in the region of £250 billion and then probably £150 billion. That is certainly the evidence we got at the Treasury Committee yesterday; if that is not the case, I would be interested in his forecast. Of course, following this announcement there will be a higher deficit either way, so can he confirm that, as he seeks to balance the books in the future, he will not do so by cutting infrastructure investment in the north, whatever the outcome may be in terms of his likely growth path from here?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

My hon. Friend will know that, through growth, we will get more tax receipts, which will actually reduce the net debt to GDP ratio over the medium term. That is 100% what we are focused on. He is right that in the past we have tended to reduce expenditure on capital projects. We must not do that in the future if we are to pursue our levelling-up goals.

Financial Services and Markets Bill

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 7th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to speak in this important debate about these very significant issues of structural reform in our financial services, the accountability of our regulatory bodies and consumer protection. I am pleased that we have started to have some debate on the net zero policy and regulatory principle, and I want to endorse all the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) in her important opening speech on green finance. Unfortunately, the Bill does fall short of what I believe is needed to protect consumers, and I want to speak about three key areas: first, access to cash; secondly, and briefly, mutuals and co-operatives; and thirdly, action for mortgage prisoners.

First, access to cash is an issue on which I have spoken before and led debates in Westminster Hall. It is right—finally, we can all be very pleased—that the Bill aims to protect people’s access to cash and will introduce a legislative framework to ensure the continued provision of cash withdrawal and deposit facilities. I want to recognise the work that has been done by Access to Cash Action Group members, which have worked very hard on this issue, including Age UK, Toynbee Hall and banks such as HSBC, NatWest and Nationwide. It is a really important network, and it is right that they are taking steps voluntarily, but it is also important that there is an underpinning of legislation to back those steps. Indeed, the failure to act fast enough has cut millions of people off from a range of important vital services.

Last year I presented a petition to Parliament on behalf of constituents in Hounslow West in the light of the closure of the local Santander Bath Road branch. Since then, we have lost two more branches of Barclays in Feltham and Heston, leaving even more of my constituents without access to in-person banking services. I pay tribute to some of our local councillors—Councillors Bandna Chopra, Jagdish Sharma and Hina Mir—for raising this issue in their local wards, but the standard response we received from the banks was just not good enough. Around 6,000 bank branches have closed since 2015, yet the Bill does not seem to do anything to protect essential face-to-face banking services. It also makes no commitment to free access to cash—I was surprised that the Minister did not take the opportunity to confirm his commitment to that. It is important that the definition of the minimum distance between cashpoints is brought forward earlier, and I do not understand why the Minister cannot clarify the Government’s position on that. Surely he must have a point of view.

I am a Labour and Co-operative party MP, and it is staggering that the number of mutual credit unions has plummeted by more than 20% since 2016. If we have learned anything from the pandemic, it is the importance of community and community solutions in our local and public services. Although the Bill contains some welcome and long-overdue provisions, such as enabling credit unions to offer a wider range of products, the Government’s plans for the sector could be far more ambitious, and I wonder whether we could work cross-party on that issue. Labour has demonstrated an ambition to boost the size of the co-operative and mutual sector, and there is demand for that across the country.

I am a member of the Financial Inclusion Commission, and there is a slight frustration—or perhaps a bigger frustration when we consider the issues raised by Members across the House—that the Bill does not seem to prioritise financial inclusion as much as is needed, particularly given the cost of living crisis that we are now facing. In that context, I wish to raise the issue of mortgage prisoners. The Bill provided a vital opportunity for the Government to act to ensure that financial regulators are stronger in their ability to help mortgage prisoners. The UK’s 195,000 mortgage prisoners took out their mortgages prior to the financial crisis, with fully regulated high street banks such as Northern Rock. They were kept trapped on high standard variable rates, before their mortgages were sold by the Government to mortgage loan sharks such as Cerberus, Tulip and Heliodor. They cannot switch to different lenders.

As co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on mortgage prisoners, I have heard from key workers, many of whom risked their lives to work through the pandemic, about the personal consequences for them and their families of being trapped into paying high mortgage interest rates. Imagine how it must feel to be a nurse who took out a mortgage with a high street bank, only to find that their mortgage was sold on by the Government to a vulture fund that does not have to treat them fairly or offer them a good deal. Those mortgage prisoners are suffering financial devastation from interest rate rises to their already high standard variable rates, and that comes on top of the pressures of rising energy bills and the cost of living crisis.

One of my constituents is a mortgage prisoner whose mortgage was sold to Landmark Mortgages and is ultimately owned by Cerberus. They are stuck paying an SVR, and are not being offered any new deals. They have now seen a rise in the SVR from 4.39% to 5.89%, and they are therefore paying more than £9,000 more a year than they would if they were with an active lender. There is nothing they can do to gain any certainty over their mortgage payments. Many mortgage prisoners are terrified at the prospect of future interest rate rises. Prior to the financial crisis, the gap between the Northern Rock SVR and the base rate was 2.09%. Since 2009 it has been more than 4% above the base rate.

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

The hon. Lady is making interesting and key points about mortgage prisoners. At the time those loan books were sold, UK Asset Resolution made commitments to the Treasury Committee that those people would still be able to access market and fixed-rate deals, but that has not proven to be the case. It is very difficult for the Committee to get those kinds of assurances without having confidence that those assurances would be valid.

Economy Update

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Thursday 26th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

Seventy per cent. of those in work will pay less tax this year than they did last year because of the changes that we have made. As I have said, now is the time to act because we have more certainty over what the price cap in the autumn will be. We are two thirds of the way through the observation window. Ofgem has given us a sense, which means that we can scale the support appropriately.

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

I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. The shadow Chancellor made a very fair point: how are we going to fund this £15 billion? Is it not also fair to ask, on the basis that the windfall tax would raise about £3 billion by Labour’s calculations: how will Labour fund all the spending plans that it has announced today and on previous occasions, and the tax reductions that it has announced today and on previous occasions?

[Rishi Sunak]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. On the last count, we have had, I think, £100 billion of spending commitments or tax reductions from the Labour party. Less than a tenth of that has been funded, despite the shadow Chancellor saying that she is committed to fiscal responsibility. It is the same old story with Labour. Ultimately, they always run out of other people’s money.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Tuesday 17th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[John Glen]

We watch these things very carefully. That is why, in January this year, we announced that certain cryptoassets will be brought within the scope of financial promotions regulation. I am very aware of the Financial Conduct Authority’s advice, which shows that only one in 10 cryptoholders are aware that they can lose all their money. We need to get that number up.

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

4. What steps his Department is taking to tackle economic crime.

[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (John Glen)]

Money obtained through corruption or criminality is not welcome in the UK. The Government are taking concerted action to combat that threat by investing £400 million over this spending review period, with the kleptocracy cell in the National Crime Agency targeting sanctions evasion and corrupt Russian assets hidden in the UK. The Government have taken far-reaching steps to improve corporate transparency, including through recent and forthcoming primary legislation announced in the Queen’s Speech last week.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I thank the Minister for that answer. NatWest and HSBC have been hit with big fines for facilitating money laundering, and Danske Bank will probably see a fine of £2 billion for £200 billion of money laundering. This is seen not as a deterrent, but as a cost of doing business for these big banks. Does he agree that the only way that we will tackle this is through criminal prosecutions both at a corporate level and of senior managers? Does he support the calls to that effect in the economic crime manifesto by the all-party groups on fair business banking and on anti-corruption and responsible tax, and will he support such measures in the economic crime Bill?

[John Glen]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. I think he is the House’s foremost observer of banks’ behaviour, but he also knows that this is an extremely complex area of law. The Government have asked the Law Commission to undertake an in-depth review of laws around corporate criminal liability for economic crime and to make recommendations. My understanding is that the Law Commission will make an announcement on this subject imminently, and we will look at that very carefully.

Financial Statement

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

We have already created the holiday activity and food programme, which provides both food and enriching activities for children outside term time. There is also the household support fund, and Barnett consequentials will enable the Scottish Government to provide the same support for vulnerable families in their communities.

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

I warmly welcome the Chancellor’s statement and, in particular, the rise in the national insurance threshold. It will not only help low earners, which is important, but bring a welcome simplicity to the system. I also welcome the reform of the apprenticeship levy, but will the Chancellor look at the amount that can be transferred through the annual levy transfer? It is currently capped for larger organisations, and that restricts the amount that they can give to smaller organisations. A reform would see much better use of the apprenticeship levy, which would help small and medium-sized enterprises, local authorities and others.

[Rishi Sunak]

I thank my hon. Friend for his support. He is right to point out that the significant increase in personal tax thresholds is particularly well targeted at those on lower and middle incomes, and I look forward to discussing with him, over the coming months, potential reforms in the way in which we tax training and apprenticeships.

Economic Update

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

In contrast, this Government have announced measures to share the burden with consumers and help manage the global price rise. Despite the faux outrage from the Opposition Benches, I am sure that even they would admit privately that the support just announced is both generous and comprehensive.

Let me take some of the hon. Lady’s points in turn. First, on VAT, may I say how very welcome it is that the Opposition are recognising the benefits of Brexit? I hope they will join me in celebrating the fact that we have been able to change mass migration to this country after decades, that we can create new freeports in places such as Teesside, that we can sign new free trade deals, and that we can deregulate our economy to drive faster growth. She talked about VAT. VAT will, on average, be worth £90 to every household. We are providing £150 to those households that really need it and delivering that support quicker.

Secondly, the hon. Lady tried to claim that it was the Government’s responsibility to manage global gas prices. I outlined in my statement that it is very clear, as any person looking at this sensibly will acknowledge, that global factors are causing the increase in gas prices. No British Government or Chancellor can change what is happening in Asia or, indeed, stop a nuclear power plant going offline in Germany, and the hon. Lady should acknowledge that. Even in places such as Norway, electricity bills are rising because global factors are in play. She would do well to acknowledge that—and the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), sitting next to her, will know that, having spent a lot of time on this.

Thirdly, I want to address the point about our support for the most vulnerable, because I am proud of this Government’s record in supporting those who need our help. The policies we have announced today are progressive in their nature. A flat rate will, of course, mean far more to those on lower incomes or with lower energy bills. It is worth five times as much as a percentage of income for those in the lowest incomes as for those on the highest incomes. The hon. Lady talked about insulation. Over this Parliament, we are spending £3 billion to improve energy efficiency and insulation for over half a million households in fuel poverty. That is the right thing to do and it will save those vulnerable families, on average, £300 a year, not just this year but every year going forward. We have already announced those plans.

Lastly, to address the hon. Lady’s point on a windfall tax, of course that sounds superficially appealing, but we on the Government Benches deal with complex problems in a responsible way. The obvious impact of a windfall tax would be to deter investment—it is as simple as that. At this moment I want to see more investment in the North sea, not less. Last year we saw the lowest amount of investment on record in the North sea, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy pointed out just the other day. There are £11 billion of projects lined up to go. I want to unlock that investment because that is good for this country, good for British jobs and good for our energy security.

We will pursue policies that are good for the interests of this country not just today but in the future. My right hon. Friend the Energy Secretary is working very hard to make sure we have an energy market that is fit for the future. We have made investments in nuclear, which, as he rightly pointed out, were ignored by the Labour party when it was in power, but which we are now fixing.

In conclusion, I am not blind to the challenges we face. I have to say to the hon. Lady and her colleagues, however, that we on this side of the House did not have the luxury of sitting on the sidelines and throwing stones. Faced with the gravest of crises, this Government chose to protect millions of jobs. We chose to support millions of businesses, we chose to invest in a world-leading vaccination programme, and we chose a balanced approach to covid so we could open up faster than anywhere else in Europe. We did those things at record speed and at a time of great uncertainty, and we will always strive to learn from mistakes. Nothing is ever perfect when responding to a crisis, but I say to the Labour party that there is a fine line between reasonable criticism and political opportunism, and in my experience the British people can always tell the difference.

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

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s announcement today. Does he agree that a cut in VAT to solve this crisis is a completely flawed policy, as evidenced by the three economists who spoke to the Treasury Committee this week, including Torsten Bell from the Resolution Foundation, who wanted something far more targeted, such as what my right hon. Friend has announced today? It is clear that one factor in this crisis is Russia’s willingness to weaponise its gas supplies. Will he confirm that if there is any incursion into Ukraine, this country, with our international allies, will look at weaponising our banking system, which would be economically catastrophic for Russia?

[Rishi Sunak]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. On VAT, I have nothing further to add. He is right; what we are doing is more targeted, faster and more generous to those who need our help. With regard to sanctions on Russia, I can assure him that absolutely nothing is off the table. We are working closely with our international partners, as the Foreign Secretary has outlined, to prepare a very robust package of sanctions.

Tackling Fraud and Preventing Government Waste

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Her council in Liverpool and all our councils have lost money, and this Government are handing it out to criminals. Billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money has been written off, but it was not the Chancellor’s money to write off; it is the public’s. The Government have clearly lost their grip. We must restore faith and confidence in how taxpayers’ money is spent.

We have a National Crime Agency in our country for a reason: to tackle serious and organised crime. It should be the National Crime Agency that the Government ring first on such occasions, but instead there are reports that they do not even want it to look into the matter. The Chancellor said earlier that just 13 cases are being looked at by the National Crime Agency. That is why Labour has brought our motion to the House today: to call on the Government not only to come back by 31 March with a clear answer about how much of their money has been clawed back from criminals, but to allow the National Crime Agency full access to investigate all aspects of fraud within covid support. The Government should not be resisting any effort whatever to retrieve taxpayers’ money and to hold people responsible. We need to know how it is so easy for organised criminals to steal from right under the Treasury’s nose.

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

As a point of correction, the hon. Lady says that the Chancellor said that only 13 cases were being looked into by the National Crime Agency, but what he said was that 13 people have been arrested. Many more cases have been looked into.

I think the hon. Lady is in danger of missing the point. Lord Agnew actually said that the Government did a very good job of rolling out the schemes; his problems were with the checks and balances afterwards on banks drawing on the guarantee. Two banks were responsible for 81% of claims on the guarantee. That is where our attention should be focused: what are the banks doing about getting the money back?

[Rachel Reeves]

Lord Agnew did not resign from the board of a bank; he resigned as a Government Minister because of

“schoolboy errors…indolence and ignorance.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 24 January 2022; Vol. 818, c. 20-21.]

How does the hon. Gentleman explain to constituents in Thirsk and Malton that they will be £1,175 worse off in April because of the energy price hike and the tax increases from this Government, who all the while are giving money away to criminals? That is why Labour has brought our motion to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Ellis]

As it happens, we have given, as a Government, over £60 million to Companies House to continue its necessary reforms and we have undertaken myriad measures to prevent the problems that the hon. Lady refers to.

The first lockdown came into force on 23 March 2020. By 24 May, just a couple of months later, we had already paid out almost £28 billion in loans, rising to £80 billion by the time that the schemes closed on 31 March 2021—astronomical support.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Much has been made of Lord Agnew’s resignation and we should take his resignation points very seriously. We should also acknowledge that he described the bounce back loan scheme, in his resignation piece to the Financial Times, as an “important and successful intervention”. Is not his real point that we need to make sure that checks and balances have been followed by all banks who were given the responsibility of distributing these loans?

[Michael Ellis]

I agree with my hon. Friend on that, and also on Lord Agnew, who is a noble man and was an excellent Minister. The sheer volume of schemes introduced and the speed with which they were designed and implemented meant it simply was not possible at the time to prevent every instance of fraud and error, and I accept that. However—

--- Later in debate ---

[Alison Thewliss]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct to draw attention to that. It is one of many deficiencies in the Home Office systems as well. It seems that those with money are given a free pass, whereas those who come here with more humble undertakings to begin their lives here, to work and to build a family, end up being penalised and having to pay an awful lot more in fees, and experiencing all the challenges that that brings.

Hon. Members may think that some of these issues with Companies House seem a bit remote from the real world and the real lives of our constituents, but that could not be further from the truth. During lockdown, a company in Glasgow using myriad company structures made claims under the furlough scheme, but employees of that company never received the money that they were entitled to. Even if the company directors ended up being prosecuted, or HMRC ended up getting its money back, those employees would still get nothing. That shows the complete unfairness in the system. I would be interested to know whether the Government have any figures, from when they have chased down these companies, on how many employees never saw the money that they should have got and that they needed to get by.

For those completely excluded from the covid support schemes, this is all the more galling. Limited company directors and pay-as-you-earn taxpayers were left out because they were deemed too much of a fraud risk, and new mothers who had taken time off to have a child in the preceding three years lost out because calculating their maternity leave was thought to be too complex. Yet as they were being told that by Ministers, the real fraudsters were raking it in, with drugs gangs getting payouts, and many of the people who benefited will never be caught.

These most recent examples of the Government’s relaxed attitude to the wasting of public funds are by no means the only cases. Best for Britain’s “scandalous spending tracker” sets out the following examples—I will list just some of them; otherwise, we could be here all afternoon, and I am sure that others want to speak—since the current inhabitant of No. 10 Downing Street came to office. It categorises them in three ways: as “crony contracts”, “duff deals” and “outrageous outgoings”.

Here are a few highlights: £11 million on blue passports; over half a million on chauffeuring Government documents, never mind Government Ministers; £56 million contracting to big consulting firms outside tendering processes; £29 million on the festival of Brexit; £900,000 painting a plane; £900,000 researching a bridge to Ireland, which I could have saved the Government money on, because I did a second-year geography project—at high school, not university—that could have told them it was a ropey idea; £32 million on unusable PPE suits; over £38 million on a test and trace contract that was not fulfilled; £10 billion on a failed test and trace system; over £300 million on expired PPE, and billions more on contracts for friends and family of Ministers and Conservative party donors through the fast-track lane.

All that totalled £25 billion, and all of it at a time when the screw was being tightened on those who have the least, with cuts to universal credit, some getting no money at all, and more effort spent chasing down those who happened to wrongly claim child benefit than those who deliberately defrauded the public purse to the tune of billions.

I find it difficult to understand why the Government are so careless with our money and why they do not want to act on fraud and money laundering. The question “who benefits?” continues to rattle around in my head. While those on the Government Benches do not like the inference that it was them and their chums, I wonder whether the fact that this coincides with the undermining of the Electoral Commission and the relaxing of the rules on overseas donors is any kind of accident. It is not just me; the Centre for American Progress flagged recently:

“Uprooting Kremlin-linked oligarchs will be a challenge given the close ties between Russian money and the United Kingdom’s ruling conservative party, the press, and its real estate and financial industry.”

This should worry us all, but it does not seem to worry those on the Government Benches.

Lord Agnew’s estimate of the total fraud loss across UK Government Departments is £29 billion per year. That could go, as he suggested, to tax cuts or, as we on the SNP Benches would argue for, to investment in public services and increases in social security. Either way, there is a cost to this fraud, and it remains absolutely baffling that this UK Government have continued to let it go on their watch.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Alison Thewliss]

I am just coming to a close, but I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will have a contribution to make later.

The solution is not difficult if the will is there. We have lost too much time and too many opportunities to bring forward measures in different Bills. If we are to have an economic crime plan, it must tackle all these issues; we must not miss another opportunity. If the Government will not act, they should devolve full powers in this area to the Scottish Parliament and let our colleagues in Edinburgh get on with the job. Scotland has no desire to be tarnished yet further by this grubby excuse for a Government.

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

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate; I welcome the Opposition motion on fraud. I am one of several people on the Government Benches who often speak out about tackling fraud, so I object a little to one or two of the comments from the Opposition that Conservative Members are not bothered about fraud. Nothing could be further from the truth, for a number of reasons, including the cost to our taxpayers. It undermines the very system that underpins our economy if people do not feel that the game is fair for all players, and fraud undermines the principle of everything I have stood for over my whole life in business—the fundamentals of a free-market economy are that it is a fair and level playing field.

I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew), my company took a coronavirus business interruption loan—quite a sizeable one—which was paid back in full without touching it, which I am sure the Economic Secretary will be pleased to hear: we discussed it at length at the time.

It is important to put the issue in context. I had an Urgent Question on the issue last week, following Lord Agnew’s statement, because I was very concerned by many of the things he said in it and in his subsequent press articles. He said that the bounce back loan scheme, which has been the subject of many comments in the debate today, was

“an important and successful intervention”.

It was critical at the time. It is easy with hindsight to say that mistakes were made—of course they were, given the speed with which the scheme was rolled out. The initial iterations of the loan schemes did not include a bounce back loan scheme, which was introduced at a later stage, vitally.

[Peter Grant]

I certainly would not disagree with the hon. Member about the remarkable speed from when the Treasury sat down to devise the scheme to when the first loans were delivered. Does he share my disappointment that in the 10 years from 2010, when we knew a pandemic was coming, no planning whatever was done for the economic impacts and the impact on businesses of the protective measures that the Government might be forced to implement when the pandemic finally got here?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

The hon. Member makes a very good point. The whole country would acknowledge that we need to be better prepared for a future pandemic. One of the lessons that we need to learn is to have a template ready for bounce back loans and other measures that we can roll out at pace, but we should not undermine the ability of that scheme to get money out to businesses in need.

The British Business Bank said that it had

“ensured that key counter-fraud measures consistent with the…design of the scheme were in place from the outset.”

It is not the case that the schemes were rolled out without any consideration for the potential for fraud. That highlights the issue of what checks and balances were in place—the Paymaster General set out some of them in his speech, which was useful—and which banks performed better in taking into account those measures. As Lord Agnew said, 81% of the amount that has not been repaid so far—as far as we understand from the Treasury—relates to two of the seven biggest banks. Clearly some banks did better than others with know your client checks and fraud checks.

We need to understand exactly what happened. We cannot just roll out a scheme, let it run and that is it. The implications for recovering loans are hugely important. We need the dashboard of information that Lord Agnew called for so that we can clearly understand the performance of the banks. One criticism that I would level at the Treasury is that far more transparency is needed about which banks are issuing loans, what percentage of applications are successful and the success in recovering loans. As somebody who took a loan for my business, I would advocate complete transparency about which businesses take loans. If all that were open—access to Government loan schemes or furlough, and so on—it would be far easier for the public, the media and parliamentarians to hold individual businesses to account. Businesses motivated by wrong and perhaps nefarious purposes would be far less likely to try to access the loans in the first place. Far greater transparency is needed, and to get that taxpayers’ money back there certainly needs to be transparency around the bank’s performance now.

Many people have called for an economic crime Bill, and some of us have been banging on about that for some time. It could really help. One of the elements is the failure to prevent economic crime. I think that corporate liability should extend to individuals, rather than at corporate level. The No. 1 thing we could do to deter financial organisations and corporations, even smaller corporations, from defrauding people or enabling fraud and money laundering is to say to the individuals behind those companies that they will be held personally responsible. It could have had an effect on the bounce back loan scheme if the banks that cared a little bit less about where the money went were held to account through the senior managers regime and the Financial Conduct Authority, and potentially by other charges too. Failure to prevent is absolutely fundamental to the economic crime Bill.

Companies House reform is also absolutely fundamental. It is clear that that should be the case and I know the Government are doing something on that already. One perverse situation at the moment is that if someone sets up a business through a company formation agent, they should be subject to money laundering checks by HMRC. If they set up a company directly with Companies House, however, there are no money laundering checks. It simply cannot be right that if someone goes to one and cannot get set up, they can go to Companies House. Companies House, therefore, needs to be a regulator, rather than just a register.

The register of overseas entities does not come under the taxpayer, of course, but through a simple levy attached to the cost of creating a company, currently £12. That could raise enough money for Companies House to be that regulator, so we could see who was trying to launder money through UK properties. That is absolutely critical. The Government are committed to all this stuff, but we just need them to commit to bringing it forward in the next parliamentary Session. It was great to hear what the Chancellor said on that today. He seemed to be really keen on that being in the next parliamentary Session. I hope recent events will push it up the political agenda.

One issue we neglect in the conversation about cutting economic crime is the role of whistleblowers. Most economic crime is not highlighted by our very good agencies. They are good sometimes and the legislation we are bringing forward will help them to take forward successful prosecutions, but they need the evidence in the first place. I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (Simon Fell), who made a fantastic speech and who has huge experience in this area, agrees that we need people to come forward with the evidence. Our regulators and fraud agencies can only really be watchdogs rather than bloodhounds and they need to be given access to the information in the first place.

Whistleblower protections in the UK are pretty woeful now compared with how they used to be. We used to be world leaders in this area. If we want to uncover economic crime, we have to make sure that the people who identify and highlight it, and help the Serious Fraud Office to make prosecutions stick, are protected. That is not the case at the moment. My constituent Ian Foxley highlighted the case of GPT special projects. Some £28 million-worth of economic sanctions against that company were handed down in Southwark court, but for 10 years my constituent has gone without a penny, having had a six-figure salary in his previous role. He blew the whistle. One could say that his whistleblowing led to the Airbus fine of £3 billion, of which £860 million came to the Treasury, but he has gone without a single penny and that cannot be right. We have to make sure people are protected when they come forward, and are properly compensated for the distress and financial impact it has on their lives.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

Anyone who has questions about my values can just look at my track record over the last year or two. I am proud of this Government’s achievements in supporting those who most needed our help at a time of anxiety for our country. I respectfully disagree wholeheartedly with the hon. Gentleman: I do believe that work is a route out of poverty. All the evidence shows that children who grow up in workless households are five times more likely to be in poverty than those who do not, which is why I am proud that there are almost a million fewer workless households today as a result of the actions of this Conservative Government.

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

The most effective sanctions that we could impose on Russia would be to block Russian banks’ access to UK and international markets. Will my right hon. Friend consider that and consider cushioning the inevitable blow to our banks, businesses and households from the financial impacts, including to the cost of living?

[Rishi Sunak]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. With regard to sanctions, absolutely nothing is off the table. We are working extremely closely with our international allies to make sure that we can send a robust signal to deter Russian aggression, and we continue to explore diplomatic solutions at the same time. He should rest assured that nothing is off the table.