Business of the House

Debate between Kevin Hollinrake and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Thursday 17th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

All of us are there in our constituency surgeries to be the advocate and champion of our constituents, and I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on doing so, because that is the ancient role of MPs: to seek redress of grievance. I appreciate that in difficult individual cases the generality of statistics is not the greatest comfort to the individual who is suffering, but the overall picture is one of considerable improvement: 400,000 fewer people are now in absolute poverty than were in 2010, and—this is crucial—730,000 fewer children are living in workless households. Work is the route out of poverty. The reduction in withdrawal rates from the switch to universal credit, bringing it down to 62p in the pound from the 90p-plus rate, has been fundamental in helping to reduce poverty, and the number of people in employment is at a record high. I absolutely accept that that is not much comfort to an individual who is in difficult circumstances, but the generality for the country is considerably improved.

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

May we have a debate on the new Business Banking Resolution Service, which is a method of compensation for small and medium-sized enterprises that have suffered historical mistreatment by their banks? The Chancellor stated in his letter of 19 January that the system should carefully consider all cases brought before it, yet research by the all-party parliamentary group on fair business banking has identified that 85% of cases are excluded from the scheme by the eligibility criteria.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the work that he has done on this issue. There is clear evidence that some businesses were treated extraordinarily badly. Some of us, including me, have had constituency cases where the bank in question seems to have behaved quite unfairly towards its business customers. It is important that the resolution system works effectively. I suggest that he takes this matter up again with the Chancellor, and he may also want to raise it during the economy debate on Tuesday. He makes a very powerful point, which I hope will be heard.