Energy Security
Debate between Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom and Lord Callanan(1 year, 12 months ago)
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Lord Callanan (Con)
I thank my noble friend for his questions. I also thank him for welcoming me back to the Front Bench, although I was not aware that I had ever left it. Nevertheless, I am sure that his concern is well thought, and I thank him for that.
On SMRs, we are indeed continuing to support Rolls Royce; the figure is about £200 million-worth of support to accelerate the design of SMRs, because they will have a key role to play. My noble friend also asked me about hydrogen. We have a very advanced hydrogen strategy and will shortly be rolling out a business model. I can tell him that hydrogen for heating is not yet an established technology in its scalability. We have the ability to blend about 20% hydrogen into the current gas main, and in the Energy Bill, which we will shortly be considering, we are taking powers to conduct village-scale trials of hydrogen to check its feasibility for heating. I think it is more likely that the use of hydrogen will be in the sectors that are hard to decarbonise, such as steel or cement, or for really big, heavy, long-distance transport, such as locomotives or heavy goods vehicles.
My noble friend also makes a good point about the grid connections. As we seek to move the electricity system generally away from big nodes to a much more diversified system, clearly that requires an awful lot of new connections to be made. That is generally by pylons, but these can be extremely unpopular in various parts of the country. Nevertheless, that is something that we need to proceed with, but we need to try to do it in collaboration with local communities. Every offshore wind farm needs to be connected to shore and into the national grid to parts of the country that use the power. So there is a massive reconfiguring of the grid going on, with massive amounts of investment to bring that about. It is a project that will take many years to bring to fruition.
Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom (Con)
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that there are three elements to energy security? The first is the generation of energy, which is very important; the second is energy efficiency, which is also important, and I was very pleased with what he said about that; but the third is the distribution of energy, which is just as important and just as vulnerable. I declare an interest as the chairman of a resilience advisory company. In the light of constant cyberattacks on National Grid and the recent physical attacks on the Nord Stream pipeline, can my noble friend say a word or two about how we are addressing these vulnerabilities in the distribution of energy?
Lord Callanan (Con)
My noble friend makes some very good points, and I agree with him on the three issues he talked about: generation, energy efficiency and of course distribution, which is equally important. We have a very advanced cybersecurity strategy. I am not going to go into detail on that now, or indeed our contingency plans to protect our energy infrastructure, but we are very well aware of the risks and are devoting a considerable amount of attention to this matter.
Post Office: Horizon Compensation
Debate between Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom and Lord Callanan(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom (Con)
My Lords, again, my noble friend comes before this House with good news, and I am truly grateful for that. We look forward to the day when the compensation scheme can be completed, and we hope it happens early so that sub-postmasters can have truly substantial payments.
As the public inquiry considers the responsibility of Fujitsu, Post Office directors and others, can my noble friend the Minister assure your Lordships that the inevitable delay arising from the public inquiry will not cause to be legally time-barred any redress that might need to be taken in relation to those who are at fault?
Lord Callanan (Con)
I can give my noble friend a very quick answer to that: yes, I can give him that assurance. Once again, I pay tribute to the work he has done in exposing this scandal.
Post Office: Horizon Compensation
Debate between Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom and Lord Callanan(2 years, 10 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Lord Callanan) (Con)
My Lords, the Government have indeed set aside up to £685 million to support the Post Office in paying compensation to postmasters with quashed Horizon-related convictions. The Post Office reached a settlement to pay compensation of £42.75 million, plus costs, in 2019 with a further group of postmasters. The Post Office has separately set up a historical shortfall scheme to provide compensation to postmasters who suffered Horizon-related losses but were not convicted or prosecuted and were not part of the GLO.
Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom (Con)
My Lords, Fujitsu knew that it could—and did—alter the accounts of sub-postmasters without their knowledge. It knew that the Government were denying that this could be done. It knew that the sub-postmasters were being prosecuted for those altered accounts. Is it not high time, and beyond, that Fujitsu began to become part of the solution rather than being part of the problem?
Lord Callanan (Con)
The noble Lord makes an important point, with which I know many in the House will have some sympathy, but it is important that we await the outcome of Sir Wyn Williams’s inquiry. We all have our suspicions about this and we all have our views, but the inquiry has been set up to provide us with definitive answers to questions such as the very good one that the noble Lord has posed.
Post Office: Horizon Compensation
Debate between Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom and Lord Callanan(2 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Callanan (Con)
I gave the noble Baroness the figures on those who have had their convictions overturned so far. Interim payments of £100,000 each have already been made to many of them. We are attempting to negotiate with the rest of them; payments will be made as quickly as possible. It will then go to the dispute resolution process, which we think will be quicker than any ongoing further court action, to negotiate appropriate settlements with those sub-postmasters who were wrongly convicted.
Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom (Con)
My Lords, what matters will be covered by the compensation announced last month for those sub-postmasters who have had their convictions overturned? It will include financial loss, obviously, but will it also cover loss of reputation, pain and suffering, and consequential loss? How will the Government ensure consistency over the many different types of cases that there will be?
Lord Callanan (Con)
I start by paying tribute to the work of my noble friend in both this House and the other place in drawing attention to this scandal when many others were not discussing it; he was right to do so, along with many other Members on all sides. I can confirm that, when negotiating compensation for postmasters with overturned convictions, the Post Office will consider claims for financial and consequential losses as well as non-financial losses, such as reputational damage and mental distress. In terms of consistency, each case will necessarily be decided on the particular circumstances of the individual postmaster but, to ensure broad consistency, the Post Office and its legal advisers will seek to agree a consistent approach in assessing the different heads of loss with legal representatives.
Postmasters with Overturned Convictions: Settlement Funds
Debate between Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom and Lord Callanan(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom (Con)
My Lords, I acknowledge that this is very good news and I am grateful to my noble friend for the work that he is doing and has done behind the scenes on it. Can I press him on the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, about why this Statement is limited to sub-postmasters who have had convictions overturned? Surely the same moral principles apply not just to those who have been wrongly convicted but to those who were acquitted, to those who were wrongly sued, and to those, such as Lee Castleton, who were bankrupted and have not come out of that, including the 555 in the group litigation. In another place this afternoon the Minister hinted that he was softening the Government’s line on full and final settlement. Can my noble friend confirm that this is the case?
Lord Callanan (Con)
Before I answer the noble Lord’s question, I again pay tribute to the work that he has done over many years on this scandal to make sure that the world knows the truth about what took place. He makes a valid comment about the similarity of moral principles between the various cases. I can go no further than to confirm what the Minister said in another place. I will quote it to him in full:
“the 555 sub-postmasters who were part of the High Court case performed a massive public service by exposing the wrongdoings within the Post Office, and I recognise the deep frustration at the fact that because they agreed that the settlement with the Post Office would be a full and final one, they do not qualify for these compensation schemes. I have met some of those people and, as I said, I will continue to work on what more we can do.”
Post Office Update
Debate between Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom and Lord Callanan(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom (Con)
My Lords, last week the Minister, Paul Scully, said:
“We want to ensure justice and fair compensation for all who have been affected”.—[Official Report, Commons, 19/5/21; col. 721.]
He did not limit that to those whose convictions had been overturned. Does my noble friend accept that this must mean reopening the settlement of the group litigation order? Please will he stop using the words “full and final settlement” to describe a settlement which was not just and not fair?
Lord Callanan (Con)
Let me again pay tribute to the work that the noble Lord has done, both in the other place and here, in seeking to draw attention to this scandal. He was well ahead of many people in seeing the true extent of this horrendous scandal but, as I have previously said to the House, the December 2019 settlement was between the Post Office and a group of sub-postmasters. Both those parties were legally represented; the Government were not a party to this litigation, nor to the settlement that was agreed, and we still believe that it would not be appropriate for the inquiry to reopen or review such a settlement, which was agreed in the courts.
Post Office Court of Appeal Judgment
Debate between Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom and Lord Callanan(3 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Callanan (Con)
As I said in my answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, we support the work of the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which does some powerfully valuable work in its independent investigating of possible miscarriages of justice. I know that it has worked hard to complete the review into the Post Office Horizon cases with the necessary speed and thoroughness. However, as I said to the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, we will pass on the remarks of a number of noble Lords to the Ministry of Justice to see what more can be done to support its work.
Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom (Con) [V]
My Lords, the Post Office and the Government have expressly excluded the 555 group litigants from the compensation scheme. Nick Read, the chief executive of the Post Office, has called on the Government to compensate the 555 fairly. Are the Government considering compensating all the 555 litigants—as they should, because they have taken their money and should not be keeping it—or are they limiting compensation to those whose appeals have succeeded? Should not Sir Wyn Williams have considered this in his inquiry?
Lord Callanan (Con)
I start by paying tribute—as have a number of other noble Lords—to the tireless work that my noble friend has undertaken on behalf of the sub-postmasters in this case. His is a splendid example of some of the fine work that is done by many Members of this House in tenaciously seeking to draw attention to tremendous miscarriages of justice, and he has done a good job. I know we have spoken a number of times about it when he has drawn attention to these issues. I understand the strength of feeling felt by the postmasters in the GLO who, we have all come to understand, received only a portion of the £57.75 million settlement paid by the Post Office. However, that was a full and final settlement that was reached between the claimants. For postmasters who have convictions overturned, we are keen to see that they are fairly compensated as quickly as possible, and we will certainly work with the Post Office towards that goal. Given that the Court of Appeal judgment is an important development since the launch of the inquiry, I am sure that Sir Wyn Williams will want to note this in the final report on his inquiry.
Post Office: Horizon Accounting System
Debate between Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom and Lord Callanan(4 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom (Con) [V]
[Inaudible.]—the largest number of referrals by the Criminal Cases Review Commission in history. Yet the Government are expressly excluding from the scope of their inquiry the Post Office Ltd prosecution function, the Horizon group damages settlement and the conduct of current or future litigation. Given that the sub-postmasters who sued remain impoverished and, in many cases, bankrupted by the Government, why have the Government excluded these most important things? Why are they punishing those brave people who brought this essential litigation?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Lord Callanan) (Con)
The noble Lord was getting a bit ahead of himself in asking his supplementary question before he asked his main Question, so I will answer that main one first and then come on to the second one.
The answer to the Question that he originally posed to me as a Private Notice Question is that, on 2 October, the Post Office announced that it would not oppose 44 of the 47 cases referred to the Court of Appeal by the Criminal Cases Review Commission. This is an important milestone for the postmasters appealing their convictions. It is now for the courts to decide whether their convictions should be overturned, and it would not be appropriate for the Government to comment on these cases until that process is complete.
I will now move to the question which the noble Lord just asked. The settlement was agreed in December and was full and final; for this reason, it has been excluded from the scope of the inquiry.
On the question of its prosecution function, the chief executive of the Post Office, Nick Read, has assured the Government and confirmed publicly that the Post Office is not currently conducting any private prosecutions and has no plans to do so.
As regards current and future litigation, of course only the courts can decide on criminal matters, such as whether to overturn the postmasters’ convictions, so it would not be appropriate for the inquiry to look at these questions, especially when the court process is still ongoing.
Post Office: Horizon Accounting System
Debate between Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom and Lord Callanan(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress they have made in the review of the Post Office’s Horizon accounting system.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Lord Callanan) (Con)
My Lords, the Government are keen to see this review launched as soon as possible. We are making progress with the appointment of a chair. Once this process is complete, the review will then be formally launched. My colleague, the Minister for Small Business, Consumers and Labour Markets, has also spoken to Paul Patterson—managing director and head of sales and country leadership for Fujitsu UK—who has confirmed that Fujitsu will collaborate fully with the review.
Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend. The delay to this review suggests that the Government are having some difficulty finding someone unwise enough to take on the chairmanship. Is my noble friend aware that the historical shortfall scheme, set up to give compensation to sub-postmasters who have suffered through the Horizon fiasco, is not available to those sub-postmasters who have been employed through others—like McColl’s or the Co-op—even though they have suffered in exactly the same way as the rest? Is this not another injustice inflicted on sub-postmasters who have surely suffered enough already?
Lord Callanan (Con)
I pay tribute once again to the tenaciousness of my noble friend in raising this sad tale. The historical shortfall scheme was open to people or companies who had, or have, a direct contract with the Post Office, including companies such as McColl’s and the Co-op. Assistants of postmasters or employees of other companies who had no contract with the Post Office would not be eligible, as they had no contractual liability directly to the Post Office.
Post Office: Horizon Accounting System
Debate between Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom and Lord Callanan(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the answer by the Prime Minister on 26 February (HC Deb, col 315), what steps they have taken in relation to the establishment of an independent inquiry into the Post Office’s Horizon accounting system.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Lord Callanan) (Con)
My Lords, last week the Government announced an independent review to consider whether the Post Office has learned the necessary lessons from the Horizon trial judgments and to provide an independent and external assessment of its work to rebuild its relationship with its postmasters. The Government are keen to see this review launched as soon as possible, and we are in the process of identifying a chairman to lead its work.
Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom (Con)
My Lords, perhaps I may explain why this review is so inadequate. The terms of reference have been designed to exclude all possibility of blame falling on the Government. However, last week my noble friend told me that the Government became aware only in early 2019 that transactions entered remotely might be invisible to sub-postmasters. That was unconvincing, since the Post Office had said in open court in January 2017 that that could happen. That verified what Second Sight had said in its interim report of July 2013—but then of course it was quickly sacked. Nor do the terms of reference say anything about the likelihood of the Post Office improperly making a profit from the sub-postmasters, or about the suspense accounts or the critical role that Fujitsu played in all this. Without asking those questions, you cannot get to the bottom of this, as the Prime Minister wants. Does my noble friend appreciate that the Government appointing one of their own rather than a judge as the chairman of this review does not fill us with confidence that it will be independent of the Government?
Lord Callanan
I pay tribute yet again to the work that my noble friend has done in both Houses on this important issue, along with other noble Lords and MPs. The findings outlined throughout the Horizon judgment already provided an extensive insight into what went wrong at the Post Office, including an independent judicial view of all the facts that all sides were looking for. However, the Government now accept that more needs to be done. We want to be fully assured that, through the independent review, there is a public summary of the failings that occurred at the Post Office, drawing on the judgments from the Horizon case and listening to those who have been most affected without repeating the extensive findings already entered into by Mr Justice Fraser. The Post Office has committed to co-operating fully with the review and we, as Ministers, will hold it to that. The review will have sufficient strength and breadth to deliver in a timely manner, and I assure my noble friend that the chair of the review will be fully independent of both the Post Office and the Government.
Horizon: Sub-postmaster Convictions
Debate between Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom and Lord Callanan(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Callanan
The Post Office operates as an independent business. As noble Lords would expect, it has all the necessary insurance in place for a company of this kind. It is not, however, obligatory for businesses, including the Post Office, to take out insurance against computer malfunctions or liabilities to third parties that could result from such malfunctions. It is therefore unlikely that any of the Post Office’s insurances would provide cover for any compensation payments the business may be required to partake in.
Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom (Con) [V]
My Lords, when did the Government’s representative on the Post Office board first know that the Post Office had privileged access to sub-postmasters’ accounts, so that the Post Office or Fujitsu could alter those accounts at will without the sub-postmasters being aware of it? Was it from the Ernst & Young management letter to the board of 27 March 2011, or was it earlier than that? If my noble friend does not know, will he please write to me?
Lord Callanan
First, I pay tribute to the work my noble friend has done, both in the other place and in this House, to draw attention to this unfolding scandal. The issue of privileged access was discussed throughout the Horizon case and highlighted in the Horizon issues judgment. The Ernst & Young management letter he refers to was issued before Post Office Ltd was separated from Royal Mail Group. At the time, there was no government representative on the board. The first government representative was appointed to the board of the Post Office in 2012. The Government were aware from the information they received, such as that by the forensic accountants, Second Sight, in 2013, that branch records could be accessed remotely; however, we were then advised that any transactions entered remotely would be visible to sub-postmasters in branch. As far as I am aware, the Government were only made aware that this was incorrect early in 2019, via witness statements that were used by Fujitsu in the court case.
Sub-postmasters: Compensation
Debate between Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom and Lord Callanan(4 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the level of compensation received by sub-postmasters as a result of the Horizon accounting system litigation, as compared to the losses those sub-postmasters incurred due to Post Office Ltd’s policies.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Lord Callanan) (Con)
My Lords, while the Government are pleased that a resolution has been reached on this difficult matter, the Post Office led the mediation and the Government were not party to it. While the financial settlement is a major step toward resolving some of these grievances, there is much more for the Post Office to do, including resetting its relationship with postmasters and addressing historic shortfalls for postmasters who were not part of this group litigation.
Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend. Many of your Lordships will have been delighted to hear the Prime Minister say last week in Prime Minister’s Questions that there would be an independent inquiry into what he described as the Post Office Horizon IT system “scandal”. Can my noble friend give us details of that inquiry, in particular of how it will be independent of not only the Post Office but the Government?
Lord Callanan
First, I pay tribute to my noble friend for rightly pursuing these matters with dogged determination. We probably would not be where we are today without his work and that of many others on this issue. The Government recognise the strength of feeling about the negative impact that the court case has had on postmasters. As my honourable friend, Paul Scully MP, announced at BEIS Oral Questions on Tuesday, we are looking into what needs to be done. We will outline the next steps following the Prime Minister’s announcement as soon as possible.