Post Office: Horizon Accounting System

Lord Polak Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

I do agree with the noble Baroness that they deserve justice. Nothing that we can do will be able to put back together some of the lives that have been shattered and broken by this terrible scandal but I honestly believe that the best way of securing justice is through the judicial process, which is ongoing and which I cannot pre-empt. That process will run its course but then there is additional work to do; we think the best, swiftest and fastest way of doing that is through an independent review.

[Lord Polak (Con)]

Following on from the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, earlier this week I spoke to the lovely Rita Threlfall, who was a sub-postmistress in Liverpool from 1998 to 2010. One of six children, Rita told me how she was brought up with three guiding principles: education, hard work and honesty. Can your Lordships imagine the devastation following the Horizon-created £35,000 shortfall, when Rita was suspended and charged with theft and false accounting? She was left a mental and physical wreck. She said, “Since my dismissal, my health declined. I depend on a wheelchair, seldom leave the home, suffer with extreme anxiety. I lost my income, my health, my sanity and I am now bankrupt.” I plead with my noble friend the Minister, for the sake of Rita and so many others, to ensure that the Government set up a judge-led inquiry and remove the previous chief executive from her position as chairman of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.

[Lord Callanan]

I thank my noble friend for drawing attention to one of the many tragic cases that have resulted from this; there are many others like it and I too have heard some terrible tales. We believe that an independent review is the best way of getting to the bottom of it. This will have essentially similar terms of reference to a judge-led public inquiry. With regard to the former chief executive, it would be very helpful if she would account much more fully in public for what she knew and for the actions that she took at the time. I have written to the Department of Health to make clear our position on her future. The Care Quality Commission is, I believe, looking at whether she is a fit and proper person for the role that she holds. I hope that it will conduct that review swiftly. Obviously, I cannot predict that, and it is not a matter directly for me, but I have written to the Department of Health to make my views clear.

Sub-postmasters: Compensation

Lord Polak Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

I hope that we can get the matter resolved as quickly as possible. The work of the CCRC is important and the Government cannot interfere in it. I understand that decisions on this issue are expected fairly soon and will then have to go back to the Court of Appeal. I think we all wish that the judicial process could be speedier at times but we have to let these matters take their course. However, I take on board my noble friend’s concerns.

[Lord Polak (Con)]

My Lords, in a previous discussion on this issue, I asked the Minister about the role of the Government’s non-executive director on the board of the Post Office. In reply, he said:

“His role has evolved from a perhaps more passive approach to a much more active one going forward.”—[Official Report, 4/2/20; col. 1711.]


Can my noble friend tell us what this new active approach of the Government’s non-executive director is?

[Lord Callanan]

My noble friend makes an important point. As I said in response to an earlier question, we are looking at the framework of the decisions. This is not just about the role of the non-executive director; it is about the whole oversight of the organisation by BEIS—how we improve the governance and monitoring of what is, in effect, an independent company. Operational decisions are a matter for the board of the Post Office, but clearly the fact that I am standing here in front of your Lordships answering questions now shows that it is a company owned 100% by the Government. Lessons need to be learned and we need to get to the bottom of this. I have spoken personally to the new chief executive of the Post Office, as have other ministerial colleagues, and we are satisfied that he now has a grip on the situation. The accounting system has been improved and the board is co-operating fully with the work of the Criminal Cases Review Commission, as indeed it should.

Energy Security: Gas Production

Lord Polak Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

I am in total agreement with the noble Lord and I am glad that he is in agreement with me and my noble friend Lord Lawson.

[Lord Polak (Con)]

My Lords, the Institute of Directors says that shale gas could cut gas imports by half. National Grid says that shale gas could heat every home in the UK—notwithstanding that there could be 60,000 jobs with that. What are the Government doing to help the shale gas industry?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I hope that we are giving every possible encouragement to the shale gas industry. We think that the economic impact of shale, both locally and nationally, could be very large indeed. There will be opportunities for jobs and energy security, and in a great many other areas, through supporting that industry.

Shale Gas

Lord Polak Excerpts

Tuesday 7th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Polak (Con)]

My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Truscott, for securing this debate. I am not sure that he expected the consensus around the House when he put it down. UK energy policy should provide secure, affordable and climate-friendly energy with an emphasis on homegrown energy, primary fuels and innovation for the future. UK Onshore Oil and Gas is a representative body for the industry and has suggested that, to achieve the aims of secure, affordable and climate-friendly energy, the UK will need a balance of: natural gas, to provide heat, electricity and essential chemical feedstocks and to improve air quality; renewables and nuclear to generate electricity; and oil to power transportation and to provide essential chemical feedstocks. So gas is a vital source of energy for the UK and we have so much of it in our own country.

The IoD says that shale gas could cut our gas imports by half. The National Grid believes that British shale gas could heat every home in the UK, and shale gas, as we have heard, could create 60,000 jobs. How ironic that in September 2016 the first shipment of shale gas arrived in the United Kingdom from the US, at Grangemouth refinery in Scotland. How ridiculous that shale gas produced in the US arrives in Scotland when the Scottish Parliament has banned fracking. As Francis Egan of Cuadrilla so rightly said at the time:

“They are taking ethane, turning it into a liquid, transporting it across the sea in a container, turning it back into a gas and then pumping it into Grangemouth. Just beneath Grangemouth are deposits of shale gas the Scottish Government is saying you can’t touch”.


Today in the United States around 50% of oil production and two-thirds of gas production is from so-called non-conventional wells. Well over 300,000 such wells have been drilled. The fact that the oil and gas industry pumps chemicals into the ground in this process causes opposition from environmental groups. However, despite Hollywood dramatizing the dangers, there is no significant evidence of any environmental damage from fracking. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Young, that it has been suggested that test fracking in the north of England caused a minor earthquake, but I understand that the magnitude of the so-called tremor was no more likely to cause damage to property than the vibrations of a heavy truck passing a building. In reality, the opposition to fracking in the UK has more to do with the perceived blight on the surface environment and the volume of heavy industrial traffic than with the theoretical poisoning of aquifers, which some say is impossible as shale operations take place at a much deeper level than the water table which is cased from the well bore, as was explained by the noble Lord, Lord Mair. We have sensible regulations in this country which will help us to maintain the environment while being able to produce the gas that we need.

In the energy industry, three key issues are often cited: energy security now that our traditional fossil fuels are running out, the long-term affordability and financial security of energy, and climate change, environmental concerns and decarbonisation targets. Our North Sea oil and gas reserves are running low. Production, as we know, has fallen two-thirds in the last 15 years. But gas represents 35% of fuel consumption in the UK and we currently import more than half our gas from Norway, the rest of Europe—and, maybe, Russia—and Qatar. By 2035 we may well have to import 90% of our gas. From a security point of view that is alarming.

The British Geological Survey estimates that there is 1,300 trillion cubic feet of shale gas in the north of England. Even recovering just one-10th of those reserves will be enough to supply us for at least 40 years as we currently use just under 3 trillion cubic feet per annum. If it is accepted that we need gas and that it is more secure, better for domestic employment and for the development of a manufacturing industry—which is part of our industrial strategy—and that it would produce a potential bonanza in tax receipts, then the clear answer is to exploit these shale beds. Let us not turn our backs on a lower-carbon energy source, on maintaining our own energy security, and on growing a manufacturing industry with jobs and careers for a whole new generation. As the North Sea reserves run out let us be positive and create a shale revolution.