Fuel Costs
Nigel Evans Excerpts(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. This has proved to be a popular debate, and nine Members have indicated that they wish to participate in the short space of time that we have left. To be as fair as we possibly can, and to try to get everybody in, we are going to introduce a seven-minute time limit, with the usual injury time for two interventions.
Loans to Ireland Bill
Nigel Evans Excerpts(13 years, 11 months ago)
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Nadhim Zahawi
Are we the only lender that is lending in a currency other than the euro?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. Because of the popularity of this debate, there will be a seven-minute limit for speeches by Back Benchers. The usual arrangements apply for interventions.
Terrorist Asset-Freezing etc. Bill [Lords]
Nigel Evans Excerpts(13 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 6, page 15, line 25, at end insert—
‘( ) A person may not be appointed under subsection (1) unless—
(a) the Secretary of State lays a report before both Houses of Parliament which recommends the person and sets out the process by which he was chosen,
(b) a Minister of the Crown tables a motion in both Houses to approve the report laid under this subsection, and appoint the person, and
(c) such a motion is agreed by a resolution of both Houses of Parliament.’.
Amendment 7, page 15, line 31, leave out ‘send the Treasury a’.
Amendment 8, page 15, line 32, after ‘report’, insert ‘to Parliament’.
Amendment 9, page 15, line 34, leave out subsection (4).
Amendment 10, page 15, line 37, at end add—
‘( ) Appointment under subsection (1) shall be for a non-renewable term of five years.’.
Mr Hanson
We had a good debate on this issue in Committee. It is my contention that if we are to create a post to review the operation of this Bill once it achieves Royal Assent, it makes eminently logical sense for the person who is appointed by the Treasury to review the legislation to be the same person as the one appointed by the Home Office under section 36 of the Terrorism Act 2006 to review terrorist legislation and its impact from the Home Office perspective. As the House will know, Lord Carlile is currently appointed to that position. He is independent of government; he has an office outside the Home Office as well as a secure office in the Home Office; and he provides an independent review of a range of issues, including control orders and other legislation under the 2006 Act. Clause 31 of this Bill allows for an individual to be appointed by the Treasury. In Committee, I tested the Minister on whether he had discussed with the Home Secretary the possibility of appointing the same person under clause 31 to review part 1 of this potential Act as is currently appointed by the Home Office to review legislation under the 2006 Act.
Whatever our agreements in Committee, there is also, I hope, an agreement that we do not want to see duplication of these roles. The role of reviewing whether a designation has been made fairly and is being operated fairly is the same as that of reviewing whether an individual’s control order has been judged and operated fairly. I accept that there are differences, as alluded to by the Minister in Committee, but in broad terms an individual appointed under clause 31 to review part 1 of this potential Act will be dealing with similar issues and similar evidence—sometimes evidence supplied by agencies within government—and undertaking similar assessments of the effectiveness and fairness of the operation of the legislation.
The current reviewer, Lord Carlile, will finish his tenure in that role very shortly. Mr David Anderson QC will be the new independent reviewer of terrorism legislation from, I think, 1 January next year. He has expertise in the European Union, in public law and in human rights. He is a Queen’s counsel of more than 10 years’ standing, and he is a recorder and a visiting professor at King’s college London. The skills that are required to review control orders under the 2006 Act are, in my view, the same as those required to review the provisions in this Bill. I am making this proposal because there could be synergy between the two posts.
I am equally interested—I know that the Minister will have a wry smile at this—in the costings and the operation of the parallel regimes in the event of the Minister appointing somebody different to review the provisions of this Bill when enacted. The Home Office supplies the reviewer with administrative facilities, office support and research support as needed. He has an independent private office in central London as well as secure rooms in the Home Office that he uses to deal with information to help him in his task. I question the need to establish a parallel regime with a separate person being appointed through a separate recruitment procedure and having separate offices inside and outside the Treasury, given that very often, and potentially even more so in this current age, the individual may be reviewing activities that impact on the same small group of people who are seeking to do harm to our citizens in the United Kingdom as a whole.
I would welcome an update from the Minister on my suggestion and on whether he has had an opportunity to talk to the Home Secretary about this matter. Has the Minister had an opportunity to consider whether the person who will be appointed under clause 31 should be the same person who is appointed by the Government to review Home Office legislation under the 2006 Act?
My amendment has been unduly twinned with the rest of the amendments in the group, which were tabled by the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert). They relate to the method for appointing the reviewer—whether they are appointed as under my proposal or as under the Bill. The hon. Gentleman has again drawn on the report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights in proposing that the House of Commons should ultimately be the appointing body for the independent reviewer.
Unusually, I think that I will find myself agreeing with the Minister. Whatever my views on a range of issues, I cannot accept amendment 6, because the post of the independent reviewer must ultimately be a Government appointment. It reports to and supplies information to Ministers, and it is ultimately funded by the Government to provide that information. It is crucial, however, that the post is independent of Ministers. It reports to them, provides them with information and is funded by them, but it ultimately acts independently of them. It advises them and can cause difficult issues for them, because of its independence. If the post was appointed and supported by a resolution of both Houses of Parliament, it would be in a very different position from an independent reviewer of legislation.
Lord Carlile was independent. Never once did he ask me for information that he could not access appropriately. Never once was he compromised by Ministers, of whatever hue, in relation to his jurisdiction and duties. He has provided a fair assessment of the operation of the legislation to date.
I hope that the Minister reflects positively on amendment 1. I suspect that he will not support amendments 6 to 10, which were tabled by the hon. Member for Cambridge, because the independence of the post is crucial. If we tie it to the Minister or to the House of Commons, we will betray that independence and do a disservice to the role. If the Minister cannot give me good news on amendment 1, I hope that he can encourage me generally on the appointment. I look forward, also, to hearing the hon. Member for Cambridge speak to his amendments.
Mr Gerry Sutcliffe (Bradford South) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The House was due to have the opportunity to discuss the Lords amendment to the Identity Documents Bill, but I understand that Mr Speaker will not allow that to happen because of the lack of a money resolution. Will we have any opportunity to debate what the Lords have said about the fairness of ensuring that those people who bought identity cards can have some compensation?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point of order, of which he gave me short advance notice. As will become apparent from what I am about to say, the next bit of business will give him his answer.
Banking Reform
Nigel Evans Excerpts(13 years, 12 months ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. A six-minute limit will apply to all Back-Bench speeches.
Terrorist Asset-Freezing etc. Bill [Lords]
Nigel Evans Excerpts(14 years ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. Shall I vacate my seat while you two have a chat? Please can we have no sedentary interventions?
Equitable Life (Payments) Bill
Nigel Evans Excerpts(14 years ago)
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Mr Fabian Hamilton (Leeds North East) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 1, page 1, line 7, at end insert—
‘(2A) Payments authorised by the Treasury under this section to with-profits annuitants shall be made without regard to the date on which such policies were taken out.’.
The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Nigel Evans)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 2, page 1, line 7, at end insert—
‘(2A) The Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration shall report to Parliament on the implications for payments to which this section applies of the findings of the Independent Commission on Equitable Life Payments, no later than one month after the publication of such findings.’.
Amendment 7, page 1, line 7, at end insert—
‘(2A) In determining the amount of the payments that it is appropriate for the Treasury to authorise under subsection (2), the Treasury must have regard to such matters relating to the adverse effects of that maladministration on those persons and the proper calculation of their resulting losses as have been determined by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration to be relevant to and appropriate for that calculation.’.
Mr Hamilton
I tabled my amendment because, although I am well aware that the Bill is an enabling measure, I feel strongly that a group of Equitable Life policyholders has been unfairly excluded from the compensation scheme that the Government have put in place. You will be pleased to know, Mr Evans, that I will not rehearse the entire history of the Equitable Life saga, because I do not think that we have the time this afternoon. However, to put my amendment into context, it might help right hon. and hon. Members if I remind them of some of the background to the case that I am about to put for the with-profits annuitants who took out their policies before 1992, for whom the Government’s proposed scheme will not offer any compensation at all—in stark contrast to the post-1992 with-profits annuitants for whom 100% compensation is now proposed.
Founded in 1762 as a mutual insurance company based on the ideas of James Dodson, a fellow of the Royal Society and a man well ahead of his time, Equitable Life started selling pensions as early as 1913, but it was not until 1957 that the society started to sell its infamous guaranteed annuity rate, or GAR, pensions, which gave a clear and unambiguous return on capital invested depending on the age at which the policyholder decided to start taking the annuity. That was to carry on until 1988, at which point the society realised that its rates were so good and so far ahead of the rest of the market that they were unsustainable.
In December 2000, Equitable Life was forced to close to new business. By that time, it had more than 1.5 million members. In the last Parliament, the Select Committee on Public Administration said in its introduction to its December 2008 report:
“Over the last eight years many of those members and their families have suffered great anxiety as policy values were cut and pension payments reduced. Many are no longer alive, and will be unable to benefit personally from any compensation. We share both a deep sense of frustration and continuing outrage that the situation has remained unresolved for so long.”
In June 2009, following many complaints from constituents over the past few years I introduced an Adjournment debate in Westminster Hall on Equitable Life. In it, I was critical of the then Labour Government —my own party’s Government—and although I loyally and strongly supported almost all the previous Government’s policies, I felt that we were wrong on this issue and should have done far more to implement the parliamentary ombudsman’s full and damning report of July 2008 entitled “Equitable Life: a decade of regulatory failure”. Needless to say, that did not make me very popular with my colleagues on the Front Bench at the time. My right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne), the then Chief Secretary to the Treasury, tried his best at the end of the last Parliament to implement what I believe to have been a flawed exercise to bring in some sort of compensation scheme by employing Sir John Chadwick to design a system, but that took so long that it was overtaken by the general election in May.
The new coalition Government decided initially to continue the Chadwick process, to the disappointment of the Equitable Members Action Group. However, I must thank my right hon. Friend for his courtesy and the help that he tried to give me when he was Chief Secretary. He clearly understood the moral imperative that Parliament and the Government had to Equitable’s policyholders, but his hands were tied and no compensation scheme was forthcoming under the previous Government. That was a great shame.
When Sir John Chadwick finally published his long-awaited report on 22 July, his recommendation on the total compensation to Equitable policyholders was for just £400 million to £500 million, or about £400 to £500 per person, out of the estimated total losses of approximately £4.8 billion, as calculated by the actuaries Towers Watson almost two years ago. I am reluctant to give praise to the Government parties, but I was delighted when the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his speech to the House on the comprehensive spending review on 20 October, scrapped the Chadwick report and proposed a compensation package amounting to £1.5 billion. That figure was a threefold increase on Sir John Chadwick’s initial proposal but was still insufficient to make up for the losses incurred by Equitable policyholders. More importantly, however, the Government accepted at long last the report of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman in full. Again, I must reluctantly give credit to the Government for having done something that I wish my Government had done long ago.
Any delight that surviving Equitable policyholders and I felt at the Chancellor’s announcement was soon clouded by the details of the proposed compensation package. All the 37,000 post-1992 with-profits annuitants will eventually receive 100% compensation for their losses since then, but none of the estimated 10,000 pre-1992 with-profits annuitants will receive any compensation. Let me explain how my amendment goes to the heart of this issue.
The First Deputy Chairman
Order. Before the hon. Gentleman responds to that intervention, may I remind Members that interventions should be short and that this is not a Second or Third Reading debate? We are speaking to the amendments that are before us and if we focus on them, we will make quicker progress.
Nadhim Zahawi
My hon. Friend makes a good point. However, having listed that extraordinary chronology of debacles, it is clear that there could be a problem if we left things open and said, “We might be able to revisit them at some other stage.” We would be opening up other doors, and that may cause further delay. I come from a world of business rather than of politics and I believe that, if we try to put a line under a terrible situation and compensate people, we should do it quickly and completely.
Mr Evans, I take on board your remarks. All I will say is that the Minister should be applauded. There will be no means-testing and the dependants of the deceased policyholders should be included in any compensation. I have had a number of heartrending letters in which relatives have written, saying, “It is too late for us because our loved ones have passed away.”
I understand the passion that the hon. Member for Leeds North East has shown through amendment 1. The problem with the amendment was outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff North (Jonathan Evans), who said that it was very difficult to put a quantum on what that number should be. In the current economic climate, I would find it hard to support it if we said, “Oh well, maybe it is £100 million extra from reserves; maybe it’s £100 million that we can bring in from future years.” None the less, the hon. Gentleman made a strong point about the annuitants from 1991 going forward, and I hope that the Minister was listening carefully.
Chris Leslie
I beg to move amendment 3, page 1, line 7, at end insert—
‘(2B) The design and administration of any scheme of payments to which this section applies shall be independent of government.’.
The First Deputy Chairman
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 4, page 1, line 7, at end insert—
‘(2C) The Treasury shall publish details of the independent appeals procedure for policyholders as defined in subsection (2) above to use in the event of dispute over the compensation payment decision in their case, no later than three months after commencement of this Act.’.
Government amendment 6.
New clause 1—Distribution of payments—
‘(1) An independent payments commission shall be established comprising three members appointed by the Secretary of State.
(2) The independent payments commission shall design a distribution scheme for payments made arising from this Act.
(3) In designing a distribution scheme under subsection (2) the independent payments commission shall consult with interested parties, including the Equitable Life Assurance Society and representatives of policyholders.
(4) The Treasury may make provision by order made by statutory instrument for payments to be made in line with the distribution scheme designed by the independent payments commission.
(5) A statutory instrument containing an order under subsection (4) may not be made unless a draft has been laid before and approved by resolution of each House of Parliament.’.
Chris Leslie
I shall speak to amendments 3 and 4, which stand in my name and the names of my hon. Friends. Amendment 3 would enshrine in the Bill the fact that the design and administration of any payments scheme should be independent of Government. It is pretty straightforward and simple—in fact, it would be difficult for it to be more straightforward and simple—but we think it important to try to encourage the Government to enshrine in the Bill the Minister’s pronouncements so far that the design of the compensation scheme should be independent of Government. That is an extremely important point, especially as it was part of the conclusions drawn by the parliamentary ombudsman herself.
The Minister has asked the independent commission, chaired by Brian Pomeroy, to report by the end of January, but there is too much wiggle room for the Minister then to take those recommendations and bring the design and the administration of the subsequent payments scheme in-house within the Treasury. I see no clear reason why the Bill does not contain clarity on the next steps forward, particularly in relation to the daunting task of creating a payments scheme to cover upwards of 1 million policyholders not falling into the 100% compensated with-profit annuitant category.
Many other policyholders are still sceptical of the Government’s intentions and EMAG, which is the body representing many of those policyholders, is voicing its discontent with those who, before the election, signed up to their pledge to create “fair and transparent” payment schemes, which they now attack as akin to asking 1 million people—to quote the words of EMAG’s Paul Braithwaite—to
“share a pack of Smarties”.
Obviously, EMAG is making its point in its own particular way, but clearly there is some doubt and some cynicism about the approach that the Minister is taking. I am sure, having heard what he has had to say before, that he indeed wants a level of independence in the payments scheme as far as possible, but I do not understand why that commitment has not been included in the legislation. That would seem to me to be the best way forward.
Amendment 4 seeks to tackle the issue of any appeals procedure that might be necessary for policyholders in the compensation scheme. We suggest that no later than three months after the commencement of the Bill the Treasury be required to spell out quite how that appeals procedure would operate for the policyholders who are not content with the judgments made in the compensation scheme that eventually ensues. Several hon. Members argued for an appeals procedure on Second Reading on 14 September—my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) among them—and it was also raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms).
In that debate, the Minister stated that he had raised the issue with his officials but that there were clear problems. He said he would pursue it, so the purpose of the amendment is to find out whether he has had the opportunity to do so and what the appeals process will look like. I certainly expect that there will be complexity, not just in the payment scheme but in any subsequent individual appeals adjudication, and that could be quite difficult to imagine at this stage. However, it needs clarification given the route that the Minister has chosen, moving away from the ex gratia model in the Chadwick methodology and instead accepting the ombudsman’s approach to compensation.
I was glad that the Minister said there were components of the Chadwick methodology that he favoured bringing into any compensation scheme—specifically that there would be no burden of proof on individual policyholders to show that they had been misled by the regulatory returns. That would certainly make the scheme simpler. Will the Minister take this opportunity to tell us whether the independent payments commission will eventually metamorphose into an authority for administering the payments? If so, will it be asked to design an appeals system, or is it the Treasury’s intention to undertake that part of the design?
Perhaps the Minister could say whether he sees any parallels with the appeals system set up when the former Department of Trade and Industry introduced an appeals mechanism in respect of the ill-health complaints about what was then known as vibration white finger. He will remember that a series of complex compensation payments were made in those cases, but an appeals system was set up that had a route into a judicial process and eventually to the High Court. If some policyholders might become involved in a judicial process, it would be useful to have clarity about whether the same will happen.
Will the Minister also confirm not only, as I think he said, that the administrative costs of operating the compensation programme will be separate from the compensation fund, but that any appeals costs will also be separate from the compensation fund? I am sure that the Committee will welcome any clarification of the Government’s intentions, and in the meantime we felt that the amendment was a reasonable device to ensure that those answers are forthcoming.
Finance (No.2) Bill
Nigel Evans Excerpts(14 years ago)
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Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I have never seen you in the gym, although you may visit it regularly, but when I was there earlier this evening, the Division Bell did not ring. I do not know whether it did not ring in other parts of the estate, but I hope that it will ring on this occasion—although I am here now.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Funnily enough, that is a point of order for me. It may be the first that I have taken.
I do go to the gym, although I do not go to the one to which the hon. Gentleman has referred. I thank him for giving me notice of his point of order. I have asked for someone to be in the gym in time for the next Division in order to ascertain whether the bells are working normally. The hon. Gentleman should be reassured that the matter is being investigated as we speak.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
The House proceeded to a Division.
Mr Deputy Speaker: Order. It has been brought to my attention that there is a problem with the Division bells not only in the gym, but in other parts of the parliamentary estate. I am therefore giving Members a further two minutes to vote in the current Division. In the meantime, may I ask that the bells be investigated in Norman Shaw North as well as in the gym? I also advise all Members to be attentive to the monitors as well as the Division bells, because there may be more Divisions this evening.
Comprehensive Spending Review
Nigel Evans Excerpts(14 years ago)
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Tony Cunningham (Workington) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Why was no decision made about whether the debate that we had been having all afternoon had gone on long enough?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
The rules of the House dictate that once the debate has gone past 6 o’clock it finishes and we move on to the Adjournment debate.
Savings Accounts and Health in Pregnancy Grant Bill
Nigel Evans Excerpts(14 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. As hon. Members will have just observed, a number wish to speak in the debate. The winding-up speeches will begin at 9.40 pm. If everyone is to have an opportunity to speak—and I know that a number of Members have been present throughout the debate—I must ask those whom I call to exercise time restraint so that their colleagues can contribute as well.
Gregg McClymont
I was listening closely to the hon. Gentleman’s comments. Given what he was saying, will he support a further round of quantitative easing if that is necessary to stimulate the economy, given the possibility of a prolonged—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. This is going rather wide of the mark and now may be an appropriate time to remind colleagues that we have the wind-ups at 9.40 pm. I would be grateful if Mr Rees-Mogg could show some restraint, as well as everybody else that follows.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I would have finished by now, but I have taken a number of interventions, which it is a privilege to do. [Interruption.] It is a privilege, because the interventions are very interesting and they allow us to get to the nub of this difficult matter. Of course it is not popular to take something away. Of course it is easy to stand up raging about £190 being taken away from women who are about to be pushing prams. Of course the decision to take £250 away from their children is a hard one, but it is right, because the country cannot afford this. If the economy is to grow, we must have sound public finances. If that happens and if people can keep their own money, rather than have it taken from one pocket by the Government to be put into another pocket by another Department of the same Government, we can get economic growth and we can see what we saw in the 1980s, when the economy boomed, individuals got increasingly prosperous and Britain was back among the top world nations. That is what I want to see, that is what the Government are doing and that is why I am thrilled to be supporting the Bill.
Finance (No. 2) Bill
Nigel Evans Excerpts(14 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Had I noticed anything out of order, I would have been sure to have pointed that out. As it is, I believe that the shadow Minister is now moving on.
Ms Eagle
I was just about to do so, Mr Deputy Speaker, but suffice it to say that Kitchener’s Army became a tragic symbol of a lost generation, pointlessly sacrificed because of the idiocy of those in charge. Perhaps, whether he realises it or not, the Prime Minister was on to something with his choice of exhortation.
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
I thank the hon. Lady for giving way and add my congratulations on her elevation. It will be a great privilege to listen to more of her speeches, I hope often on Kitchener. I fear that she has maligned the late noble Lord Kitchener of Khartoum, the rescuer of what remained of Gordon’s body from Khartoum. Perhaps most relevantly, the death rates in the camps established in South Africa were exactly the same as—
Mr Deputy Speaker
Order. This would be a fascinating debate at another time and, perhaps, in another place.
Ms Eagle
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I know whose side I would rather be on in any attempt to rehabilitate Lord Kitchener.
As the spending review approaches, we are beginning to see increasing signs of nervousness about the likely effects of the cuts, and that is just among Ministers. We already know that the Government have taken a decision in principle that a huge increase in unemployment is a price worth paying to get the deficit down. In an admission that the spending review will depress economic activity, the Chancellor recently made it clear that he will sanction the resumption of quantitative easing, or increasing the money supply, should the cuts in demand tip the country back towards recession. However, the extent to which monetary policy can be effective when interest rates are so low and demand is depressed is the subject of well-placed scepticism in very respectable economic circles.