Women Human Rights Defenders

Debate between Patricia Gibson and Jim Shannon

Tuesday 7th May 2019 Westminster Hall

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

I thank the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) for securing this important debate on women’s work to defend human rights globally, and for pointing out, in her well-informed and comprehensive speech, the importance of the path set by the suffragettes in the UK to secure votes for women.

In the spirit of celebrating human rights defenders, as this debate seeks to do, I want to pay tribute to the fact that across the world, as we have heard, ordinary women commit acts of great self-sacrifice in the face of persistent abuse, threats to personal safety, persecution and violence, simply for standing up for what is right. All of us who believe in human rights, certainly in all western democracies, have a duty to stand shoulder to shoulder with those women and do all we can to support them. All states that believe in freedom should use every diplomatic means and avenue at their disposal to secure human rights for all—no ifs, no buts.

We should support all women who stand up for human rights in countries where women are seen as mere chattels—the legal property of their closest male relatives—such as in Saudi Arabia. Women all around the world are denied their basic human rights simply because they are women. We need to talk about that and learn more about it. I learned much from listening to the speech by the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) about the situation in West Papua.

The hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green referred to the appalling situation in Saudi Arabia. So-called wrongdoing in such regimes, such as women’s campaigning to be permitted to learn to drive, is sufficient to put one’s life in danger. We who believe in freedom must have the courage to stand up to those regimes and to support women, instead of turning a blind eye. We talk much in the west about the contribution of women in western societies, but we betray the women living under misogynistic regimes—such regimes are misogynistic, as the hon. Member for Leeds North Wests pointed out—where women have much lower status than men. We betray those women by staying silent about their plight.

We all welcome the recent decision of the Saudi regime to allow women to drive. According to some folk in Saudi, the lifting of the ban is controversial since they believe that it will lead to women becoming promiscuous. But we need to remember what we heard from the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green: in the month before the ban was lifted last year, more than a dozen female activists who had campaigned for the right to drive were rounded up and put in jail. At least nine of them remain in prison. The families of the activists say that they have been tortured and put in solitary confinement for long periods. No formal charges have been brought against the women, only a series of allegations of their having been involved in a foreign plot against the Government.

It has been pointed out to me—and to many of us, I am sure—that we should have a care for cultural sensitivities. I am sure that we are all in favour of being mindful of cultural sensitivities, but we must not be complicit with our silence about a regime that believes that women are not equal to men in any sense. They are not allowed to go out unless they are accompanied by their male owners, and they can be cruelly treated and imprisoned for having the temerity to hope to be seen as individuals in their own right, rather than the possession of a man. We must not be silent about that in the name of cultural sensitivities. When we are silent in the face of others being repressed, we become a friend of the oppressor, or perhaps even a useful idiot for the oppressor if we continue relations with that state as though it were not a tyrannical regime. That simply will not do.

There is deep concern about reports of the torture and ill treatment of detained women’s rights defenders in Saudi Arabia. They have been imprisoned since mid-2018 solely for peacefully campaigning for the protection and promotion of human rights, including women’s rights. Some were detained incommunicado, with no access to their families or lawyers during the first three months of their detention, and were subjected to chilling smear campaigns by state media. They all remain without access to legal representation.

Recent reports have emerged that some of the detained women activists have been subjected to electric shocks, flogging, sexual threats and other forms of torture. Testimonies recount that the abuse has left some of the women unable to walk or stand properly, with uncontrolled shaking and marks on their bodies. At least one of them has attempted suicide on several occasions. Those women have long been advocating for Saudi women’s right to drive, have called for an end to the discriminatory male guardianship system and have peacefully campaigned for greater respect for human rights. For that, they risk being tried and sentenced before the specialised criminal court, the country’s counter-terrorism court.

In 2016 the United Nations Committee Against Torture, in its second periodic report on Saudi Arabia, expressed concern at the application of terrorism legislation through the specialised criminal court, which enables the criminalisation of acts of peaceful expression considered as “endangering national unity” or

“undermining the reputation or position of the State”.

Those regulations have been used to try human rights defenders for exercising their fundamental rights. They violate international standards for the right to a fair trial and have enabled the authorities to detain individuals without providing them with access to legal representation during the investigation phase.

The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women further recommended in March 2018 that the Saudi state should facilitate women’s access to justice and institutionalise legal aid that is accessible, sustainable and responsive to the needs of women. If it were not so serious, it would be laughable that Saudi Arabia is a member of the UN Human Rights Council. As such, it is obligated to uphold the highest standards for the promotion and protection of human rights, and to co-operate fully with the Council’s mechanisms. However, the Saudi Government have been largely unco-operative with the Council and continue to exhibit a flagrant disregard for fundamental freedoms.

My concern is that the international community seeks to stay on good terms with this rich and powerful regime at any cost, and the Saudi Prince knows that. Where is the motivation for Saudi Arabia to care about international opinion? I urge the Minister and the UK Government to lead attempts to bring pressure to bear on the Saudi Government to persuade them that their action is simply incompatible with civilised, modern codes of behaviour. Halting UK arms sales to a country that deals in terror, killing and oppression would be a good start. As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), that would immediately benefit the people of Yemen.

It is worth noting that the Saudi Government require visiting reporters to be accompanied by a Government minder. That really says it all. I want to challenge the UK Minister to urge the UK Government to lead support for all women human rights defenders in the international community, as pointed out by the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green. As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central pointed out, our constituents really care about these matters.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I apologise for being late—my plane was delayed and I ran the whole way here, so I am still catching my breath. Women have been at the forefront of the defence of human rights for many years, such as Maud Kells from Northern Ireland, who has spent 50 years providing maternity care for Congolese women, even after she was shot by a bandit while in the missionary hospital she helped to found. Women like her deserve recognition and the utmost respect. That is what this debate is all about: giving women the recognition that they rightly deserve.

Post Office Network

Debate between Patricia Gibson and Jim Shannon

Thursday 25th April 2019 Westminster Hall

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

I am delighted to speak in this debate and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows) for securing it. We all understand the value and importance of having post offices in our communities. More than 2 million small businesses—62%—use them at least once a month. In rural areas, they are vital; 36% of rural businesses use post offices weekly. One in four of all businesses are registered in rural areas and contribute well over £200 billion to our economy. Citizens Advice has been clear that eight in 10 small businesses in remote rural areas will lose money if local post offices close.

We all remember around 2008 when post offices were gradually being run down under the Labour Government of the day and when the services our local post offices could provide were wrested away from them, paving the way for mass closures. Long before I was elected in 2015, in 2008, I remember going round the doors in my constituency asking people to sign a petition to save their local post offices. I and other party activists did that in Skelmorlie, Glengarnock and Kilwinning. Naively, we thought we could make a difference. It turned out the Post Office’s so-called consultations were not much more than a sham. To make it worse, our then local Labour MP voted on five separate occasions under the Blair Government to close post offices across the UK and then immediately afterwards put out press releases to the local papers lamenting the closure of our local post offices. Sometimes it is not hard to see why people become cynical about politics.

Some post offices are now being closed by stealth. By that, I mean that postmasters are either retiring or shutting up shop because it has become so difficult to make a living out of the business, important though that business is for our communities. Postmasters in my constituency tell me that they were earning minimum wage. We know from recent announcements that as of October 2019—although I do not know why it is taking so long—our sub-postmasters will receive better remuneration from the Post Office for the key services that they provide for the public. The question is whether that improved payment is enough for the long-term sustainability of the service, and we will have to reserve judgment on that.

Postmasters tell us that they hand count thousands of pounds daily. That money is accepted, checked, double-checked, bagged, remmed out and sent away, for much less money than the banks charge their customers. The gap is large, which means that either banks or the post office are making a lot of money on the back of postmasters. That does not seem fair to me.

Our postmasters are taking on a greater role in our communities as banks abandon our towns. Post offices are an important amenity in our communities and offer a lifeline on everything from pensions to benefits and, increasingly, day-to-day banking services. In so many towns, our post offices are the last place where face-to-face services are still available.

We all understand how important it is that banks properly remunerate postmasters for the services they provide to major banks, which turn over huge profits, and I am pleased that there will be a near-threefold increase on current rates. However, some postmasters in my constituency say this simply does not go far enough, which causes me a lot of concern. Indeed, we are all keen to see if the details of this offer are sufficient to protect our postmasters and, importantly, the network’s sustainability as a whole. I have been lobbying the Government and the Post Office chief executive about this for two years, so I am delighted that we have at last made some progress, but the devil will be in the detail.

I have spoken out about the threat to our post office network in four different debates since I was first elected in 2015—we seem to have them once a year. It is an issue that I campaigned on with Scottish National party activists in my community long before I was elected, and I will continue to do so until our postmasters get the fair deal that they deserve. Our post offices are too important to be left to flounder at the mercy of banks that are apparently too big to fail, and of successive UK Governments who have consistently failed to recognise the importance of post offices to our communities.

[Jim Shannon]

I want to put on record what a very good campaign the Scottish National party and others have run on behalf of the banks that are closing, and the importance of post offices in filling that gap. Over time, their campaign has outlined and highlighted the issue of banks closing at a fast rate, which means that the importance of post offices is increasing. It is so important.

[Patricia Gibson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that observation and very much welcome it.

State Pension: Women born in the 1950s

Debate between Patricia Gibson and Jim Shannon

Thursday 22nd November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Patricia Gibson]

I will just finish the quotation from the rapporteur. He continued:

“The impact of the changes to pensionable age is such as to severely penalize those who happen to be on the cusp of retirement and who had well-founded expectations of entering the next phase of their lives, rather than being plunged back into a workforce for which many of them were ill-prepared and to which they could not reasonably have been expected to adjust with no notice.”

I would be keen to hear the Minister’s response to the rapporteur’s words. If he wishes to intervene to rebut them, I would be delighted to give way, but in the absence of his seeking to intervene, I will take an intervention from the hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham).

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The next best thing!

[Mr Cunningham]

I do not know about that. I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this timely debate. We have had many such debates, but the Government do not seem to get the message. From the start of the recession until now, women have carried the burden of the recession. In tax adjustments, the Government saved something like £14 billion at the expense of women. The amount the Government are saving through not doing the right thing by these women probably runs into billions. A fraction of those billions could take care of the problem.

Finance (No. 3) Bill

Debate between Patricia Gibson and Jim Shannon

Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 20th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Patricia Gibson]

I am glad that the Minister has given us that clarification. As he says, I would be more comfortable with a broadbrush approach encompassing lots and lots of factors, such as I those I set out in my speech. However, I have listened to what the Minister has said, and I will certainly give it some thought.

[Jim Shannon]

I thought the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) was going to go before me, but he has not bobbed, so he is obviously not going to. I always follow in his footsteps—I am always glad to do so, by the way, as he knows—but on this occasion I miss his comments, which I am sure would be more than helpful to us.

We are all very aware of the reason for these amendments. It is tremendous to be in the Chamber among many Members from across the House who are of the same opinion, including—he will forgive me if I say this, but I have to say it—perhaps a wee bit belatedly, the Minister, who is also committed to where we are on this.

If she does not mind my saying so, I would like to commend the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) for her principled stand, her courage and what she has done to make this happen. The commitment she has shown does my heart good and does the heart of everybody else good. By the way, I am not surprised that she said 3,000 people had contacted her afterwards. I did not have 3,000 people contact me afterwards, but I had a large number and, for the record, every one of them commended the hon. Lady for her obvious commitment. The reason for the amendment is simple: the need for a massive lowering of stakes is clear.

I also thank my good friend, the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris), for all her endeavours through the all-party group on FOBTs, which has done tremendous work. The right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) and the hon. Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan) have also endeavoured, through the APPG, to ensure all that hard work came to fruition.

The one thing that sits in my mind is this: why was it important to have those six months slip back from October to April? It is very simple: as has been said, 300 lives—maybe more—were saved. That is a fact.

I am mindful that last week we had the Gambling with Lives event, which the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) referred to. I thank him for initiating that event. I was very glad to be there with other Members and to support him. There were two people there who I knew long before the start of this FOBT campaign, which began about 18 months or two years ago. They are Mr and Mrs Peter Keogh from Enniskillen, who lost their son, Lewis, to a gambling addiction and who even today feel the heartache of that event.

It is for those people that we do these things. It is for our constituents whose lives will be saved because of it, and for those who have lost loved ones and feel the great pain of the loss of someone close to them, that today we can collectively make this legislative change in this House. That is why we make the effort.

The Government accept that they need to lower the stakes; they accept that damage has been done to individuals and families; they accept the fact that the ability to bet as much as £100 every 20 seconds on electronic casino games such as roulette is shocking; and they accept the campaign by anti-gambling campaigners that highlights the fact that machines let people lose money too quickly, leading to addiction and social, mental and financial problems.

The Minister responded to the previous speaker, the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson), about things we must address, including online gambling and how it is promoted on TV. At this early stage, I would also like to put down a marker about scratchcards. I was just telling a story to my hon. Friend the Member for South Antrim (Paul Girvan). One day, I saw a lady with two children in a shop. She probably did not have £5 to spare. She was ahead of me in the queue and she put down £5. I was not being nosy, but her wallet probably only had two fivers in it, yet she spent £5 on scratchcards. She went outside to rub the numbers off them and by the time I went outside I saw that not one of the cards was successful.

I thought to myself, “How very sad.” That lady was probably looking at her financial needs for that week being provided by the turn of a scratchcard, which did not deliver. Other things need to be done, but I look forward to the things that the Minister referred to in his intervention on the hon. Lady.

Those arguments had all been accepted, but rather than looking at the human cost it appears that the Government wished to shore up the finances and allow thousands more people to gamble everything away. The situation is like cancer research finding a cure to cancer and the NHS saying, “Well, we have all the chemotherapy, which needs to be used, so we won’t pay for the life-saving drugs until stocks are down. We can’t afford to do this.” That is horrific. I say to the Minister, with respect, that the more I see of this Government's ability to put blinkers on and look only at one aspect—the pounds and the pence—rather than at the entire argument about the need to lower stakes, the more disheartened I become.

The Salvation Army, which deals with the problems that gambling brings to the community, has said:

“It is well acknowledged that FOBTs have caused concern across the political and social spectrum. FOBTs have been labelled the ‘crack cocaine’ of gambling. One gambler told us that he spent £2,000 a day on FOBTs at bookies without being challenged.”

Taxi and Private Hire Licensing

Debate between Patricia Gibson and Jim Shannon

Tuesday 13th November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to participate in this debate. Like the speakers before me, I thank the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) for initiating this debate.

As we have heard, taxis are now an integral part of our lives, providing jobs and opportunities to people across the UK and enhancing transport links to our local and rural communities. The report by the task and finish group on taxi and private hire vehicle licences, which we are focusing on today, urges the UK Government to overhaul the regulatory regime for the taxi and private hire vehicle sector and has recommended minimum standards for drivers, vehicles and operators in taxi and private hire vehicle licensing.

There have been calls for the UK Government to convene a panel of regulators, passenger safety groups and operator representatives to determine what those minimum safety standards should be. It has been suggested that licensing authorities should be able to set additional, higher standards in safety and all other aspects, depending on the requirements of particular local areas, as the hon. Member for Cambridge and the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes) pointed out.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) on bringing this debate to the House for consideration. The lines between a hackney carriage, a black taxi and a private hire vehicle have become blurred; there are those who know how to play those blurry lines to their benefit and those who have paid the price, through fines and even the loss of their licence. Does the hon. Lady agree that this report gives the opportunity for regulation, and that that regulation should be across the whole of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?

[Patricia Gibson]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point about the blurring of the boundaries. I will go on to talk about this in a wee bit more detail, so I will simply say for now that taxi licensing is devolved in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. There are pretty slight but pretty important divergences across the UK that deal with the kind of issues that he has raised.

The Suzy Lamplugh Trust’s research on taxi and private hire vehicle drivers revealed that only 46 out of 316 local authorities were able to provide it with detailed information about drivers’ criminal histories on request. Indeed, the research went on to reveal a significant number of licensed drivers with serious criminal convictions. The fact is that the “fit and proper person” test that is used for anyone applying to drive a taxi or private hire car is pretty ambiguous, and means that some local authorities are granting and renewing licences that perhaps we would not want them to.

The Local Government Association in England is creating a voluntary register, as we heard from the hon. Member for Cambridge. That, of course, is an interesting idea, but if it is voluntary, inevitably its impact in bringing about the changes that many of us would like to see will be limited. We know that the advent of smartphone apps is already having a significant impact on the way taxis and private hire cars operate, which is challenging existing businesses and regulatory models all the time. We have heard a lot about that today.

We need all and any taxi or private hire companies to comply with the existing licensing requirements set out in legislation and to ensure that all vehicles and drivers are properly licensed. We heard much about that from the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith). We also need to pay attention to unfair working practices and ensure that those working in the so-called gig economy have fair, protected and decent working conditions. If work must be flexible, it should still be fair; the two are not mutually exclusive. Workers should have appropriate rights and protections, including sick pay and holiday pay. It was disappointing that the Taylor review did not quite match up to many people’s hopes in tackling the real issues facing workers in insecure employment.

As I said earlier in answer to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), of course taxi licensing is devolved in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The licensing systems across the UK are similar, but there are important differences. One of the major differences, something that campaigners have flagged up and that has been made much of today, is cross-border hiring of private hire vehicles.

In Scotland, private hire vehicles are required to return to their licensing area to accept a booking after travelling outside that area. A private hire vehicle driver in, for example, Glasgow can accept a fare in Glasgow that takes them out of the city, but they cannot pick someone up outside the city. They must return to Glasgow to pick up another fare. I see no reason why the Minister cannot give serious consideration to the regulatory system in England.

There remains the problem of drivers illegally picking up off the streets without prior booking, which often overlaps with cross-border hiring. These so-called pirate cabbies have an impact on the livelihoods of other taxis and private hire cab drivers who follow the rules. They can also potentially put the public at risk, and I would wager that these pirate cabbies are causing problems across the entire United Kingdom—even in Scotland, where cross-border hiring is illegal.

Most particularly, I suggest it is likely to be a problem in big cities such as Glasgow, Belfast, London and Cambridge on the busiest nights of the week, especially Fridays and Saturdays. Clearly, more enforcement would help. The practice is a breach of cab licensing restrictions and invalidates car insurance. I know that in Scotland illegal taxi touting, where the illegal pick-up is often charged way over the odds for their journey, is an issue that Police Scotland are particularly interested in.

There is also the contentious issue of over-provision, about which we have heard much today. In Scotland, until fairly recently local councillors had no power to limit the number of private hires on the streets, but new legislation allows the licensing authority to refuse to grant an application for a private hire licence on the very grounds of over-provision of private hire cars in the area in which the driver plans to operate. Any assessment of over-provision must of course look at current provision, as well as the use of and demand for the service of both taxis and private hires, to ensure that demand can be fulfilled and there is fairness to all in the industry.

Local flexibility is important. It is also important that there should be a minimum number of wheelchair accessible vehicles, as the hon. Member for Cambridge pointed out. We have heard calls for CCTV licensing in cabs, but that is more controversial, because as well as cost considerations there are concerns about intrusion.

As the way we live our lives and access our leisure pursuits is increasingly reliant on technology, and as public transport can be challenging for some of our communities at certain times of the evening, taxi and private hire licensing also becomes more challenging. Our priority must be to keep the public safe, as well as to create a fair and reasonable environment for those who make their living providing this important service. Today we have heard some of those concerns and a little bit about some of the divergences and the different direction we have taken in Scotland. The concerns raised are important and require our attention; I am keen to hear what the Minister intends to do to answer them, whether he has had a look at how things operate in Scotland and whether any of those measures are perhaps things he would wish to adopt.

Banking in North Ayrshire

Debate between Patricia Gibson and Jim Shannon

Wednesday 14th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Patricia Gibson]

The hon. Gentleman has put his finger on the real source of the anger: people’s sense of abandonment and being left to their own devices with no other facilities on which to rely, despite the fact that the bank exists because the taxpayer made sure that it did.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate and thank her for giving us a chance to participate in a small way. Given that banking is increasingly moving online, it is hard for urban and rural communities that are geographically isolated from physical banks if they are also limited by the provision of broadband services. Does the hon. Lady feel that that issue should be clearly considered before any proposed bank closures take place?

[Patricia Gibson]

Indeed. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments, which go to the heart of the issue of financial inclusion, social exclusion and digital exclusion. These things have to be worked out together in some kind of organised fashion.

At one point in its history, RBS championed vowing not to close the last bank in town, but now it is twisting itself into all sorts of shapes to dissociate itself from that promise. I suppose the PR men for RBS found the appeal of that vow attractive, but now it seems that RBS is embarrassed by it and is no longer holding to it. We have heard a little tonight about banking online. We hear about this a lot, and I accept, as we all do, that many people now choose to bank online. There is no dispute about that. If it suits the lifestyle and needs of those who choose to bank online, good luck to them, but many do not bank online, for a variety of reasons. As the hon. Gentleman said, many choose not to do so because they are digitally excluded; this is a choice that they are not able to make.

Mobile Phone Contracts

Debate between Patricia Gibson and Jim Shannon

Tuesday 16th January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Patricia Gibson]

Thank you, Mr Hollobone. As I was saying before the Division bell sounded, the fact is that most providers do not tell the customer how much of their monthly bill goes towards the mobile handset and how much is paying for their calls and data. Citizens Advice has discovered that three of the four largest mobile providers continue to charge customers for a handset after the cost of the handset has already been paid during the term of the fixed deal. That means that loyal customers who choose to stay on the same phone plan after their fixed deal ends see no reduction in their bills. They continue to pay, unwittingly, for a handset for which they have already paid.

Who is most likely to be caught up in this so-called loyalty trap? Those aged over 65 are most likely to be stung, with 23% of over 65s with a handset-inclusive mobile phone contract staying in their contract for more than 12 months past the end of their fixed deal period, compared with only 13% of people aged under 65. Worse still, if someone does not switch they cannot tell how much their handset is costing them, and whether they are getting a good deal or not. Indeed, the total cost of a handset as part of a bundled contract can vary considerably, even among plans offered by the same provider. In some cases, the price difference can be as much as £400. Of the 706 bundled contracts analysed by Citizens Advice, 74% were more expensive than buying the same handset up front and using it with a SIM-only contract, which is quite astonishing.

Three, one of the largest mobile phone providers, has been in touch with me. That company recognises that the way the market is currently organised means that mobile bills lack transparency and are difficult for consumers to comprehend, which in turn leads to them paying more than they should—that is, more than they need to—for their mobile phones.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate on an issue that affects my constituency and all others. Does she agree that the thirst for the latest phones means that many people buy themselves out of a contract at a massive financial cost, and that we—or perhaps the Minister—should look at whether the way in which the industry works out the buy-out clause for contracts can be made fairer, and not to the advantage of the mobile companies?

[Patricia Gibson]

There is, indeed, a range of issues with mobile phone contracts. The real concern is when a consumer is paying for something for which they have already paid, but the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that mobile contracts need to be seriously looked at.

For consumers, the way to get transparency is to separate out costs so that they can see clearly what they are paying for. In any other industry, that would not be controversial. Some people have pointed out that regulations are an obstacle in the way of separating out those costs because they would require the mobile phone companies to become regulated creditors under the Financial Conduct Authority. Some argue that that would be bureaucratic, burdensome and complex for the mobile phone companies, as they would have to comply with the Consumer Credit Act 1974. However, that need not be the case, since there is a well-established precedent, of which I am sure the Minister is aware; exemptions from full regulation under the Consumer Credit Act are given to appropriate sectors, especially for loans with an annual percentage rate of zero.

The Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 created an exemption from the Consumer Credit Act regulations for providers of 0% APR loans of up to four months. That was raised to 12 months—the current limit in 2015—through a statutory instrument, to allow insurance companies to offer monthly payments for annual plans. Perhaps the Minister will consider raising that limit further to 24 months, to allow mobile phone operators to offer separate mobile handset financing. That would make bills more transparent for consumers, since handset and service contracts would then be separated. Given that it would be prohibitively expensive to ask consumers to pay off their handsets in 12 months, raising the current 12-month limit to a 24-month exemption in the Consumer Credit Act would offer a way forward. It has been done successfully in countries such as Germany and Australia, as well as other countries, so there is no reason why it could not be done here.

O2 has told me that it is the only operator to separate the cost of mobile phones from the airtime on consumer bills and that when a consumer has paid off his or her mobile phone, all charges for it are stopped. That leads me to wonder why one such company can manage such transparency in its billing but others do not seem able to. I am sure the Minister is wondering that as well.

We must make it as easy as possible for those companies who engage in this blatant, unfair and unjust overcharging of customers to stop doing so and remove all the so-called obstacles and hiding places. In no other industry would such blatant ripping-off of the customer be tolerated; it should not be tolerated in the mobile phone industry either. Indeed, it undermines consumer confidence and trust in the entire industry, which is unfair to those players in the industry who play fair by the consumer.

Too many consumers in too many sectors endure a “loyalty penalty” and mobile phone charges are symptomatic of a wider problem. Indeed, in the wider telecoms market, people experience a persistent and ingrained level of detriment. We should be grateful for the sterling work of Citizens Advice, who I pay tribute to today, as its research has uncovered the fact that people experience 27 million problems with their mobile, broadband or TV services per year and those problems cost people £4.2 billion a year in wasted time and money. It is simply not good enough.

As the Minister will be aware, we currently have very powerful voices in the telecoms industry, with no independent voice speaking up for consumers. The telecoms industry has vast resources to expend on lobbying the regulator. It is time for the consumer’s voice to be heard.

The Minister will also be very aware that in their 2017 manifesto, the UK Government made a commitment to make telecoms billing fairer and easier to understand for consumers, including clarifying when the cost of a mobile handset has been paid off by the customer. That is not difficult to do. It can be done by statutory instrument, as I have said.

In a letter of 17 November to me on this issue, the former Minister of State for Digital told me that he hopes

“that providers will now take the initiative by clearly separating the cost of handset and tariff in mobile contracts”.

In Ofcom’s response to me of 8 November, it said that it wanted to help people to

“shop around and secure the right deals”.

But unless costs are separated out and mobile operators are forced down that path, consumers cannot and will not know what deals are the best value for money. We cannot rely on the goodwill of the mobile phone operators, because that has not worked. Action is needed and I have offered a way forward, which I urge the Minister to adopt.

The responses from the former Minister for Digital and Ofcom, although well-meaning, do not go far enough. In fact, the responses give me cause for concern—I am a bit alarmed—because they both, in their different ways, suggest that the mobile phone companies can decide if and when they take action on this matter. I would argue that the Government and the regulator must act urgently to protect consumers from being ripped off. When someone unwittingly pays for the same product twice, make no mistake: that person is being ripped off.

With inflation running high, as it has done for a number of years, and with a continuing squeeze on living standards, it is only right and proper that consumers are treated fairly and are able to see more easily what they are paying for, so that they can properly compare prices. I urge the Minister to set out a clear timetable to implement what she and her Government have publicly said they believe. That can be done very soon, very cleanly and very quickly, by statutory instrument. It is needed so that there can be no excuse or hiding place for mobile companies that continue to charge mobile phone customers for something that they have already paid for. It is time to redress the imbalance between the powerful voice of industry and the weak and too-often ignored voice of the consumer. It really is time to act.