Coronavirus Grants: Fraud
Debate between Viscount Younger of Leckie and Lord Stoneham of Droxford(2 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)
My Lords, when Covid struck, HMRC stopped answering its fraud-reporting phone line—the phones just rang and rang. The alternative way of reporting fraud online required entering intrusive personal details that most people were afraid to provide. How much fraud does the Minister estimate has been unreported due to the Government’s attitude towards whistleblowers?
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
The noble Lord’s question is focused on HMRC, but I can say that the expected losses to error and fraud in 2021 were £5.8 billion, and expected losses for 2021-22 will be published in due course. But a lot of work is going on in terms of recovery, and the expected recovery by HMRC is estimated to be between £1.3 billion and £1.5 billion.
Volkswagen: Emissions
Debate between Viscount Younger of Leckie and Lord Stoneham of Droxford
Viscount Younger of Leckie
Indeed, and it may be some comfort to my noble friend that the Department for Transport and BIS have been pressing Volkswagen very hard over the past few months. We believe that by February there will be a decision on how UK customers who own Volkswagens are affected. On the question of car emissions, the Government are spending more than £600 million between 2015 and 2020 to support the uptake and manufacturing of ultra-low-emission vehicles.
Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)
The Government have announced that individual Volkswagen car owners will not be liable for any shortfalls in their car road tax. Have they worked out the scale of compensation which they should be seeking from Volkswagen and can they assure the House that they will not accept discounted Volkswagen cars into the government car pool instead of real money?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
I do not know about that, but as I said, that the Government have been pressing Volkswagen very hard and we need to establish what the actual losses are. There is no question but that if UK owners have legitimate claims for compensation for losses, they should be compensated.
Consumer Rights Bill
Debate between Viscount Younger of Leckie and Lord Stoneham of Droxford
Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)
My Lords, in supporting the Government on this amendment I feel a bit like Pietersen, the cricketer, taking on the cricket establishment, but since I have always admired his bravery and foolhardiness, I shall have a go. I think there is a dangerous presumption in this debate that the secondary ticketing market is a bad thing and that people would like to do without it. Balancing that, I accept, there is a genuine belief that by increasing regulation, by demanding more information, we will eliminate fraud. I think that approach is misguided. I do not think that you necessarily end fraud by increasing regulation.
The secondary ticketing market fulfils a very useful purpose for people, particularly those who buy tickets and are often made to buy them a year ahead of the event. When they do not want to use them, they can dispose of them appropriately; 70% of people buying tickets want that secondary market to continue. We should be supporting recognised and established brand leaders that work in this market and do all that is required. They guarantee their tickets, and people should use them; we should encourage more people to use those established brands. If they did that, the market would work better; that is how to attack fraud.
If you are attacking fraud, where else do you look? You look first of all at the computer-operated systems that enable people to buy mass tickets. That is where you ought to direct your attacks, and there are some encouraging signs there. But you also need to question the sports operators. Too many of them are greedy. They give their tickets to people in hospitality, who then do not need them and try to dispose of them through secondary markets. If the sports operators want an improvement, the first thing that they could do is to improve the affordability of their tickets, so they are not forcing the price up, which encourages this sort of fraud.
Ticket sellers are already subject to the regulations, as we have heard. Is it a good Conservative or Liberal principle that, if the regulations are not working, you add to them? Surely you question them. Are we really saying that just adding a name to a ticket will eliminate fraud? I do not believe that either. We should encourage established secondary sellers, so that they can help us to undermine the bad sellers of tickets—the touts, if you like. Online selling and ticketing is actually a huge improvement in terms of control on the old idea whereby tickets were sold by street traders. So instead of having an emotional look at this issue—and I accept that there is a lot of emotion about it—we should look at it frankly and in great detail to see what we are doing here, rather than adding to regulation that is not working and not actually looking at the real areas where fraud is being perpetrated.
Viscount Younger of Leckie
My Lords, I agree with much of what the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, has said. I was unable to be present for that part of Committee that focused on the emotive issue of secondary ticketing, but I have read Hansard, and my first point is that I have some sympathy in reading the anecdotes and anomalies raised, notably by the noble Lords, Lord Stevenson and Lord Clement-Jones, as well as my noble friends Lord Moynihan and Lady Heyhoe Flint, among others.
I admit that there is a range of frustrating issues over the sale and resale of secondary ticketing, which have been cited. I also note that the noble Lord, Lord Pendry, is in his place; he noted in Committee that these matters have been debated over 20 years, which shows that they are not easy. I was pleased to meet my noble friends Lady Heyhoe Flint and Lord Moynihan to discuss these matters, when in my role on the Front Bench, so I am aware of many of the issues.
I start by stating the obvious. As a principle, we should not legislate or regulate when either there is existing regulation in place—and I note the comments from my noble friend Lord Deben that that means good legislation—or there are solutions coming from the market. The question is whether safeguards are in place and whether they are being utilised. In the case of business-to-consumer sales of tickets, the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 set out clearly as a list what information must be provided on tickets. There are more than 20 pieces of information requirements to which the consumer has access, and there is guidance for consumers on how to apply them to tickets. If there is a breach, the whereabouts of your seat is important—for example, if you are unexpectedly placed behind a pillar when you are watching a cricket match. Here you have redress under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008. Other potential breaches can come under the Fraud Act, as mentioned today, as an offence. The sanctions including fines or imprisonment are in place. Given the comments of my noble friend Lady Heyhoe Flint about the law being ineffectual, I would however ask the Minister if it would not be a good idea to do more, such as better publicising the sanctions and advertising warning notices for those traders, or traders posing as consumers, who might be minded to commit such offences. Of course, more offenders caught will act as a deterrent—or should do.
United Kingdom: Exports
Debate between Viscount Younger of Leckie and Lord Stoneham of Droxford
Viscount Younger of Leckie
My focus and the Government’s focus is on promoting the UK. The professional and business services sector is the UK’s largest economic sector, contributing 12% to UK employment and 11% of gross value added. To take up the noble Lord’s point about jobs, the PBS sector employs 3.8 million people, accounting for £147 billion to the UK economy. I do not at this stage want to get into the visa aspect, but I wanted to point out the importance of the sector.
Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)
My Lords, a recent report by PWC shows a 3% growth each year over the past four years in non-financial services, and the huge potential for greater growth in jobs and exports through greater liberalisation of services trade. Could my noble friend tell us what steps the Government are taking to open up the market for services trade in the EU? Are we using the clout of the EU to open up the USA?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
My noble friend makes an important point about the value of the EU. The Government have been at the forefront of championing services liberalisation, both within the EU and internationally, particularly with the US. Negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership —or TTIP, for short—were launched under the UK presidency at the G8 Lough Erne summit in June 2013. The European Union’s negotiating mandate, as endorsed by the UK, includes objectives to liberalise transatlantic financial services. TTIP could be worth up to £10 billion to the UK economy.
Royal Mail
Debate between Viscount Younger of Leckie and Lord Stoneham of Droxford
Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)
My Lords, one of the sad things about this is that at the last stage of what was otherwise a very successful privatisation it seems to have been undervalued. What lessons have the Government learnt from this? What was the implication for the advisers? Did they take a reduction in the price they charged the Government for this performance, and would the Government use those advisers again?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
The occasion will not arise for those advisers to be used, but I am pretty sure that we would use them again. Again, much work was done with those well chosen advisers. On the fees, which my noble friend raised, the investment banking syndicate fees were split into a success fee of 0.9% and a discretionary bonus of 0.3%. However, I hasten to add that that particular aspect is under review, and no decision has been made on it. There are always lessons to be learnt from these IPOs. I reiterate that this is one of the largest IPOs that has been handled for many years. One of the lessons that we should take on board—again, it is right that we should deal with it in this way—is the question of the book-building process. That is very much the traditional way in which one can build up shares in an IPO. There are other, novel ways of doing it, but we believe that it would have been too risky for such an important IPO to have taken that course.
Economy: Business Investment
Debate between Viscount Younger of Leckie and Lord Stoneham of Droxford
Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)
In the light of the good news that Hitachi is intending to invest in rolling stock manufacturing capacity and that Siemens is investing in wind farm equipment manufacturing in the UK, what further efforts are the Government making to use their procurement strength to ensure that we get more manufacturing capacity invested in the UK and more apprentices?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
My noble friend is right to highlight the excellent news that Siemens is to invest £160 million in the Hull area. Hitachi’s announcement that it will move its global rail headquarters to the UK is a further vote of confidence in companies investing in the UK. Among other actions, the Government recently announced a new college to train the next generation of world-class engineers working on the construction of High Speed 2, and we hope that it will train up to 2,000 apprentices. This will provide further opportunities for young people to have secure, long-term careers.
Automotive Industry
Debate between Viscount Younger of Leckie and Lord Stoneham of Droxford
Viscount Younger of Leckie
Indeed. It is good to hear that. Last year, we produced more than 1.5 million cars in the UK, which was 3% up on 2012, so it is a real success story, with a car rolling off a British production line every 20 seconds. The UK has now overtaken France as the third largest European car producer, behind Germany and Spain.
Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)
My Lords, the transformation of the car industry is remarkable, but only one-third of car components are sourced in the UK. With the growing concern about shortages of technical skills, does the Minister agree that a similar transformation of our technical education is urgently required?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
That is certainly true and I welcome the challenge. We established the Automotive Investment Organisation with up to £3 million-worth of funding over the next two years. It aims to double the number of jobs created or secured in the automotive supply chain through foreign direct investment over the next three years to 15,000. The Government certainly support investment, R&D and skills. For example, we fund an industry-led project with £13.4 million for training to help improve the competitiveness and capability of automotive supply chain companies.
Economy: Manufacturing
Debate between Viscount Younger of Leckie and Lord Stoneham of Droxford(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Viscount Younger of Leckie
Our industrial strategy focuses on the whole country. I note the right reverend Prelate’s point about the south-west where they are suffering so terribly from the floods. The industrial strategy has five main strands which are bearing fruit, particularly in places such as Liverpool and Tyneside, and the south-west is just as important.
Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)
My Lords, I am sure the whole House welcomes a recovery in manufacturing, but can my noble friend tell us about the Government’s preparations for potential shortages in technical skills as economic growth picks up? What plans do they have to extend the higher apprenticeship scheme?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
My Lords, the Government will provide an extra contribution of £40 million to deliver an additional 20,000 higher apprenticeship starts in the 2013-14 and 2014-15 academic years. Professional bodies are playing a key role in developing a professional apprenticeship route. The changes we have made to higher apprenticeships now provide a clear, work-based progression pathway from an apprenticeship through to higher education and professional careers.
Businesses: Employee-shareholder Scheme
Debate between Viscount Younger of Leckie and Lord Stoneham of Droxford(10 years, 11 months ago)
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Viscount Younger of Leckie
It was interesting to listen to the noble Lord opposite on that. We are doing more than the previous Government did to encourage employee-stakeholders in businesses. This particular scheme is one of several that are geared towards helping, and giving some flexibility to, young, innovative companies starting up. I am pleased to say that there were 270,000 business start-ups in the UK in 2012, the highest annual figure since 2007. In 2012, there were 15,000 more business start-ups than business closures—the second year in succession that this has occurred. Clearly, there is some success coming through, so I do not agree with the tenet of the argument.
Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)
My Lords, on the Government’s successes in employee-share extensions, will my noble friend tell us the number of Post Office employees who took up the offer of shares in the recent privatisation? On employee rights, will my noble friend tell us when the initiative of the Secretary of State for Business to have a more generous award on minimum wage rates will come to a conclusion?
Post Office
Debate between Viscount Younger of Leckie and Lord Stoneham of Droxford
Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)
My Lords, in contrast to the gloom and pessimism on the opposition Benches, I welcome the additional funding to speed up and complete the modernisation of the post office network, plus the new funding for the smaller post offices that are not suitable for the principal modernisation programme.
I congratulate the Government on the stability they have achieved and the commitment they have given to the post office network, against a background of a very difficult retail environment and after a decline of one-third in the number of post offices in the previous 13 years. This initiative recognises the importance of a local post office to the social fabric of our communities. It is important now that we work hard to ensure the commercial sustainability of the current network. That will need vital new business.
I have two questions for the Minister. What prospects does my noble friend see for the development of the Post Office current account business given the damage the commercial banks—along with, sadly, the Co-operative Bank in recent weeks—have done to their brand? With the growth of internet shopping, are our modernised post offices equipped with secure storage space and the technology to notify customers when their deliveries arrive?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
I thank my noble friend Lord Stoneham for his very strong and broad support for what the Government are doing. He makes the very important point that the post office network, and individual post offices, whether local or main branches, will now be in a much better position to compete and to offer much better, streamlined services for the customer. The whole point is that we want to create a more stable environment so that the customer can come in and have a greater offering of retail opportunities, including the financial options.
The Post Office is making good progress towards meeting its commitment to provide affordable and accessible financial services, including current accounts. In May 2013, as the noble Lord will know, it launched a current account pilot, with a national rollout expected in 2014. Alongside that, the Post Office continues to offer an extensive range of savings, credit card and mortgage products. I have no doubt that this offering will be extended as confidence is brought in again and increases in the network around the UK.