Courts IT System

Debate between Anna Soubry and Lucy Frazer

Wednesday 23rd January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. It is of course users who are at the heart of the justice system. Professionals work in the justice system, but they and the system work for justice for individuals. This morning I was at a court that was functioning—I was sitting at a hearing—and of course there is that continuous reminder that we are there to serve people who want to get justice done.

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

I declare an interest, because I am still a member of the Criminal Bar Association. I am grateful to the Minister for her assurances that this situation is not related to cuts, but the simple truth of it is that if we had a better, more fully funded system, there would be proper back-ups and this rumbling problem would have been sorted out a long time ago. I am afraid I share the views of the chairman of the Criminal Bar Association. The system is now reaching crisis point and funding is primarily a problem, but it is not just about money; we could spend the money in better ways. I would be grateful if the Minister would meet me and other members of the criminal Bar in particular to discuss how we can sort out what is, I am afraid to say, a broken system.

[Lucy Frazer]

My right hon. Friend has a great deal of expertise in this subject area and I am always happy to meet her and to speak with her. She talked about back-ups, and I should say that it is because we have recently invested in the courts service that we had wi-fi back-up. The issue was in relation to the server, but because we have invested in wi-fi in courts up and down the country, many staff could continue to work during this incident.

My right hon. Friend mentioned the criminal Bar; I am a big supporter of the independent criminal Bar, as I am of solicitor advocates, who play a vital role in the delivery of justice, which is why we have recently given them £23 million more for the advocates’ graduated fee scheme. We are investing in encouraging them and hope that they continue to do their work.

My right hon. Friend mentioned the CBA; I work closely with the CBA and have met its representatives on several occasions recently, and I also work closely with the Bar Council. I want to continue to work closely with them as we move forward.

Universal Credit Roll-out

Debate between Anna Soubry and Lucy Frazer

Tuesday 24th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

The issue of how we encourage more people into work and ensure that those who are not in work have a decent standard of living is an important one and is worthy of debate. It is valuable to debate not only the principle behind universal credit and the Government’s formulation of the policy, but, given that a further roll-out is due shortly, whether there should be a further pause to resolve and discuss issues such as the timing of payments before the roll-out is extended.

Both of those are legitimate concerns, but the difficulty with the motion and the debate last week was that those two issues were conflated. On the face of it, the motion before the House purported to raise the second issue—namely, whether there should be a pause, and a pause alone. A pause is a temporary or brief interruption, after which service will resume. However, the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), in speaking in support of the motion, went far beyond arguing for a pause and instead identified fundamental weaknesses, as she saw it, in universal credit. She identified no fewer than 11 individual amendments she wanted to see. She quoted the charity Gingerbread as saying that the errors in the administration and structure of the system itself needed addressing. She concluded by saying:

“We cannot allow the devastating impacts of universal credit roll-out to happen.”—[Official Report, 18 October 2017; Vol. 629, c. 865.]

Those points are important, because when the Opposition bring an Opposition day motion before the House on an important point that affects the lives of our constituents, it is important that we as MPs know what we are voting on. When the Labour party put that motion before the House, did it intend to request a short and temporary pause to universal credit, or was it asking significant questions about the operation of universal credit? My concern is that, in that motion, the Opposition were playing politics and would have sought to use how we voted on it. If the Government had voted in favour of the motion, it would be open to the Opposition to say the Government agreed with the wider issues in universal credit outlined by the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth. If the Government had voted against the motion, the Opposition would say the Government were not even willing to agree to a short-term, temporary measure to fix administrative issues with universal credit.

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that the Opposition’s motion would have had more credibility if it had included the word “fix”? There was no mention of that. It was simply about a pause.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Anna Soubry and Lucy Frazer

Thursday 25th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Anna Soubry]

The hon. Gentleman seems to be making a very good point, which I am more than happy to discuss with the Home Office. I see that one of the relevant Ministers is already here, and we will have those conversations.

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I welcome what the Minister has said about the figures for university applications. Does she agree that we must not take our eye off the ball when it comes to other routes, and that we must also encourage BME students to take courses such as apprenticeships and ensure that they have equal status in those routes?

[Anna Soubry]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. In the city of Nottingham, I have also seen the great success of mentors and the hugely important role that they can play not only for BME youngsters but for women. Mentors do excellent work, and there is good evidence of their importance. I encourage all Members of this place to go out and make sure that in our schools everything possible is being done to make sure that there is fairness and equality.

Enterprise Bill [ Lords ] (Sixth sitting)

Debate between Anna Soubry and Lucy Frazer

Tuesday 23rd February 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Anna Soubry]

That is a good point. I am more than happy to take that one away and give her a response later.

[Lucy Frazer]

Subsection (9) states:

“Regulations may substitute a different amount for the amount for the time being specified in subsection (1)”,

so it looks as if there is provision to up the cap in future.

[Anna Soubry]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Another question that has been asked is why so much will be in secondary legislation. One reason why we are doing that is that it is genuinely a much better way to introduce something that will undoubtedly—I am not going to pretend otherwise—have its complications and nuances. It is important that we do not just introduce blanket rules, but have provisions to look at any cases that might or should be exempted.

Somebody asked a question—forgive me for not remembering who, but I think it might have been the hon. Member for Wakefield in an intervention—about the national health service, which, as she identified, has a cap of £160,000. This legislation will affect the existing cap, taking it down to £95,000.

I want to make some progress and deal with the amendments. Amendment 109 seeks to raise the cap to £145,000. I would argue that it is unclear whether the Opposition favour completely uncapped exit payments or a cap set at what could be over 10 times the maximum statutory redundancy. The Government have made it clear, however, that we want to put the figure at £95,000. We were very clear about that in our manifesto.

Amendment 105 seeks to impose a £27,000 earnings floor for the cap, but the cap will have no impact at all on the large majority of public sector workers. As I have said, it will affect only the top 5%. We are really struggling to find an example of any civil servant earning below £25,000, for example, who would be in any way affected by the cap. Those earning below £27,000 will not be caught and, in any event, we believe that this represents a generous package that many will be entitled to.

Amendments 106 and 115 would exclude those in long-term service. There may be some instances where individuals with very long-term service on more modest salaries could be affected by the cap, but as I have explained, the £95,000 represents a generous package compared with what is available to those on similar pay in the private sector. The majority of long-serving employees caught will be those with high or very high salaries.

Amendments 112, 116, 122 and 128 relate to annual revaluation. Amendments 112, 122 and 128 all seek to subject the cap to annual revaluation, while amendment 116 seeks to impose a minimum level of £95,000 for the cap. All those amendments fail to offer the flexibility that the clause provides for. The clause allows the Government to amend the level of the cap to take into account all prevailing circumstances, with the additional scrutiny of the affirmative procedure. Any form of fixed-term revaluation would just create an artificial and arbitrary mechanism. As any amendments to the cap require an affirmative procedure, the current mechanisms for changing the cap offer both flexibility and full parliamentary scrutiny.

Amendments 104 and 121 would exclude pension top-ups and payment in lieu of notice. We are not discussing retirement in the normal manner; we are discussing the additional top-ups linked to redundancy, funded by employers. As I mentioned previously, any earned pension that has been accrued by an individual is outside the cap. Again, it is really important that everybody appreciates that any sums of money paid by an employee into a pension pot of any description—anything accrued by them through their own money—is outside the cap. These top-ups linked to redundancy can greatly increase the value of pension payments above the level that has been earned through years of service. They often represent a substantial amount of an individual’s exit payments.

Payments in lieu of notice are also part of an exit payment and can be substantial for high earners—again, the emphasis really is on high earners—as some recent high-profile exits have shown. Excluding such payments would not just be unfair, but provide an obvious loophole to avoid the effect of the cap.

Amendments 108 and 124 relate to extending the waiver to local authorities and public authorities. Although we note and agree with the intentions of amendment 108 to give the full council of a local authority waiver power, I would argue that the amendment is unnecessary. Our indicative regulations, published on 3 November 2015, demonstrate that it is already our policy to give the full council of a local authority waiver power, and that will be articulated in the final regulations.

Amendment 124 seeks to grant all public sector authorities waiver powers. However, the potential inappropriate use of settlement agreements and exit payments more widely is precisely why the clause requires approval by a Minister of the Crown— rather than the employer—to relax the cap. Ministerial or full council approval means that the power will be exercised objectively with full accountability and will prevent circumvention and misuse.

For all those reasons, I very much hope that Committee members will take the view that the amendments add nothing and are not necessary, and that the Government have done the right thing by introducing the cap at £95,000. The reality is that in any event very few, if any, lower-paid workers will be affected if they are made redundant. It has to be said again that, compared with what is available in the private sector, an exit payment of £95,000 for someone who has been on low pay must be seen as generous.

Enterprise Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)

Debate between Anna Soubry and Lucy Frazer

Tuesday 9th February 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Anna Soubry]

As I said, I am going to try to confine my remarks to the amendments.

[Lucy Frazer]

The Minister is making a very good point about why public authorities are in a very different position from private entities, but does she agree that the duty of candour in litigation is an additional reason why they are different? When a case is taken against a public authority, it has a duty not to fight it as a commercial entity; fairness, not commercial success, must prevail at the end of the day. That is an additional reason why public authorities are in a different position.

[Anna Soubry]

I am grateful for my hon. and learned Friend’s very sensible contribution. She reminds us that this is not necessarily about Government. Public authorities are a huge sector in our society, and they rightly have different levels of accountability.

I remind hon. Members of Lord Mendelsohn’s words when this matter was debated in the other place:

“Of course, the origins of the Small Business Commissioner in Australia…came from very different circumstances and functions. In fact, late payment was never really part of the role. It still does not do that much.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 26 October 2015; Vol. 756, c. GC116.]

We can learn from that experience, but we need to understand that it has different roots and seeks to tackle different problems. We can learn much from it about the qualities needed in the small business commissioner. We must ensure that he or she focuses on the real mischief, which is late payment between bigger and small businesses. We are determined to tackle that problem.