European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Antoinette Sandbach and Chris Leslie

Report stage: First Day: House of Commons
Tuesday 16th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Leslie]

I do have to conclude my speech, but I will give way to the hon. Lady first.

[Antoinette Sandbach]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, but this country is a leader in animal welfare legislation, having introduced the concept of unnecessary suffering in 1915 and, in effect, the first protections for animal welfare, and we have continued that process. Indeed, this Government have reformed animal welfare and this country has high animal welfare protection standards.

[Mr Leslie]

We do have high animal welfare standards. I do not deny that there could always be improvements, but I want to retain what our constituents want, which is high standards. By leaving the European Union in this particular way, I worry that we will be forcing ourselves to chase after trade deals with other jurisdictions that have a totally different approach to regulation. The world effectively has three regulatory philosophies: the Chinese have a particular view of regulation; the European Union has a precautionary principle; and the Americans have a different cost-benefit analysis view of the world. If we depart from the precautionary principle ambit, that will affect agriculture, animal rights and many other issues. It would lead to wholly different and lower regulatory standards, which in some ways is the backdrop to this whole question.

Equitable Life

Debate between Antoinette Sandbach and Chris Leslie

Thursday 11th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Antoinette Sandbach]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention, because his point about regulatory failure is absolutely key. Had the regulator been doing its job properly and effectively, we would not be in this situation. That is what lies behind the requests for fairness, justice and equity for the policyholders, who were entitled to believe that proper, appropriate and fit regulation was in place and would keep their policies safe. That is the inherent injustice about which those policyholders are rightly aggrieved. As my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East has said, it is unarguable that the unspent £139 million must be distributed among the pre-1992 policyholders.

[Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am listening carefully to the hon. Lady’s argument. I think that all Members want to find a constructive, positive approach. It occurs to me that a number of those who are not eligible for compensation might be falling on social security benefits, which, of course, is a cost to the taxpayer. Perhaps this is too difficult for us as individual Members, but I wonder whether it would be possible to do some modelling in order to see whether that accruing cost to the taxpayer would justify changing the compensation profile at this early stage. If we are trying to find ways to find money to improve the compensation offer, perhaps that would be an option.

[Antoinette Sandbach]

I am sure that the Exchequer Secretary has listened to the hon. Gentleman’s submission and I have no doubt that he will pay due regard to it. The Government have announced that payments to non-profit annuity policyholders who are on pension credit will be doubled, so some action has been taken, but we will not get to the heart of the unfairness until the regulatory failure has been properly addressed. That is what I am arguing for on behalf of my constituents.

We know that there are difficult spending decisions to be made, but these people trusted the system and paid in, in good faith, over many years, only to find that there has been consistent, repeated and unwarranted failure of regulation, and that it was so bad that there was found to be maladministration. In such circumstances, our constituents should not be having to pay the price for the failure of Government.