Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chi Onwurah and Grant Shapps

Tuesday 18th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

T5. The experience of my constituents who are on prepayment meters is atrocious, and today’s announcement from Ofcom will do absolutely nothing to protect vulnerable groups such as those with Alzheimer’s, the under-fives and those who are over 75 but under 85. Will the Secretary of State answer the question he did not answer earlier, and say why he is not protecting the vulnerable from prepayment meters and the lack of energy support?

[Grant Shapps]

Just to correct the record, Ofgem is in charge. The measures it put out today, with industry agreement, will help to protect people. When a person’s payments are in deficit, they have to find a way out. The hon. Lady appears to favour a system in which, rather than installing a prepayment meter, people are immediately taken to court, which I do not think is a good solution. We will carry on working with Ofgem to make sure we put the best solutions in place.

Post Office: GLO Compensation Scheme

Debate between Chi Onwurah and Grant Shapps

Wednesday 7th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

I welcome today’s statement and apology, which represent an important step forward in the delivery of justice following what may well be the largest miscarriage of justice in our country’s history. There have been 900 prosecutions. All the postmasters involved have their own stories of dreams crushed, careers ruined, families destroyed, reputations smashed, and lives lost. Innocent people have been bankrupted and imprisoned.

Let me start by paying tribute to the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance, the campaigning group, and to the hundreds of sub-postmasters whom no monetary amount can compensate for the injustice that they have suffered. This has been a long walk towards justice, and Members in all parts of the House have stood and spoken out in solidarity with the postmasters. I want to recognise, in particular, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) and Lord Arbuthnot, who are rightly to be members of the independent advisory board.

I also pay tribute to the Minister who was previously formerly responsible for the Post Office, the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully). I do not do so lightly, but after successive Conservative Governments had sat on the scandal, he was the first to take hold of it and eventually—following much campaigning by Members of Parliament and members of the Labour party—to establish a statutory inquiry. Finally, I want to thank the journalist Nick Wallis, whose BBC Radio 4 series “The Great Post Office Trial” did much to bring this scandal to general attention.

While I am pleased that some kind of acceptable outcome for the postmasters seems finally to be in sight, I have some questions to ask. The press release refers to a compensation scheme for postmasters who helped to expose the scandal, but I remind the Secretary of State that it was his Government who spent years aiding and abetting the Post Office in targeting those self-same postmasters who were looking for justice. Nearly £100 million was spent by the Post Office to defend the indefensible as part of a campaign of intimidation and deceit. The Government are the only shareholder in the Post Office, so it is right for the Secretary of State to take responsibility.

At the core of this unforgivable scandal is the belief that workers were dishonest and technology infallible. Perhaps that is not surprising, given the Government’s track record on defending the rights of working people. Decent, honest people have had their lives torn apart, have been put in prison, and have been made to wait years for justice. Will the Secretary of State tell us how long he expects it will take for this scheme, and the other schemes, to pay the appropriate compensation, and whether the aim of these schemes is to return people to what would have been their original position had it not been for their involvement in Horizon? Will he also tell us which legal firm will be involved in the administration of this scheme, and whether that firm has previously advised either the Government or the Post Office on this matter?

Value for taxpayers’ money is a key consideration on this side of the House, even if the Government like to waste it. Having wasted tens of millions of pounds on persecuting postmasters, can the Secretary of State tell us where the money for the scheme will come from as we face a cost of living crisis made in Downing Street? Will post office services suffer, or will other budgets be cut? The press release does not mention the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance or Alan Bates, who led its efforts. Does the scheme have their full support?

I hope the Secretary of State agrees that those who were involved in this injustice should not benefit from their involvement. Will he tell us how he intends to hold Fujitsu to account, and whether it is still being given Government contracts? Will he also tell us whether he supports the continued retention of the CBE that was awarded to Paula Vennells—who oversaw the Horizon scandal—for services to the Post Office?

The Post Office is a national institution. It is part of so many of our lives. Its reputation has been hugely tarnished by this scandal, and I hope the Secretary of State will tell us how he intends to ensure that this never happens again and that the sub-postmasters receive justice as soon as possible.

[Grant Shapps]

I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s comments, although I rather hoped the House would come together today and debate this matter in a non-political, cross-party way, and she sought to make a number of, I think, somewhat inappropriate political points. I should gently point out that it was her party that was in power for the first 11 years of this scandal. I am pleased that we have worked across parties to fix it, and I think we should leave it there.

Earlier today I spoke to Alan Bates, the founder and leader of the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance, who is sitting in the Public Gallery. Obviously the members of the JFSA will speak for themselves, as they always have, about the extent to which they are satisfied with today’s statement, but we have been working closely together. The Minister for Enterprise, Markets and Small Business, my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), has been meeting them as well, and will be keeping a close eye on the operation of the scheme.

I reiterate the hon. Lady’s comments in thanking not just the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) —as I did earlier—but my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully), Lord Arbuthnot, and others who have campaigned endlessly on this issue, including the BBC journalist Nick Wallis, who has played an important role in this long battle.

The hon. Lady asked about timescales. As I said in my statement, we aim to complete this part of the scheme by the end of 2023, or, I hope, sooner. The large number of documents that we are putting online this morning will enable people to get on with processing their applications before making formal applications early next year. Sir Wyn Williams, who is conducting the formal inquiry, will, I hope, be able to shed significant light on what went wrong and provide a set of recommendations to prevent it from happening again. I have no doubt that Members, certainly on this side of the House, will be anxiously awaiting those recommendations.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chi Onwurah and Grant Shapps

Thursday 3rd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

My constituents already face long waits for overpriced bus services without the real-time data that Londoners take for granted, and now we hear that there will be further cuts to bus services. We urgently need a bus service improvement plan. Why will the Secretary of State not urgently support one?

[Grant Shapps]

As I have mentioned a couple of times, we have the biggest ever programme of bus service improvements. We have gone out to local authorities to ask them for their plans, and we have funded them to bring forward those plans. They are now coming back with the first stages in the levelling-up White Paper. We will continue to deliver more on the bus agenda over time.

Integrated Rail Plan: North and Midlands

Debate between Chi Onwurah and Grant Shapps

Thursday 18th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The design refinement consultation is under way and will address many of his ongoing concerns, and he is meeting my hon. Friend the HS2 Minister.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

It is not rocket science: the road to levelling up, however we define it, goes by rail. That is the only way the north can achieve the level of economic integration necessary to deliver the high-pay, high-productivity jobs that my constituents deserve. Will the Secretary of State confirm that this watered-down, broken-promise plan, made in Whitehall, not the north, means that every single Tory MP with a seat in the north-east will go into the next election on a platform of “We did you over last time; please let us do you over again”?

[Grant Shapps]

No, they will go in on the platform of saying that we have reduced journey times, provided more seats and increased capacity and reliability. For example, Newcastle to Peterborough is a big winner, with 21 minutes cut off the train journey to London. I do not know about my hon. Friends, but I think they will have plenty to say.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chi Onwurah and Grant Shapps

Thursday 4th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State and the Chancellor press-released that the Budget would invest in northern transport, but once again the north-east was entirely overlooked. It costs more for a Geordie to go four stops up the West Road on a bus than it does for a Londoner to traverse the whole of London city, so when will the Secretary of State level down bus prices?

[Grant Shapps]

The hon. Lady will be familiar with our enthusiasm for buses and the “Bus Back Better” strategy. I have personally been involved with putting tens of millions of pounds into the excellent Nexus system, which helps to connect communities as well. She will simply not find a Government more keen and excited about levelling up transport and bringing it all the way up the country no matter where hon. Members are from.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chi Onwurah and Grant Shapps

Thursday 12th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and that is where the £5 billion national bus strategy, which we will be publishing shortly, comes in. Our aim is quite simply to get to a London standard of service throughout the country, including in rural areas and his constituency.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

For £1.50 in London—which the Secretary of State mentioned—I can get two buses anywhere across the capital for up to 30 miles. In Newcastle, £1.50 will not even get me three stops up the West Road, while if I want to go to Ashington, which is 18 miles away, it will cost me £8. Can we have a comparative study of bus fares in London and the north-east so that we can understand what we need to do to make them fairer and improve bus patronage?

[Grant Shapps]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. I can assure her that that is exactly the process that we will be following in developing the national bus strategy, and I would be more than happy to work with her and incorporate her ideas. We can argue about the past, but it sounds to me that we both want to see bus services that are excellent for all our constituents, so I completely agree with her.