Thomas Cook Customers Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Christine Jardine
Main Page: Christine Jardine (Liberal Democrat - Edinburgh West)Department Debates - View all Christine Jardine's debates with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Thomas Cook Customers
Christine Jardine Excerpts(5 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Andrea Leadsom
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his recognition of the fact that it felt important to raise this before the House prior to Dissolution. He is absolutely right. In doing so, we seek to provide some sort of reassurance to those who have been profoundly impacted by accidents and illnesses overseas on Thomas Cook holidays. He asked whether there could have been any legitimate expectation that this might have happened. That is not the case. It was never anticipated that a business such as Thomas Cook would not have adequately provided for such claims that were known to them. I am putting on notice today that any future Government––I am sure that the Opposition spokesman has made similar a commitment––will wish to resolve this to ensure that it cannot happen again. BEIS officials will work over the next few weeks to bring forward proposals on how to ensure that this cannot be repeated.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
I share the Secretary of State’s surprise and horror that Thomas Cook was operating without the necessary insurance. Many of my constituents and, indeed, I myself travelled with Thomas Cook unknowing. We all assume that the safeguards that we see with travel companies through the Association of British Travel Agents and so on ensure that we are travelling safely and that we are protected. Will the Secretary of State assure us that there will be safeguards to ensure not just that we investigate what went wrong at Thomas Cook, but that all travel companies, or anyone offering travel in this country, is properly insured?
Andrea Leadsom
The hon. Lady gives me the opportunity to say this again: I call on all similar travel and tour operators to ensure that they covered this and that they have not got a similar arrangement to the one that Thomas Cook had. I can assure her that BEIS officials during the next few weeks will bring forward proposals for ensuring that this does not happen again