Summer Adjournment

Gareth Thomas Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I wish to raise two issues. The first involves a group of eight banks, particularly the Royal Bank of Scotland, which has lent money to Davenham Trust Ltd. Davenham intends on Thursday to seek the bankruptcy of my constituent Mr Mark White, having lent one of his businesses £1.7 million. He has repaid approximately £2.2 million, so that is Davenham’s capital plus interest, albeit not the full sum that Davenham is demanding.

I have written to the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills to raise concerns about other aspects of the case, but there are four questions that the Treasury should demand that the Royal Bank of Scotland answer, in its role as administrator of a £300 million lending facility to Davenham. What knowledge of Davenham’s financial problems has it had; how involved has it been in the effort to keep Davenham afloat; what knowledge has it had of efforts to replace Davenham’s board; and finally, what knowledge and scrutiny of Davenham’s business strategy did it have before granting it extended facilities earlier this year, and does it have now?

Bankruptcy would not only mean my constituent losing his home—a bad enough outcome and traumatic for him and his family—but would put at risk a separate company with 200 employees. At that company’s request I spoke to representatives of the Royal Bank of Scotland on Friday, and they made it clear that it is anything but their normal practice to intervene in such a situation. However, I repeat in the House today the request that I put to them on Friday. The times that we are in are tough enough, and RBS should recognise the opportunity to do the right thing and intervene to try to prevent bankruptcy. I hope the Treasury will encourage it in that view.

The second case that I wish to mention involves my constituent Mr Ashok Chatterjee, who was allowed to submit claims for overnight stays that he made while working at RAF Wyton, first at the Alconbury House hotel and later, after it closed, at the Alconbury motel. The Ministry of Defence for a long time believed that my constituent had falsified claims for the one hotel, long after it closed, when in actual fact he was claiming, as allowed, for a stay at a similarly named but different premises. My constituent’s nightmare began when he was formally interviewed concerning possible abuse of his monthly claims. Over the next two years, he was suspended from duty, then reinstated, and then threatened with criminal charges, which were dropped. He was eventually reprimanded, but at the end of the MOD’s appeal process, when the then Permanent Secretary at the Ministry, Sir Kevin Tebbit, revoked the charges against my constituent, he noted significant procedural flaws in how the MOD had handled the case. Sir Kevin also concluded that the personal record of my constituent in his time at the MOD should be restored to one of integrity and honesty.

I feel a deep sympathy for Mr Chatterjee and his family, for whom this has been a terrible experience. He has not been able to put it behind him and move on with his life, suffering considerable stress and illness as a result. I have written to a number of Secretaries of State for Defence, who have not been willing to consider the case for compensation. Mr Chatterjee could not afford to take the financial risk of court action, so I use this debate to ask the MOD to look at all the papers relating to the handling of the original disciplinary charge, in particular, and his appeal, one further time, and consider whether the handling of his case does not in fact merit some out-of-court compensation for the trauma he has gone through, and indeed is still going through.