Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Gareth Thomas and Matt Western(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Gareth Thomas
I thank the hon. Lady for her kind invitation. It is possible that I will be darkening the door of businesses in her constituency this summer.
We are determined to continue working with hospitality businesses, whether in Scotland or in the rest of the country. As I said in an earlier answer, we have set out plans for a licensing taskforce to look at what else we can do to lower the cost of red tape and regulation. As the hon. Lady rightly says, we are taking measures to reform business rates, and perhaps the Scottish Government might like to follow our example.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
In my constituency, Lydia and Frankie both run businesses that employ around 50 individuals. They both have covid loans and energy loans on top of the usual business pressures they suffer. Beyond maintaining the current discount on business rates, may I urge the Government urgently to review business rates reform, which is so desperately needed?
Gareth Thomas
I recognise that my hon. Friend is a great champion of businesses in his constituency, and I was pleased to meet one of them when I was there recently. I absolutely recognise the significance of business rates reform. The Chancellor has been very clear that she is committed to business rates reform, and we will set out further detail on our plans in the Budget later this year.
Post Office Redress and Funding
Debate between Gareth Thomas and Matt Western(8 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Gareth Thomas
I am certainly happy to echo the right hon. Member’s congratulations to the noble Lord Beamish and to emphasise again my appreciation for his work on championing the concerns of those who are victims of the Capture software. He is one of those whom we will continue to work with going forward as we put together redress and think about these issues more generally.
Specifically on prosecutions, the right hon. Member may be aware that the Metropolitan police has confirmed that it has established a unit and is looking at a number of issues to do with how the Post Office operated. He will understand that, quite rightly, Ministers are not involved in those decisions, but the information that I have set out is publicly available. We will obviously all have to wait to see what happens in that regard.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
My hon. Friend rightly said that there is an urgent need to speed up the redress process. What we know is that while £500 million has been paid out in claims, £267 million has been spent on lawyers. Nigel Railton told us that between 80% and 85% of all claims are simple cases, so does my hon. Friend agree that there is a real opportunity to automate the process so that we handle claims far more quickly?
Gareth Thomas
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. Specifically on what further action we can take to speed up the process, one of the reasons why we introduced a fixed-sum payment of £75,000 for those whose claims had been accepted as part of the Horizon shortfall scheme was deliberately to offer an option of faster redress for victims.
On the question of automation, we encouraged Nigel Railton and the senior leadership at the Post Office to look at what further steps they can take to speed up the consideration of claims under the Horizon shortfall scheme, where there is particular pressure given the numbers that are still coming forward. I welcome the fact that they are coming forward, but we need faster action to get through them and to support all those whose claims are being accepted to get redress under the Horizon shortfall scheme.