Ministerial Appointments: Vetting and Managing Conflicts of Interest

Debate between Jeremy Quin and Richard Burgon

Monday 23rd January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

Indeed. I have absolutely no doubt that my right hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon will co-operate in every way with the independent adviser to make certain that all the facts are known. In due course, the independent adviser will come to his conclusions, and the summarised conclusions will be published.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister stood on the steps of No. 10 Downing Street and promised the nation that he would act with integrity, yet here we are again. Is this whole affair not yet more proof that there are far more likely to be conflicts of interest when we have a Government of the super-rich, for the super-rich?

[Jeremy Quin]

I would never have guessed that I would get a question along those lines from the hon. Gentleman. The important thing, as the Prime Minister said, is integrity, accountability and professionalism. That is absolutely right; that absolutely underpins this Government. Part of that is about making certain that we have the facts—and that is what we are undertaking to do under the auspices of the independent adviser.

Procurement Bill [Lords]

Debate between Jeremy Quin and Richard Burgon

2nd reading
Monday 9th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

I am not familiar with the specifics of project bank accounts, to be perfectly frank. We have put measures in place to protect supply chains in the event of the collapse of a prime supplier, but I will take this up with my officials and write back to the hon. Lady.

In recognition of the specific needs of defence and security procurement, and to help deliver the defence and security industrial strategy, a number of provisions specifically apply to defence and security contracts. These provisions will provide flexibility for contracts to be upgraded to refresh technology and avoid gaps in military capability. There will continue to be special rules for certain social, health and education services, to be identified in secondary legislation, that may be procured as so-called light touch contracts, recognising the particular domestic and social aspects that should be captured in such procurements.

The interaction with regulations being prepared under the Health and Care Act 2022 was the subject of particular attention when the Bill was considered in the other place, and it may well be of interest to this House. The Bill will apply to most areas of NHS procurement of goods and services to help drive efficiency and value for money. However, the Health and Care Act regime is intended to address the specific requirements of the health and care system and to fulfil the Government’s intention to deliver greater collaboration and integration in the arrangement of clinical healthcare services.

Let me be clear that the Bill strengthens the NHS’s ability to deliver. The reforms to healthcare commissioning in the Health and Care Act will give commissioners more flexibility in how they arrange services so that both procurement systems can work effectively and deliver care for patients.

The Bill sets out the key principles and objectives of public procurement. These place value for money, public benefit, transparency and integrity at the heart of our procurement system. As well as competition and efficiency, there must be good management to prevent misconduct.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

Public procurement is one key way in which the Government can set a framework whereby employers’ standards can be driven up and a good example can be given to other employers. So will the Minister accept an amendment that gives priority when awarding Government contracts to the many thousands of companies that pay their staff the real living wage?

[Jeremy Quin]

I do not think this is the process whereby we tell employers what they should be paying their employees; that would be a big reach too far. The hon. Gentleman will be pleased that this Bill contains provisions that ensure that we can prevent companies that commit misconduct from taking part in procurements, and that can be in any range of areas. However, this is not the Bill by which we are going to be regulating employees’ pay.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Quin and Richard Burgon

Thursday 8th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

We will do our utmost to ensure that public services continue and that the public do not suffer as a result of these strikes, although inconvenience is inevitable when strike action of this nature takes place. I regret that it is taking place. I hope that the workers involved will not go on strike and will continue to work in the public interest. We really value the work and the services they do, but there has to be a recognition that the scale of demands being made on us is not affordable for the taxpayer at this time. That is sad, but it is a fact.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

15. What progress the Government have made on enshrining in law the public good, value for money, transparency, integrity, fair treatment of suppliers and non-discrimination as principles of public procurement.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Quin and Richard Burgon

Thursday 27th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

15. Whether the Government plans to make reductions to public services to meet its objective to reduce the number of civil servants by 91,000.

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Jeremy Quin)]

In recent years the civil service has delivered in the face of unprecedented challenges. This Government are focused on improving efficiency and reducing the cost of public service delivery. The Government are totally committed to delivering high-quality public services and want to do so as effectively and efficiently as possible.

[Richard Burgon]

I thank the Minister for his answer. However, such job losses risk even longer backlogs for services such as issuing passports and driving licences—systems that are already in chaos—and they will not even deliver savings to the taxpayer. A new study by economists employed in the Government Department shows that, in addition to the short-term bill for redundancy payments, these plans could drain £3 billion annually from the UK economy and result in the knock-on effect of the loss of 118,000 private sector jobs. With civil servants feeling increasingly overworked and underpaid, should not the Minister drop these reckless proposals?

[Jeremy Quin]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman recognises that, given what is going on in the world at the moment and the pressures on household incomes, what every person in this country wants is high-quality public services but delivered as effectively and efficiently as possible. He is wrong to assume that just because we have x number of people we need to always keep x number of people. There are innovations we can do, which are common in the private sector, such as the use of digital networks and of AI to support strong delivery of public services. None of these should be ignored or forgotten about as a way of delivering high-quality public services on an efficient and effective basis.

Royal Bank of Scotland

Debate between Jeremy Quin and Richard Burgon

Thursday 5th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor) on securing this debate, and thank the Backbench Business Committee for giving Members time to discuss this important and topical issue in the Chamber. I am pleased that so many have taken part. It is a real pleasure to join the Minister and to respond on behalf of the Opposition for the first time in the Chamber.

We have discussed a proposal that asks the Government to consider suspending the further sale of their shares in RBS while a review is conducted of the UK’s financial sector and the case for new banking models. It is a simple motion and all Opposition Members support it.

This discussion of the causes and consequences of RBS’s bail-outs and of the Chancellor’s ongoing plans to sell off RBS, with a resulting cost to the taxpayer, has also been an excellent opportunity to discuss the future of RBS and of British banking as a whole, including the new models and structures that may benefit the British economy. The Government must engage in this debate, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham and Rainham (Jon Cruddas) so effectively set out in his speech.

Labour Members want a thriving and dynamic banking sector that will best deliver for the economy and the electorate as a whole. In government, Labour decided to bail out RBS. That was a big decision—a £45 billion decision—but it was the right one given the calamitous situation in RBS, which my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) outlined so effectively. According to the National Audit Office, the decision was justified, and the price was backed by Institute for Fiscal Studies, but the scale of the bail-out—the money invested on behalf of the taxpayer—means that we cannot so lightly take a simple decision to return to business as usual.

The Chancellor argued in his Mansion House speech earlier this year that

“the easiest path for the politician is to put off the decision”.

I believe that the Chancellor has taken the easy decision to return, as I have said, to business as usual. The former shadow Chancellor my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie) said at the time that

“taxpayers who bailed out the bank will want their money back… The Chancellor needs to justify his haste in selling off a chunk of RBS”.

Both those points still stand: taxpayers still want their money back, and the Chancellor must still justify his haste.

Let us be clear that we cannot afford to get this sale wrong. The evidence of the Move Your Money poll, which was presented to us in the media this morning and by my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton, shows that the public think the Government are getting it wrong: 82% of those polled agree, given their own interest as the majority shareholder in RBS, that this should operate in the public interest, and 58% believe that the bank should be restructured to serve local economies throughout the UK.

[Jeremy Quin]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Richard Burgon]

No, because I want to give the Minister as much time as possible to respond.

It is incumbent on the Minister and the Chancellor to set out why they are moving ahead with the sale. What evidence does the Minister have that it is the right thing to do? This is the first opportunity for a full parliamentary debate on the decision of the Chancellor to privatise RBS since his announcement to the City at the Mansion House in June. He did make a statement the following day, but informing the House was clearly something of an afterthought, as my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) clearly spelled out. At the Mansion House, the Chancellor announced a share sale even if it meant a financial loss to the taxpayer. The 5% stake sold on 3 August has already realised a loss of £1 billion, and some calculations suggest that the total losses if the entire stake is sold in this way could be about £13 billion, which is almost a third of the £45.5 billion total cost of the bail-out.

The Government have provided no real evidence of why RBS should be returned to the private sector in its previous form or why it should happen now. A 13-page report by the Rothschild Group and a two-page letter from the Governor of the Bank of England have been mentioned. The authors of the Rothschild report stressed that they had

“not sought to address the question of whether the government should sell its stake in RBS, but rather when it should do so.”

In other words, the review did not consider the full range of policy options. Will the Minister elaborate on how moving RBS shares from public to private ownership will promote financial stability, and on whether the relevant Bank of England Committee has endorsed that view? Will she publish any evidence she has received in support of that view?

It is welcome that the right hon. Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie), the Chair of the Treasury Committee, has asked to see the advice provided by UKFI to ensure that the taxpayer, as shareholder, is getting good value from this Government-owned company. I support that call. Is the timing of this sale in the interests of taxpayers or bank customers, or does the Chancellor just want to sell off another state asset quickly to make his borrowing figures look better? Was this decision taken purely for ideological reasons, or is it based on expert, independent advice? Will the Minister explain how the Chancellor arrived at his decision? In line with the call by my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman), will the Minister share the evidence, if she has any, with Members of the House?

I will turn to alternative models and structures for RBS and the future of British banking. I ask the Government to consider undertaking a full review of UK banking that questions how financial institutions have operated before and since the crash, and what other models might be considered to diversify the sector and deliver for the country by strengthening the economy.

There has been a much needed discussion of banking practices and reform over the past five years. We have had Lawrence Tomlinson’s report, Sir Andrew Large’s report on RBS’s independent lending, Sir John Vickers’ Independent Commission on Banking, and the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards and the work of the Treasury Committee, both under the excellent leadership of the right hon. Member for Chichester, to name but a few.

Given how badly things went wrong and the problems that still exist at the bank, the question we must discuss today is how we can do it better. We need to know not only why RBS failed, but whether it is delivering for the British economy now, and, if it is not, how we can do it better.

Labour was right to bail out RBS, but how has it operated since the Government became the majority shareholder? RBS has been bailed out, but there are still major problems with its operation, as the hon. Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb) indicated in his speech. It has cut more than 30,000 staff since 2008, many of whom were backroom staff on about £20,000 per year. It is closing branches faster than any other bank, and 90 of those it has closed this year were the last branch in town.

The Tomlinson report said in 2011:

“Returning RBS and Lloyds to full private sector ownership in their current form would be a return to the banking landscape of 2003, possibly with even less competition… Given the lack of any real change in the banking sector, there is nothing that will stop 2018 being the same as 2008 unless radical action is taken now.”

The Andrew Large report found that RBS was failing SMEs. He said:

“A perception has risen among some SMEs that RBS is unwilling to lend.”

I want to take this opportunity to touch on how RBS has been treating businesses. The House will recall the Backbench Business debate on 4 December last year on the Financial Conduct Authority redress scheme, in which hon. Members raised the serious concerns of businesses. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) stated:

“The only thing that is consistent and transparent is that the banks that caused the financial crash are profiting from selling products such as interest rate hedging products, which were bought by a company in my constituency, the Flanagan Group, and have caused it great difficulty.”

Similarly, my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Paul Farrelly) talked about one of his local businesses, DK Motorcycles, which had been “badly let down” by RBS, but had

“finally escaped the clutches of RBS”.

He talked about

“people from small businesses who feel bullied by their banks”.—[Official Report, 4 December 2014; Vol. 589, c. 480-84.]

Information that I have seen this week shows that the serious concerns of businesses such as Flanagan’s have not gone away. I therefore want to take this opportunity to ask the Minister whether she will meet me, concerned MPs like my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton and businesses such as the Flanagan Group in his constituency to discuss the behaviour of RBS and what can be done to resolve the situation.

That leads me to the question that was put so well by my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West (Mr Bailey) of whether selling RBS in its current form represents good long-term value for the taxpayer, taking into account all the economic costs and benefits. Is the Minister aware of those who say that the low price of RBS shares represents a belief among market participants that the reforms to guarantee its future financial health have not yet been concluded? Is the Minister satisfied that all necessary steps have been taken to return RBS to a state where it will not be in trouble again? Finally, is the economy best served solely by private shareholder banking, or is there a case for a more diversified sector that includes publicly owned and directed institutions, mutuals, co-operatives, social enterprises and regionalised banking? With so many fundamental questions yet to be answered, it is right that we engage in a wider review of the UK’s financial sector that considers the case for establishing new models of banking that might better serve our economy.

In conclusion, there are many alternatives. It has been proposed from a number of quarters that RBS be broken up to deliver regional banks, including by the Tomlinson report, the New Economics Foundation, Civitas and ResPublica, as Opposition Members have mentioned. We must discuss how regional banks can help to rebalance the economy—perhaps the Chancellor took the opportunity while visiting Germany to look into that.

It is our responsibility to map out the best way forward for UK banking, so that it delivers for the electorate and the economy as a whole. That means suspending sales of shares in RBS, which give away taxpayers’ money to private shareholders. It is incumbent on the Chancellor to explain why he thinks that is the right thing to do, and that means engaging with a real review of the banking sector and alternative models that will deliver a diversified and more resilient economy. How we treat RBS now will demonstrate whether we have learned the lessons of the crisis—