(4 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberOne of the problems with this crisis is that we do not know how long it is going to last. I have businesses in my constituency—events companies, conference companies and sporting companies—that have long lead-in times to organise their events, but they cannot cancel them yet and thereby claim insurance because there is no Government guidance. Do the Government have any plans to give guidance, particularly to the insurance companies and events companies, that will perhaps say, “No events for the next six months”?
We are working closely with the insurance industry, and obviously events companies are underpinned by contractual obligations. We established that if they have cover relevant to non-specified diseases, the announcements by the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have triggered those policies to be paid out, but I am happy to look at any specific cases that individual Members want to bring to me, which I can take up with industry representatives.
(4 years, 10 months ago)
Commons Chamber(5 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberUrgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
The hon. and learned Lady makes a reasonable point. It would be perverse to shred relevant materials in the context of a provision that they have entered into freely, showing a lot of good will, to try to find resolution and get to a better point of trust between the public and themselves.
This is not just about one case. The description that the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) gave of the sale of tailored business loans is identical to the case of my constituent. Furthermore, that constituent has clear, documented and contemporaneous evidence of deliberate false representation by the bank to the Treasury Committee, the Financial Ombudsman Service and the FCA. I venture to say to the Minister, for whom I have a lot of respect, that this is widespread across the banking sector. We have seen the activities of the Royal Bank of Scotland Global Restructuring Group in attacking SMEs. Much as I support the idea of a tribunal, surely now is the time to go further and have a full public inquiry into the character of banking.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. The key issue for many of these people, who have been waiting for a very long time—sometimes up to 10 or 11 years and longer—is to make sure they can get access to a mechanism that interrogates the evidence and deals with it swiftly. I was not indicating to my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) that we should not say there are not parallels or themes, but I just feel that we have to look at the evidence on a case-by-case basis. I am certain that there is good will in the dispute resolution mechanism to interrogate thoroughly past cases that are unresolved.
(6 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberUrgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
The truth is that this is typical crackpottery by the Brexit extremists on the Conservative Benches, who seem to be running the show over there at the moment. Will the Minister tell us what the effect will be on the aerospace sector and on Airbus next to my constituency of leaving and being outside the customs union, as opposed to remaining in and protecting those jobs?