Women’s State Pension Age: Financial Redress
Debate between Julian Lewis and Caroline Nokes(3 weeks, 4 days ago)
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Sir Julian Lewis
Yes. In a way, the Government have fallen between two stools. The report, as we have heard, anticipated that the Government would be reluctant to the right the wrong done to so many people at once, but nevertheless the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman felt that justice required compensation to be paid. It knew that there would be this Government resistance, so it must have meant a lot to the ombudsman to still go down this highly unusual route of trying to present its report directly to Parliament, because it felt it would not get far by dealing with the Government directly.
One might have expected the Government to offer a scheme that fell some way short of the ombudsman’s recommendation, but their outright rejection of any restitution at all is rather insulting to the women whose complaint was upheld by the ombudsman. As we have heard, despite the DWP claiming to accept the findings, and even apologising for its maladministration, it is not offering a penny in restitution, and is relying in its response on a deeply unconvincing polling exercise that supposedly found that nine out of 10 of the affected women knew in advance that their state pension age was going to change. If that was the case, why did so many of them carry on as if nothing was going to change at all? A few moments ago, the hon. Member for Falkirk (Euan Stainbank) asked about the nature of the sampling that was done; only some 200 women born in the 1950s were included in the sample of nearly 2,000 people surveyed, which led to that misleading result.
I know the Minister has a great deal of expertise and a strong track record on issues of this sort from his former career, before he came to this House. I therefore appeal to him to at least reach out the hand of negotiation and discussion; to accept the offer that reasonable people are making to the Government; and to sit down and talk to them, and not to let the whole thing go through the courts, which would lead to an adversarial deepening of hostility and, inevitably, a less desirable outcome for everyone concerned.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
With an immediate four-minute time limit, I call Brian Leishman.
Artificial Intelligence Opportunities Action Plan
Debate between Julian Lewis and Caroline Nokes(6 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
I revert to the article in The Times mentioned by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Lincoln Jopp), headlined: “Rachel Reeves using AI to reply to Treasury emails”.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. Even if the right hon. Gentleman is quoting from a newspaper, I would prefer it if he did not use the Chancellor’s name.
Sir Julian Lewis
I beg your pardon, Madam Deputy Speaker. I did not want to misquote the headline.
Nevertheless—as we now all know who she is—I discover that, instead of corresponding with her civil servants, as I thought, I am engaging with something called a “correspondence triage automation tool”, which is used for
“the automatic matching of correspondence with appropriate standard responses”.
That might give us cause to chuckle, but can we at least have an assurance that when we write to Ministers, even if they are not replying, they will at least be informed of the fact that concerns have been raised by Members of this House?
Public Spending: Inheritance
Debate between Julian Lewis and Caroline Nokes(11 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Congratulations on your election, Madam Deputy Speaker.
I cannot hope to match the splendid double entendre of the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy), but I may I say to the Chancellor that one effect of being here for a long time is a realisation that no one party has a monopoly on wisdom? Given the impartial assessment by the Library that covid cost this country between £310 billion and £410 billion, is she willing to at least concede that the previous Government did a pretty good job in getting inflation down to 2% less than two years after the pandemic?
Leaving the EU: Rights of EU Citizens
Debate between Julian Lewis and Caroline Nokes(6 years, 8 months ago)
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Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Does the Minister share my surprise at recent press reports suggesting that EU citizens living in the United Kingdom after Brexit would be offered full voting rights in Westminster parliamentary elections? Will she confirm that that is not going to happen?
Caroline Nokes
I thank my right hon. Friend for that question. Deciding who can vote in UK elections is a Cabinet Office competence. EU citizens currently have the right to vote in local elections and that will prevail until there is a change in primary legislation. However, such matters are for future discussion and negotiation, and I cannot set them out today.
Cruise Market (Competition)
Debate between Julian Lewis and Caroline Nokes(13 years ago)
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Caroline Nokes
The hon. Lady is correct. I commend her on the extensive work that she has done on the subject. She hits the nail on the head: state aid and fairness are what matter.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Before my hon. Friend gets back into her stride, does she agree that good faith, as well as fairness, should come into account? It was revealed, as a result of a freedom of information request, that Liverpool city council resisted pressing for a turnaround facility at the outset
“due to advice that there could be state aid complications which could prevent the terminal being built at all.”
The key words are:
“Their approach was to build as a port of call facility and address turnaround later.”
It seems that it was using a Trojan horse tactic and acting in very bad faith.
Caroline Nokes
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. It is partly about good faith and trusting that the port of Liverpool and Liverpool city council will abide by conditions and rules that are set for them.
By 2008, Liverpool city council had launched its first attempt to lift the conditions, and the conclusion, after a detailed assessment by the Department for Transport, was that the change of use to turnaround cruises would have an
“unfair and adverse effect on competition between Liverpool and other cruise ports. It would be unfair to allow one port to benefit when competitors have found, or would have to find, private money to achieve the same objective.”
And so to today. The Government have decided, “based on independent advice”—even though that advice is from First Economics, a consultancy that freely admits it is not expert in either competition or the cruise industry—that they will withdraw their objection to removing the funding condition and Liverpool being used for turnaround calls, provided Liverpool repays either £8.8 million upfront or £12.6 million over 15 years. None of the European regional development fund money would have to be paid back, but—this is crucial and goes back to the good faith argument—state aid clearance from the European Commission would have to be secured.