Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mary Robinson and Harriett Baldwin

Tuesday 15th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Africa (Harriett Baldwin)]

May I draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to a new all-party group that has been set up to investigate deaths abroad in suspicious circumstances?

[Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)]

T9. Last year I visited St Lucia as part of a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association delegation, meeting representatives from St Lucia and Trinidad and Tobago. Britain’s vision post Brexit and its implications for the Commonwealth family of nations was a topic of discussion. Can my right hon. Friend give us an assurance that following the successful Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting, we will make every effort to strengthen our economic and diplomatic ties with those island nations?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mary Robinson and Harriett Baldwin

Monday 30th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

14. What steps he is taking to encourage innovation by defence suppliers.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Harriett Baldwin)]

With a rising defence budget and equipment plan worth £178 billion over 10 years, there are great opportunities to encourage innovation. We are spending up to 20% of our science and technology budget on research, creating an £800 million innovation fund and launching a defence and security accelerator to fund great innovative ideas fast.

[Mary Robinson]

Thales in Cheadle is a global centre for innovation and excellence in underwater combat systems and sonar. The delivery of that technology relies on the retention of high-tech skills. What steps is the Ministry of Defence taking to ensure that we continue to encourage the right environment for firms such as Thales and for smaller firms in my constituency by investing in complex engineering skills training and development to support innovation?

[Harriett Baldwin]

I draw my hon. Friend’s attention to the recently launched skills strategy, which is called “Securing Defence Skills for the Future”. The Ministry of Defence and the armed forces are already the biggest provider of apprenticeships in the UK. I know that Thales also runs highly competitive apprenticeships and graduate training programmes, and that it is particularly committed to increasing the number of women with these skills.

Connaught Income Fund

Debate between Mary Robinson and Harriett Baldwin

Tuesday 12th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Harriett Baldwin]

I have so little time, but I will try to make progress and then give way.

The FCA is an independent, non-governmental body, so I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy will agree that for me to interfere in its investigations in any way would not be appropriate.

My hon. Friend raised the question of whether the Financial Ombudsman Service has indicated a pre-determination to find against independent financial advisers, regardless of the allegations of fraudulent behaviour within the fund. It is important to note that like the FCA, the Financial Ombudsman Service is an independent, non-governmental body. It provides an independent dispute resolution service for consumers with individual complaints against financial services companies. In view of this independence, it would not be appropriate for the Government to comment or intervene in the Financial Ombudsman Service’s work on complaints against advisers who sold the Connaught Income Fund.

However, although I cannot provide comment on these details of these investigations, I am assured that the FCA has put considerable resources, time and effort into trying to achieve a good outcome for the investors affected by the failure of the fund, and that it continues to act in the best interests of the investors.

[Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Harriett Baldwin]

I shall give way to the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald) first.

--- Later in debate ---

[Harriett Baldwin]

I am sure my hon. Friend would not want me to interfere in a number of different FCA matters, but I am quite sure that the FCA will have seen the strength of feeling in the Chamber this evening.

I have one minute left so I will take a quick intervention.

[Mary Robinson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Does she agree that at the heart of this are many elderly people who have done the right thing all their lives, saved for their retirement and gone, like my constituents, to an IFA, and now it is time for the FCA to do the right thing for them?

[Harriett Baldwin]

There clearly is a lot to investigate in this case. As I said, the FCA is doing its utmost to secure the best possible outcome for investors.

I would like to reassure hon. Members about the steps that have been taken to ensure that this situation does not occur again. The FCA has brought in new rules banning the promotion of unregulated collective investment schemes to ordinary retail investors. Independent financial advisers should not be selling unregulated investment schemes to retail investors. The circumstances in which unregulated schemes can be promoted to consumers are generally restricted to certain types of qualifying investors, such as those who have a high level of understanding about investments, or high net worth individuals, for whom those products are likely to be more suitable. That is an important step to take in ensuring that such a situation does not occur in the future.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy once again for raising these important issues. His all-party group plays an incredibly important role in the parliamentary scrutiny of what the FCA is investigating, and I hope we can move forward and secure redress for his constituents and others.

Question put and agreed to.

Royal Bank of Scotland

Debate between Mary Robinson and Harriett Baldwin

Thursday 11th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Harriett Baldwin]

I really will not take any lectures on letting the country down in terms of economic management. The people who suffer the most when the banks fail, the regulatory system fails and the economy fails are the very poorest in our society. It is outrageous for the hon. Gentleman to suggest that the economic recovery, the clear turnaround in this portfolio of legacy assets and clearing up the mess that his party left behind is anything other than progress.

[Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)]

It is right for the shadow Chancellor to say that the taxpayers want their money back. It is also right, and I hope my hon. Friend agrees, that people should listen to the Governor of the Bank of England when he warns that delaying the sale of our stake in RBS would lead to a considerable net cost for the taxpayer.

[Harriett Baldwin]

I welcome my hon. Friend to her place. I agree with her. She points out an important passage in the letter from the Governor of the Bank of England. He believes, for all sorts of reasons from where he sits as our overarching economic regulator, that it is important that we come to this decision point and staging post. I also emphasise that this process will take some time. It is not something that will happen today, tomorrow or the next day. The process of clearing up the mess left behind by the previous Government is a lengthy one.