Banking in North Ayrshire

Debate between Neil Gray and Patricia Gibson

Wednesday 14th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Patricia Gibson]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about that. The banks talk about online banking as though it is a choice, but for many people it is not a choice, as they are digitally excluded. Many people may not be digitally excluded but may simply decide that online banking is not for them, for whatever reason. For the record, I put myself in that category, as I choose not to bank online. The point is that it should be up to the customer to choose how and when they bank, and it is not up to the banks to make that decision for us. But what we have now is a situation where the banks have decided, most cynically, that those of us who have chosen not to bank online must be herded into that particular pen, despite our will.

[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

I congratulate and commend my hon. Friend on securing the debate and on the way she is strongly presenting her argument. Will she comment on the strength of feeling in North Ayrshire about the footfall figures that have been released—or have not been released—by RBS on the branches there? There is certainly a feeling in Airdrie, where RBS is trying to close one of my local branches, that it has not provided sufficient or accurate information on the justification for those closures, which is very concerning.

[Patricia Gibson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct about that. We all know, as we have all seen in our own constituencies, the jiggery-pokery that has taken place in the presentation of these figures, which do not reveal—[Interruption.] I am hoping that this is the first time “jiggery-pokery” will appear in Hansard.

Roadchef Employees Benefit Trust

Debate between Neil Gray and Patricia Gibson

Tuesday 19th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for granting this debate. I thank the hon. Members from across the House who have so far agreed to stay back to listen and perhaps contribute to the debate. What I am looking to discuss this evening can be boiled down to basic fairness and people getting access to what is rightfully theirs. I think it is important to set out some context to where we are today, before I come to the main points that I hope the Minister might be able to help with.

In 1986, the Roadchef employees benefit trust was established to give employees at Roadchef motorway services, such as those at Harthill in my constituency, Watford Gap, Hamilton or dozens of other locations across these isles, access to a John-Lewis-style employee-ownership scheme, whereby they would benefit from increasing share entitlements based on length of service. It was established honourably by the then chief executive Patrick Gee in consultation with and with the support of the GMB union. Sadly and tragically, Patrick Gee died aged 43 before the scheme could be fully realised and Tim Ingram Hill took over. He then transferred the shares that Mr Gee was making available to employees into a second employee benefit scheme, of which he was the only beneficiary.

When Roadchef was subsequently sold to the Japanese company Nikko about a decade later, Mr Ingram Hill made approaching £30 million on the shares that should have been made available to Roadchef employees. In 2000, he made a tax payment on his ill-gotten share windfall to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to the tune of approximately £10 million, something which has only to come to light further down the line. On discovering the unjust enrichment, the trust then took Mr Ingram Hill to the High Court, and Justice Proudman found that he had acted in breach of trust and, crucially, that the shares were never his in the first place—they were the employees’ shares. The purchase of the shares in the sale of the company was therefore void and—this is important—the £10 million paid to HMRC also belonged to the beneficiaries, not Mr Ingram Hill.

Subsequent to the High Court ruling, Mr Ingram Hill settled with the trust, thus ending our interest in him for the purposes of this debate, but the trust then notified HMRC of the fact that the settlement had occurred and that it now intended to pay out to its beneficiaries, who total some 4,000 current and former Roadchef employees. The trust also wished to clarify that there would be no tax implications from the payments being made, thinking that that would just be a formality, but the response from HMRC was rather surprising. HMRC said that it would be happy to waive any tax implications for the beneficiaries as long as the trust did not pursue it for the £10 million paid in tax by Mr Ingram Hill. That was the first time that the trust had been made aware of such a tax payment. In accordance with any trustees acting on behalf of beneficiaries, the trust has challenged HMRC on the £10 million payment, which should be repaid to the trust with interest. That brings us up to date on this complex and unique case.

I am grateful to the chairman of the trust, Christopher Winston Smith, and to Huw Edwards for their insight ahead of this debate, and to the current CEO of Roadchef, Simon Turl, who I spoke to last night. Roadchef wants the issue settled for its current and former employees and has been working constructively with HMRC to that end. The trust has also worked with a number of hon. Members from across the House to raise the matter with HMRC, including my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day) and the hon. Members for Newport East (Jessica Morden), for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Paul Farrelly), for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), for Dudley North (Ian Austin) and for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron).

My constituents certainly want this issue settled. Twenty constituents, most of whom live around the service station at Harthill, have contacted me about the matter, but I am sure that more are waiting for their payment. They include Mrs Margaret Gibson, who lists some of the things that she has struggled to do in recent years that this money would have helped with, including borrowing money for home improvements, helping her son to pay for his wedding, or helping her and her husband to get by during periods of unemployment. She considers it a ridiculous amount of time to wait for what is rightfully hers, and I completely agree.

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. Does he agree that what adds insult to injury here is that, as well as being deprived of the payments, many of the people concerned are also working on quite low pay?

[Neil Gray]

Absolutely. I believe that the main thrust behind Mr Gee’s setting up of the trust in the first place was to ensure that low-paid staff were able to benefit from the company doing well. That has sadly not happened yet, and many low-paid workers have suffered as a result. Many of my constituents—I will list some shortly—have suffered and continue to suffer as a result of the payments not being made, so my hon. Friend is absolutely right.

Linda McLeod and Margaret Main pointed to the time it has taken for their money to be returned, but they also highlighted the number of former colleagues who have sadly passed away and will not get the benefit their hard work merited. Caroline Todd contacted me on behalf of her mother, Mrs Quigley from Harthill. She desperately hopes this gets resolved soon so that her mum, who is getting older, is able to enjoy her own money. Margaret Forsyth just wants HMRC to settle matters so that she can have some security, a sentiment echoed by Jane Paxton and Elizabeth Campbell.

Joyce Simm’s husband has been receiving treatment for small-cell carcinoma for three years, and she has been out of work while she cares for him. They have had to survive on pensions and savings, which are fast disappearing. They have now been hit with the sad news that he has a carcinoid tumour and will be undergoing surgery on 21 December. I am sure the whole House will join me in wishing the family well, but clearly any pay-out now would be particularly beneficial.

Another constituent of mine visited my surgery. He is seriously ill and in a difficult financial situation, and the money he is entitled to get back would simply be life changing and would help him immensely. He is desperate to see HMRC settle as soon as possible. I know many other hon. and right hon. Members on both sides of the House will have constituents who are affected and, sadly, will be able to share similar stories. Indeed, I understand Mr Speaker has constituents who are affected by this issue.

It is worth mentioning someone else who has been affected by this case. The former company secretary at Roadchef, Tim Warwick, blew the whistle on what the then chief executive was doing before there was any kind of whistleblower protection. Exposing this affair effectively ended Mr Warwick’s career, and we should all thank and pay tribute to him for his efforts.

What can the Minister do to help my constituents and their 4,000 colleagues across these isles who are waiting for their money? I understand that HMRC is a non-ministerial department of Government and that the Minister is therefore somewhat restricted in what he can do, but I hope he can join me and colleagues on both sides of the House in calling on HMRC to settle this case with the trustees and to return the £10 million, plus interest, to the rightful owners—the trustees and beneficiaries.

Employment and Support Allowance

Debate between Neil Gray and Patricia Gibson

Tuesday 18th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Neil Gray]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right and, to her credit and in her typical way, makes her point well. The Government have suggested that there will be a 12-week window in which recipients of ESA in the WRAG may well be able to return to the previous rate; I suggest that that is not enough. If the Government will not reverse the cut, there should be a longer grace period to allow people the opportunity to return to work and to attempt to sustain that work, which is not always easy for some of these people to do.

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend is being generous with his time. Does he agree that despite the 12-week pause—this window that he has talked about and that the Minister has mentioned—the sanctions imposed on the people who are losing this money will push them further and further away from the prospect of work, further and further into poverty, and therefore further and further into social isolation and away from the job market?

[Neil Gray]

Absolutely. I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, because that point has been made by the expert disability charities. They do not see this cut as an incentive for people to find work; rather, it hinders their opportunities for getting back into work, if they are able to do so as part of a timely process.

In November, in response to the debate on a cross-party motion on this subject that I introduced in this Chamber, the Minister committed to ensuring that a replacement system of support would be in place for ESA recipients in the WRAG before the cut was to take place, but we have no clarity over what that system is or will look like. She said that support would be provided and an additional £15 million invested in the flexible support fund, but, of course, the flexible support fund is a discretionary fund used by jobcentres to help those in receipt of unemployment benefits to find work. It can be used to help with the cost of travel to interviews, childcare, clothing or uniforms to start work. However, the flexible support fund has been heavily criticised by the National Audit Office, the Work and Pensions Committee and others, because of its complexity and under-utilisation.

There have been allegations that jobcentre staff have been pressured into not using the fund. It is also one of the best kept secrets in Whitehall as information about it is not available on the Government’s own website. What concerns me most is that there is no detail over how the flexible support fund, which will total only £83 million after the additional allocation, will directly support ESA WRAG recipients. Have jobcentre staff been told to target the flexible support fund on disabled people?

Another commitment made by the Minister was to secure better deals with service providers to help disabled people financially. She was going to broker deals with energy companies and telecoms suppliers to help sick and disabled people with their bills, but how many people will be able to afford a BT TV package or Sky broadband on even the higher rate of ESA WRAG? Even if she has managed to secure better deals on energy or insurance costs, we have not been told about them. How much will they aid disabled people? Will they make up the shortfall? Who are the deals with? When will they come into force? Will the Government promote them?

The Minister also committed to having personalised support packages in place by now—either a place on the Work and Health programme or Work Choice. Of course the Work and Health programme has yet to start and Work Choice is not new support. Additional places were also to be provided on the specialist employability support programme, which is a very small project, with only 1,700 members in 2015. Another idea was on job clubs, but we have not had any further detail on that. There is also the drive for work experience places with wrap-around support for young people, but again there have been no detail on whether this will be available for WRAG recipients.

Increased funding for the Access to Work mental health support service has also been mentioned. It has been launched, but is available only if a person is in work or signed off work sick, so it will not help those on ESA WRAG. All in all, we have had many different ideas. There have been different, tentative and ultimately detail-free announcements. In the end we have no detail and no way of knowing how the Government plan to live up to their promise of ensuring that ESA WRAG recipients are not punished financially or how they intend to halve the disability employment gap by 2020, as was promised.