Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Smith and Mark Hoban

Monday 10th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hoban]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is a shared responsibility, and that requires the HSE and local authorities to work closely together. It requires them to identify the risks in their areas and take the right steps, proportionate to those risks, to tackle the risk of legionella.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

12. If he will make it his policy that Work programme providers should be allowed to share comprehensive data with local authorities on their own performance.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Mr Mark Hoban)]

From June 2012, providers have been able to share management information on referrals, attachments, job entries, and specified information on job outcomes with local authorities that have signed confidentiality agreements.

[Nick Smith]

The Government’s own Cabinet Office says that publishing data about our public services makes them better, yet the Work programme has been shrouded in secrecy. Will the new Minister let the light shine in?

[Mr Hoban]

The hon. Gentleman should listen to the answer before asking the supplementary. I made it very clear that since June 2012 information has been shared with local authorities that are prepared to sign the confidentiality agreement. We are very keen to ensure the integrity of official statistics. The information is there to be shared and I look forward to local authorities’ working with contractors to use that information to develop effective schemes at a local level.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Smith and Mark Hoban

Tuesday 1st November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

10. What assessment he has made of the level of economic growth in (a) the UK and (b) other EU members states in the last 12 months.

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban)]

Eurostat publishes GDP growth data on all EU member states. These data show the UK economy growing in the most recent three quarters. The IMF’s latest forecast shows the UK economy growing this year, and growing faster than the economies of France, Germany and Italy next year.

[Nick Smith]

The Times says today that the Government’s plans for growth are “piecemeal” and their implementation “patchy”. Given that long-term youth unemployment is up by 60%, do we not need a proper programme for jobs?

[Mr Hoban]

The hon. Gentleman will realise that the biggest increase in youth unemployment in recent years took place when his party was in government. This Government have put in place the long-term foundations to tackle unemployment and raise growth across the UK.

Crown Currency Exchange

Debate between Nick Smith and Mark Hoban

Tuesday 7th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hoban]

It is not a matter for the ombudsman—it is for the administrator to decide what further actions are needed. As I said, the problem is that the nature of this business was such that it fell outside the regulatory perimeters. It is not covered by the Financial Ombudsman Service or the financial services compensation scheme, so there is a distinction between this case and the one to which the hon. Gentleman refers.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Hoban]

I should like to make some progress, as there are important points that I want to make by the time I finish in seven minutes’ time.

I want to reassure hon. Members that I am anxious to protect customers and that we should learn lessons from this. I would point out, however, that there are 1,480 businesses operating as bureaux de change in this country, the vast majority of which are retail outlets dealing with customers face to face. The majority of these firms are not taking payment in advance or entering into forward currency contracts. They do not expose their customers to the kind of risks that Crown appears to have done.

[Nick Smith]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Hoban]

No, I am going to continue.

The regulation of these businesses, including capital requirements, would impose costs on them and on their customers, so we must be sure that the benefits of regulation outweigh the cost to consumers. I assure hon. Members that we are looking at the other companies to see if any are operating in the same way as Crown. We have not yet identified any, although the investigation is still ongoing. I undertake that the Government will seek to learn the lessons from Crown’s failure, once we have all the facts, and take whatever action is appropriate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hoban]

The hon. Lady makes an important point, but the reality is that this activity falls outside the regulatory perimeter of the FSA. The reason these businesses are registered with the FSA is that when the payments services directive was introduced, there had to be somewhere for these businesses to be registered, so the decision was taken to register them with the FSA. That decision was taken not by this Government, but by the previous Government. The hon. Lady is right that that situation leads to some confusion for consumers. The reality is that such businesses were not regulated by the FSA. The same applies to the other 1,500 bureaux de change that operate under this model.

[Nick Smith]

I thank the Minister for giving way. Given the scale of the issue with 13,000 people having been affected, will the Minister tell us more about the role of Barclays bank?

[Mr Hoban]

Barclays had a limited relationship with Crown. It did not lend money to Crown, but simply provided it with a bank account. It raised a number of questions with Crown, but the answers gave no cause for concern. It acted simply as Crown’s bank and had no engagement in the business.