Horizon: Compensation and Convictions

Paul Howell Excerpts

Monday 8th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. She is right that we need to make the compensation schemes and the overturning of convictions swifter and more straightforward, and she is right to point to the fact that some people are reluctant to come forward in the first place. We are keen to deliver a solution that does not require sub-postmasters to come forward in order for us to overturn a conviction, as has been called for by Members of this House. We have been looking at that and we are working on it right now.

I represent a rural constituency and the Government provide significant financial support of £50 million a year for rural post offices. We are determined to restore the reputation of post offices through this work and make them more financially stable generally, by increasing the remuneration opportunities for postmasters. We think that is the route that will ensure people will come forward and run post offices in rural locations, which is as important to me as it is to the hon. Lady.

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

I apologise because this will obviously be repetitive, but the actions and governance of the Post Office have been incomprehensible. Many people will only have realised what has happened because they saw the ITV programme—I encourage them all to come to me or to any other MP if they do not know where to go to. I first engaged with this situation as a member of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee along with colleagues in March 2020, and it shocked me then as it does now. For me, the most shocking aspect, as has been repeated across the House, was the number of people who were told they were the only one. The obvious cover-up from people within the Post Office delivering those statements is wrong, shocking and outrageous. Can I encourage the Minister to do everything he can to ensure that those people feel the full force of the law so that the sub-postmasters, who are the real victims, feel like they have got some justice at the end of this outrageous situation?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. I reassure him that repetition is no barrier to contribution in this place, as he will recognise. I also thank him for his work on the Select Committee, which is hugely important. We heard the words “You’re the only one” time and again in those dramatisations. It was horrific. It was a blatant lie, and somebody must have known that it was a blatant lie. Those lies led to some people going to jail and others suffering other forms of financial detriment, and detriment to their health and that of their families. Should prosecutions flow from that wherever possible? I would say yes.

Future of Horseracing

Paul Howell Excerpts

Wednesday 25th October 2023 Westminster Hall

[Matt Hancock]

There are significant training programmes already in place in the horseracing industry—for instance, at the British Racing School in my constituency, another British Racing School in Doncaster, and apprenticeship programmes right across the industry. In fact, horseracing is brilliant at taking youngsters, who might not have succeeded in mainstream education, and giving them a wonderful, different career—I know this as a great supporter of those with dyslexia. Horseracing is really good at that and good at the training, but that is not enough; we need to make sure we can hire people from overseas as well.

My third and most important point for the Minister is that the recent gambling review set out to the Gambling Commission the need to ensure that gambling is affordable. Nobody speaks more strongly about the need to control problem gambling than me. As the Secretary of State for DCMS, I brought in the reforms to fixed odds betting terminals, which effectively got their scourge off our high streets. As the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, I expanded the gambling clinics to ensure that there is direct NHS provision for gambling addiction, which is a very serious problem. However, the way that the Gambling Commission is bringing in these so-called affordability checks makes people move from gambling on reputable platforms into unregulated gambling. That is therefore having the directly opposite effect to the intention.

I understand the intention to tackle problem gambling; I have long supported that goal. The problem here is that, in order to tackle the problem of online games designed to hook people in with an adrenalin rush—and give them a certain loss—instead, those who love to have a flutter at the bookies, online, or at the racecourse are being caught in this net. Many people have already closed their betting accounts because they refuse to give highly personal data to the Gambling Commission—and frankly, I can understand why they have done that. This is already happening. It is happening before the Minister has set out his view. It is happening in response to the White Paper, not to Government policy. It is ultra vires from the Gambling Commission—it is getting this wrong and damaging the very objectives it set out to achieve. The Minister can already act on this by simply setting out that the current way that the affordability checks programme is being put in place is counterproductive. If Members want proof of that, I will give them it.

Research by PwC found that the number of customers using unlicensed betting websites more than doubled in one year, from 210,000 in 2019 to 460,000 in 2020. Billions of pounds are now staked on unlicensed betting websites, which do not have support programmes or any identification of people who might have suddenly lost a large amount of money or who display erratic behaviour. They do not contribute to horseracing in the way that they need to, nor do they offer support for problem gambling. This policy has been a mistake, and the Minister needs to change it.

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

The right hon. Member talks about illegal betting, and a lot of that comes through the use of illegal drones to film races in the first place, which means that the racecourses do not get any revenue. We need to make sure that there is integrity in the filming of sporting events, so that the revenue goes to the right places. The technology is moving on, and there is illegal use of data through the tools he talked about earlier. We must stop illegal drones and betting sites, and make sure that the revenue is going to the right places.

[Matt Hancock]

I totally agree. That point is another problem that needs to be addressed, and my hon. Friend is right to raise it. All these problems drive down the amount of money going into horseracing, which has two consequences. One is that there is less prize money, which means that there are fewer horses coming forward and that the UK will lose its pre-eminent position, as well as the tax revenues, jobs and prestige that comes with it. For instance, in 2022, the average number of horses competing in a race was at its lowest since records began in 1995. There is a problem that needs to be fixed.

The second consequence is that there is less money for problem gambling programmes, which we know are needed to help the minority of people who have a problem and need support. This is not only ultra vires from the Gambling Commission, but counterproductive to the goals of those who, like me, care about supporting people who have a gambling addiction. The websites to which people are being driven do nothing to promote safer gambling, do not support sports and do not make any contributions to tax, and the intrusive affordability checks happening right now—let alone what might be threatened in the future—are reducing betting turnover. They are impacting on horseracing and on people’s ability to have a flutter on the horses, which is a leisure activity for the vast majority of people who do it.

In a recent survey of over 14,000 punters, 28% said they will stop betting on horseracing altogether if the current plans for affordability checks are implemented in full. That would be a catastrophe for horseracing, and it would be detrimental to the Chancellor’s wish to sort out the nation’s coffers. Most importantly, it means that those who enjoy gambling responsibly—and who do so in what is now a pretty well-regulated overall framework for ensuring that people get the support they need before the affordability checks are put in place—do not have the opportunity to exercise their right to that pleasure.

I will stop there, as I know many people want to speak. I hope to hear cheerful and positive encouragement from the Minister and the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock), because our great sport of horseracing needs their support. Critically, we need to make sure that the Gambling Commission supports gambling that people enjoy while also effectively tackling problem gambling, rather than driving people into the darker regions of the internet, where they can get away from any regulation whatsoever. As the Member who represents Newmarket, I am proud to make this case.

Post Office Horizon IT Scandal: Compensation

Paul Howell Excerpts

Tuesday 18th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I agree, and we are determined to play our part in that of course. I was very grateful for the report and I have read the recommendations. Clearly, there is a lot of detail in the report that I want to study and consider fully, but I thought it was very helpful. I did not see anything in the recommendations I immediately objected to. As I say, I want to make a good study of those things, but a number of different processes have to take place. We have to give due process the time to do its work in making sure that we establish exactly what has gone on, so that we can put those matters right.

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

I, like many others, have sub-postmasters who have suffered in this space. I would just like to thank Members across the House, most notably the Minister, his predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully), the hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones)—I was on the Select Committee when we were particularly looking at this issue, and thank him for his time on that—and obviously the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) for his energy there. Could I just reiterate what so many have said and ask the Minister to accelerate, with all energy, the payments to the victims, and will he please follow through on the consequences for the Post Office leadership and its IT consultants?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I thank my hon. Friend for the points in his question, and we absolutely agree that we need to accelerate compensation payments. As I say, we have made significant progress on the HSS scheme. For the two other schemes—the GLO scheme and the overturned convictions scheme—we need to get those payments resolved as quickly as possible. There have been around £40 million of interim payments through those schemes, but the full and fair compensation—the final compensation—is where we need to get to. On holding people to account, he will have heard what I said earlier and I absolutely agree with him on that point.