Post Office: Compensation for Horizon Scandal

Debate between Peter Grant and Paul Scully

Thursday 30th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words. Receiving this praise is great for me, but this is not about me. As he rightly says—please do carry on, by the way—it is about the people who have suffered terribly at the hands of people in authority. Some of them have taken their own lives and many of them have been stigmatised and left in debt and abject poverty, so we have to keep the pace going, not just to get that compensation for them but to get those lessons learned and hold people to account.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

Among the other catastrophic and inexcusable failures, this House failed. This House was made to fail in its duty to get to the bottom of this quicker, because somewhere in the machinery of government there was a deliberate and sustained conspiracy to send Minister after Minister unwittingly to the Dispatch Box to say things that we now know are not true. This House has to look at that very seriously indeed. It cannot be acceptable in any circumstances for this House to be prevented from doing its job by conspirators, whether in Government or in outside agencies, and I hope the appropriate authorities of the House will look into that urgently.

Can the Minister tell me what further action he proposes to take in forthcoming legislation to widen the circumstances in which directors of companies can be held personally liable as well as corporately liable for serious misconduct in office? In particular, one of the things my constituents find frustrating is that directors of these companies, who at the very least should have known what was going on and did nothing to stop it, were able to walk away and become directors of other companies. They have had 20 years of a good lifestyle that was denied to the victims and, if they are called to account, they will get a fair trial, which was denied to the victims. Will the Minister look for ways to speed up the process of preventing directors from taking up other highly paid directorships if there are serious questions to be answered about their conduct in office?

[Paul Scully]

I am not sure if it is the House authorities, but it is certainly the case that Wyn Williams’s inquiry will see exactly where the failings were—including, if there are any, failings by Ministers or others who have stood here—without fear or favour. In terms of directors, we have already brought in a number of measures since I have been a Minister, including the disqualified directors legislation, which allows the Insolvency Service to bring companies back on the books and then to take action against their directors, but we will always look to make sure we have the most robust system to tackle rogue directors.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Peter Grant and Paul Scully

Tuesday 7th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

The recently published preliminary report by the administrators of the failed Safe Hands funeral plans company suggest that this is yet another instance in which company directors have made false promises to innocent people, taken their money, played fast and loose with it and are likely to have lost it all. Will the Minister give us a timetable for the various bits of legislation in the Queen’s Speech so that dodgy company directors can be held to account immediately and not 10 or 15 years later?

[Paul Scully]

On corporate governance, we will see, in the economic crime Bill, the reviews relating to Companies House, and we have also had the Rating (Coronavirus) and Directors Disqualification (Dissolved Companies) Act 2021. However, the hon. Gentleman cites a particularly egregious example and I will make sure that my colleague Lord Callanan, the Minister responsible for corporate governance, responds accordingly.

Sub-Postmasters: Compensation

Debate between Peter Grant and Paul Scully

Tuesday 22nd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

First, I do not want to pre-empt anything that we may do, but when I talk about a short consultation, this is about 555 people who have a well organised group together and their lawyers. We have already started, so this is not something where we are writing out to people and waiting for answers to come back; this is a focused bit of work. What I can say is that we will start the process that is agreed with the JFSA as soon as possible—and as soon, Mr Speaker, as I have updated the House first.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

The Minister will be aware of the plight of my constituent Myra, who jointly ran a post office with her mum. They begged and borrowed £70,000 from friends and families to fill a shortfall that they could not understand, but which we now know—and the Post Office probably knew at the time—was not a shortfall at all. They lost their jobs, lost their home and were branded thieves and liars. Myra’s mum did not live to see her name cleared. Myra was not allowed to claim under the historical shortfall scheme. Does the Minister agree that no matter how carefully the criteria for any compensation scheme are drawn, there will always be people who do not fit those criteria? Will he ensure that there is a catch-all clause in the compensation scheme so that nobody but nobody is left without the compensation for which they have waited far too long?

[Paul Scully]

Please send my condolences to Myra and the family. Within any scheme there will always be hard edges, but please let me know if particular people are falling through the gaps and let me see what further we can do to support them through this difficult time.

Economic Crime: Planned Government Bill

Debate between Peter Grant and Paul Scully

Wednesday 26th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

I agree with my hon. Friend that we want to get this right. It is a technical and complex issue, and we will continue to work with people who are experts and knowledgeable in this field to make sure that we can get that legislation totally in place so that we can push it through in good time.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

The Minister will be aware, and certainly his Treasury colleagues are aware, of the activities of Patrick McCreesh and Philip Nunn, of Blackmore Bond notoriety. Nearly five years after their dodgy and probably illegal sales tactics were first brought to the attention of regulators, those two are still allowed to continue in operation at the helm of a veritable spider’s web of companies, collecting scores of yellow cards, and some red cards, for breaches of statutory obligations. They are subject to no personal sanction, other than the occasional closure of one of the companies that they wanted to close down anyway. How much longer are we supposed to be satisfied with a regulator that, in one case, accepted the registration of a 10-year-old as a company officer? When are we going to have a regulator with teeth to drag dodgy directors out from hiding behind company nameplates in order for them to be held personally responsible, in a way that correctly reflects the fortunes that they have made and the financial misery they have inflicted on their victims?

[Paul Scully]

I know the hon. Gentleman has used that example on a number of occasions. It is a particularly pertinent example but, as I say, Companies House reform is foremost among our priorities and it will come as soon as parliamentary time allows.

Draft National Security and Investment Act 2021 (Monetary Penalties) (Turnover of a Business) Regulations 2021 Draft National Security and Investment Act 2021 (Notifiable Acquisition) (Specification of Qualifying Entities) Regulations 2021

Debate between Peter Grant and Paul Scully

Wednesday 20th October 2021 General Committees

[Paul Scully]

I thank hon. Members from both sides of the room for their valuable contributions. First, let me have another go at responding to my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire: turnover does not include stock and assets, but it does include any income that derives from their use. The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central raised with my right hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), now Education Secretary, when he was covering this subject in Committee, the question of where the fines go. As she knows, the fines are going to the Consolidated Fund, but none the less, she makes her case powerfully.

In terms of what changes have been made to the definitions since the consultation, the scope of a number of descriptions—communications, critical suppliers to Government, data infrastructure, energy, suppliers to the emergency services, and synthetic biology—was narrowed following the publication of the consultation response, and a few descriptions were amended. For example, in the area of communications, qualifying entities carrying on activities in the UK that related to public communications supply chains were removed from the definition, substantially narrowing the activity of the qualifying entities captured. For critical suppliers to Government, two of the five limbs of the definition set out in the Government response to the consultation were removed, again to narrow the scope of the definition. Those two limbs were the provision of services to facilitate the security of network and information systems, and the guarding of premises to insure against unauthorised access or occupation and against outbreaks of disorder or damage.

In the area of data infrastructure, as was mentioned by the hon. Member for Glenrothes, the Government response to the consultation provided a definition of a public sector authority using the meaning of “contracting authority” in the Public Contracts Regulations 2015. The final regulations revised the definition of a public sector authority to a much narrower list of authorities, set out in a table within the regulations. I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point: I would say that first of all, the purpose of that table is to make sure that the notifications to the Secretary of State are proportionate and balanced. None the less, we will review this SI within three years, rather than the normal five years, to ensure that we lean into this and get it right, to give certainty to businesses and to ensure that we capture the whole gamut of the areas that he raised.

In terms of energy, changes were made to clarify the infrastructure activities carried on in the UK and captured within this description. Suppliers to the emergency services, as the hon. Lady mentioned, and several meanings in the definition, published in the Government response to the consultation, have since been amended and narrowed to provide an objective list of activities, captured for the purposes that require self-identification. The applicability of each activity to each type of emergency service listed has been narrowed to ensure that the activities of qualifying entities, captured by mandatory notification, are as targeted and proportionate as possible.

Finally, on synthetic biology, new paragraph 6 was added to the definition to create exceptions relating to human or veterinary medicines, or immunomodulatory approaches, which is not easy to say.

The hon. Lady also asked who was consulted on this and what was said. We are proactively and extensively engaging across all the relevant sectors. For example, our policy colleagues at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy have attended meetings with techUK members, the AI Council, an aerospace, defence, security and space group webinar, and an electricity industry forum. We conducted targeted and extensive engagement with organisations most likely to be affected by the NSI Act, including companies that invest in or acquire entities in the 17 mandatory areas of the economy, and those providing legal or financial advice in UK acquisitions.

We have met and spoken to more than 200 cross-economy organisations through workshops, teaching and presentations, including the Law Society, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, techUK, international investors and UK universities. Tailored communications have been sent out to more than 100 industry bodies in those mandatory areas of the economy, including 70 major law and financial services firms, 36 international investors and 550,000 businesses via Companies House.

Additional care has been taken to ensure that we can reach small and medium-sized enterprises, because the hon. Lady is absolutely right that they need to have the capacity to be ready and will be affected by the regulations. We have used associations, such as the Federation of Small Businesses, the British Chambers of Commerce and the Confederation of British Industry, so together there is a network of 580,000 businesses. We will continue to ensure that we work with SMEs in particular, to give them guidance ahead of time, because we need to keep on engaging directly with businesses around this Act, ahead of the full commencement.

The first tranche of detailed guidance has already been published to assist businesses, investors and advisers in understanding the Act and how to comply with its requirements. We have established a BEIS expert panel, which includes business representative organisations, higher education bodies, investment associations, law societies and others, that has provided detailed feedback on the draft guidance, ensuring that the guidance is fit for purpose, rather than rushing it.

Our second tranche of guidance will be published ahead of regime commencement, to continue to aid the interaction of parties with the new investment security unit and to ensure compliance, including how to submit a notification form and guidance around notifiable acquisitions. A communications campaign will focus on delivering teaching and guidance to that cross-section of businesses in the UK and internationally.

The hon. Member for Glenrothes asked about turnover and whether we were confident about getting this right; absolutely, we are. If the Secretary of State and a business disagree on the business’s turnover, the Secretary of State can overrule the business. Clearly, the Secretary of State has to act reasonably under public law duty, so it does not give him a free pass, but it is a fallback option if there is a disagreement on business turnover for the reasons mentioned.

[Peter Grant]

I am grateful for that answer. When assessing a business’s turnover, can the Minister confirm whether sufficient attention will be paid to previous years? If a business has a big turnover for several years and it suddenly drops, looking at a single year will not necessarily flag that up. However, if that is noticed, it may well raise suspicions that turnover is being artificially depressed. Will that kind of examination be standard practice whenever a business’s turnover is being examined?

[Paul Scully]

As is set out in the statutory instrument, annual turnover is calculated by taking the turnover for the available period and scaling it up to a full year—if there is not even information for one year. None the less, the Secretary of State will have to take a view, albeit under his public law duties, to ensure that turnover is a realistic. There must be an effective deterrent against a breach of the rules, which is why in some cases the Secretary of State may even deal with a subsidiary business with a small turnover that is funded and controlled by a large, wealthy parent business. Indeed, the subsidiary may have been established specifically to carry out the acquisition in question and may not even have a turnover, full stop, at the point when the Secretary of State is calculating a penalty. That is why there is scope for the Secretary of State to overrule and take the wider view that he is asking for.

I hope that I have covered most of the areas that were raised and provided sufficient clarifications and assurances to hon. Members on today’s statutory instruments. Both SIs are essential for the effective operation and running of the NSI Act and the provision of a safeguard for the UK, and I commend them to the Committee.

Rating (Coronavirus) and Directors Disqualification (Dissolved Companies) Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Peter Grant and Paul Scully

Committee stage
Tuesday 6th July 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Peter Grant]

Q I have one final question. The legislation as it stands would set a three-year time limit on any application for disqualification, starting from when the company was dissolved. What are your views on that three-year time limit? Is too short, too long, or just about right?

Duncan Swift: I have to say, from experience, it is too short. Rogue directors or individuals who abuse the position of director go to great pains to extract all the asset value out of the companies that they are abusing and to provide a false, or certainly incomplete, trail of their actions as directors of the company. As an office holder coming in after the event, it is like pulling together a 3,000 or 4,000-piece jigsaw puzzle when holding only about five pieces to start with. You are having to make inquiries with multiple stakeholders, as well as interviewing the directors and their associates, to start to get the bits of the jigsaw puzzle necessary for a picture of what actually went on, in order to convince a court that what went on was actually a fraud upon the creditors and that the director had not acted properly. Again, from experience, although a relatively speedy pulling together of the jigsaw puzzle and convincing of the court takes three years, there are many cases where it takes far longer.

[Paul Scully]

Q To expand on a few of those areas, starting with the three-year time limit to file a disqualification application, the Insolvency Service or the Secretary of State can already examine historic conduct, but they have three years to file the application for disqualification. Can you expand a bit on what you meant about the court process, which presumably comes afterwards?

Duncan Swift: What I was explaining about the timeline was that for the office holder—whether it be the Insolvency Service or the official receiver as liquidator, or the Insolvency Service coming in to pull together a picture of the company’s financial dealings and the director’s conduct in the course of those dealings—it takes time. In the first phase in particular, it can take two years to get a reasonably complete picture before one can be confident of putting forward an application to court, either for a recovery of assets or, I would have thought, the disqualification of a director in circumstances where that individual may well be using the proceeds of such activities to defend their position, as well as seeking to confuse it to defend against the likelihood of such claims being brought against them.

Rating (Coronavirus) and Directors Disqualification (Dissolved Companies) Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Peter Grant and Paul Scully

Tuesday 6th July 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Paul Scully]

[Peter Grant]

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Grant]

[Paul Scully]

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Peter Grant and Paul Scully

Tuesday 6th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

Travel has an impact beyond the sector itself and the impact of reopening our cities. We will continue to work with the sector to offer it support and to flex our support. My hon. Friend mentioned weddings. On 21 June, the restrictions on weddings were eased, which I was pleased to see. The number is now determined by how many a venue can safely accommodate with social distancing measures in place. I am looking forward to the day when those final social distancing measures can melt away.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

This morning the Government tweeted to tell us that about 1.7 million businesses had been allowed to borrow money under the various coronavirus loan schemes. Do they also intend to send out a tweet to tell us how many jobs have been lost and how many businesses have been destroyed by the decision to exclude 3 million business owners from any coronavirus support whatever?

[Paul Scully]

I have continued to converse, whether in person or on social media, with some of the people leading the campaign in this area. As I have said before, a lot of the schemes we put in place have been reverse engineered so we can deliver them quickly, at pace and at scale. We have not been able to save every business and every job, but clearly, we will look to not only reopen and recover, so that we can bounce back better and protect as many jobs as we can, but create new jobs as well.

Rating (Coronavirus) and Directors Disqualification (Dissolved Companies) Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Peter Grant and Paul Scully

Committee stage
Tuesday 6th July 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Paul Scully]

Q Finally, what effect do you think there would be on lending if this regime did not come into place or the loophole were not closed? Would there be a chilling effect?

Stephen Pegge: As you say, it is a matter of a chilling effect. It is one other factor that would weigh on finance providers’ minds when making lending decisions. This is a crucial time for lenders to provide finance. If you look at the latest Bank of England figures, for May, which were published last week, some £7 billion of new lending was provided to SMEs.

Latest surveys suggest that high proportions of loan applications are being sanctioned—something like 85%—and we want that to continue. The expectation that this sort of loophole is being closed should build confidence. It will ensure that there is discouragement of bad actors, so that it does not grow out of proportion, which we fear might otherwise be the case.

[Peter Grant]

Q Good morning again, Mr Pegge. I apologise because I think I mispronounced your name earlier because I tried to read it without my glasses on. In an earlier answer, you referred to the retrospective nature of parts of the Bill. You indicated that you supported them. In particular, you referred to the fact that the Government had made it clear since 2018 that the legislation was coming.

Clearly, we are not creating a new offence that was not illegal at the time. We are considering legislation to make it easier for the authorities to act against people who may have committed offences, which I think is an important distinction. Even given that, is there an argument that the retrospective power should apply only to the date when the Government first published their proposals to legislate? Would you still support the Insolvency Service if it wanted to take action in relation to things that had happened in, say, 2015 or 2016? Would you have any concerns about that?

Stephen Pegge: As you say, this is essentially a technical loophole, which the Bill seeks to close. All it does is confer powers of investigation, with significant and rigorous practices in terms of investigation. The risk of miscarriage of justice is relatively limited. I do not have a particular date in mind. The point I was trying to emphasise was that this has widespread support and has had for some time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Grant]

Q You say that you have not heard any such representations from the Insolvency Service. Have you had any such representations from lenders or creditors? They may take a different view from the Insolvency Service if it is their money that is at stake.

David Kerr: Perhaps some in the creditor community would like it to be a six-year period, but I do not think they have argued strongly for it, and I do not think there is a necessarily a case made for that. From a creditor perspective, in an ideal world, perhaps it would be open ended. That may be unrealistic.

[Paul Scully]

Q Thank you for giving evidence, Mr Kerr. Can you talk a little bit more about the deterrent that you spoke about? How much of an impact do you think the measure, and especially the threat of disqualification, will have on providing the necessary deterrence?

David Kerr: The current disqualification provisions act as a deterrent to some extent, because directors know that, in respect of every company that goes into an insolvent liquidation or administration, there will be some inquiry. There is an obligation on the insolvency practitioner to carry out a certain amount of inquiry into the conduct of the directors of those companies and make a report in each of those cases to the Insolvency Service on their conduct. The provisions do not provide for the same report. It will have to be triggered by something else, whether that is a creditor complaint or other information, but it will provide the opportunity for the service to make the same inquiry.

Rating (Coronavirus) and Directors Disqualification (Dissolved Companies) Bill

Debate between Peter Grant and Paul Scully

2nd reading
Monday 28th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

I will not give way, but I will happily come back to the hon. Lady if I have not answered her question. I do want to get through a few areas.

Let me quickly turn to the disqualification of directors of dissolved companies. The issue of insolvency funding came up a few times. Clearly, we will be working with the Insolvency Service to ensure that it has the resources to do its job. It employs its finite resources to the maximum effect by prioritising cases in which there has been most harm to the public and the wider marketplace. Clearly, its resources are not limitless.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) asked about insolvencies. Actually, the number of insolvencies has been at a 40-year low over the past few months because, effectively, in many areas, the economy has been held in stasis. That is why it is so important that, having put £352 billion-worth of support into the economy, we now have 352 billion reasons why we have to get the next bit right—why we have to help shape the recovery through these mitigations. We need to make sure that we continue to flex and continue to extend the support. That is why furlough carries on until September and why we have ensured that the winding-up proceedings have been extended for another nine months as well, so that we can get conversations going with landlords and tenants. It is so, so important to continue these measures.

I am glad that we have had broad support for the measures. In terms of compensation, directors can obviously be held personally liable for debt, and where there are breaches, there is disqualification.

[Peter Grant]

I note the Minister’s comments that directors can be held personally liable, but does he accept that allowing an individual investor or creditor to sue a director at their own risk is very different from a scheme through which the Government or some other body effectively take that legal action on behalf of a group of aggrieved individuals, who individually cannot afford the risk of taking that action?

Uber: Supreme Court Ruling

Debate between Peter Grant and Paul Scully

Wednesday 24th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to make sure that we continue to look at the number of private hire licences compared with black cab licences in London to ensure that there is no unfair advantage, but, ultimately, there is a market there, as he rightly says.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP) [V]]

We can judge this Government’s sincerity and their claims to care about workers’ rights by the fact that the Secretary of State is on record as saying that British workers are among the worst idlers in the world; of course, her own treatment of her staff would have got her sacked from almost any other job.

Given that in just over two months the Scottish people will, for the sixth time in succession, elect a Scottish Government who care about the rights of workers, is it not time that employment legislation was delegated to the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government so that, at the very least, the workers of Scotland can get the government that they vote for?

[Paul Scully]

I am afraid that the question just goes to show that the hon. Member is more interested in votes than jobs and workers’ rights. That is why the employment rights Bill will come before this House in due course.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Peter Grant and Paul Scully

Wednesday 21st October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

I thank my hon. Friend for her concern, especially about childcare. We have already introduced 30 hours of free childcare for eligible working parents of three and four-year-olds. We have ensured that wraparound childcare remains open, to support parents to continue to work under all three covid levels. As set out in our manifesto, the Department for Education will be investing £1 billion from 2021 to help create more high-quality wraparound and holiday childcare places, including before and after school and during the school holidays.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

What steps her Department is taking to support older people during the covid-19 outbreak.

Leaving the European Union

Debate between Peter Grant and Paul Scully

Monday 22nd January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Paul Scully]

Yes, I have had people talk to me about financial services. The financial services industry is important for Sutton and Cheam, for London and for the country—about 11% of our entire tax take comes from that industry, and it creates a lot of jobs. That is another good reason not to leave immediately without giving any thought to what happens to every single industry, including financial services, manufacturing, education and the medical sector. It all needs to be put in the pot.

On the idea that we need to panic about financial services, there are things we can do. This year the European Union is bringing in MiFID II—the second markets in financial instruments directive—and we had already been talking about a number of regulatory equivalence issues, at the behest of the UK, before the referendum. There is plenty more we can do, and we need to ensure that we develop that in our talks, to demonstrate that the financial services industry in London has the rule of the law that the EU is looking for, and the right time zone, language and support systems, so that it continues to be an attractive place in which to settle and remain for not just European financial institutions but worldwide ones.

On how we think the negotiation might pan out, we have to be really careful of the rhetoric. We knew how it was likely to pan out in the first place. A friend of mine, Syed Kamall, the MEP who is the leader of the European Conservatives and Reformists group in the European Parliament, wrote an article—I have also heard a few of his speeches on this—in which he detailed how he thought the negotiation would pan out. In it, he talked about how we need to be clearer about our priorities, but not necessarily reveal our hand, and that we need to set the right tone regarding co-operation. No one is talking about the need to break up the EU; all we have said is that we are leaving the EU. We are not leaving Europe. We want to work with Europe as one of a number of trading areas around the world.

We need to understand how the EU negotiates as it tries to grab some of our markets and close down some of our discussions. That is natural: we have talked about trade, but there is an element of competition. Trade is very much a partnership; competition can get a bit more feisty, because we are looking after our own interests. We must bear in mind, of course, that not all the negotiation will be rational. To be frank, the debates we have in this place are not always rational, so imagine multiplying that by 27, with all the competing priorities in the EU. It is no accident that many free trade agreements have not been dealt with speedily. The Australian trade agreement has primarily been delayed by Italian tomato growers, and the Canadian agreement has only just come to fruition—Romanian visas were one thing stopping it. There are many little competing priorities.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

The main thing is that on a number of occasions, the European Commission has been keen to press on with international trade deals but has been unable to because one member state or another has prevented it. Does that not destroy the argument that the European Commission has been imposing laws on the United Kingdom against the latter’s wishes? Is it not the case that in every major decision regarding approval of European Commission proposals, the United Kingdom has played an equal and often decisive part?

[Paul Scully]

The hon. Gentleman was right in the first half of his intervention: there are undoubtedly competing priorities. However, that is not necessarily the same as the laws, rules and directives that come from the European Commission. The 27 member states, individually or in small groups, often feel disempowered by the moves from the centre, from Brussels.

On asking for more than we want, I do not think that the EU understands our negotiation style sometimes. I believe that if we had asked for more when we were trying to renegotiate many things before the referendum, including the emergency brake, we would have got some movement, and we would have voted to remain in the EU. Instead, we did not ask for enough, and we did not even get that. So in this negotiation, it is absolutely right that we are ambitious, that we ask for perhaps more than we want. That is why we need time. We might do a deal on the courtroom steps, perhaps even on the very last day, but we need to be prepared to walk away as well. There is absolutely no point in saying, “You know what? We’re happy to sign up to anything you ask us for,” because if we do they will offer us a deal that we can easily refuse and we will never get anywhere. If we end up staying in the EU in all but name, that will not be good for the country, for the division and uncertainty I spoke about earlier, or for the other 27 nations when they want—and they clearly do—to seek to reform the EU.

Immigration

Debate between Peter Grant and Paul Scully

Monday 19th October 2015 Westminster Hall

[Paul Scully]

I thank my hon. Friend for that example. As she rightly says, situations around the country are sometimes exacerbated by a breakdown of community cohesion but are in no way reflective of the population, whether the Muslim or the indigenous British population —the Church of England population. Actually, I will correct myself. It is really important that, in describing the Muslim population, we do not bring together religion and ethnicity or race, because Muslims are not limited to Pakistanis, Bangladeshis or Arabs. There are a number of British-born Muslims. There are a number of people who have converted. There are a number of American Muslims and African Muslims. Muslims are represented in countries right across the world. It is important that we make that distinction even though, as I have demonstrated, it is easy to bring the two together by accident.

To return to my example, the final piece of the jigsaw in Worcester Park was a third group of Ismaili Muslims who bought a pub, not far from the controversial planning application site, called the Worcester Park Tavern, where they wanted to build a community centre. There were some issues surrounding the proposal—purely from a planning perspective, to do with things such as parking and traffic. However, because of the other two mosques, a lot of people in Worcester Park were whipped up—I felt that there was a bit of an undercurrent—into opposing the application because they were anti any Muslim group taking over the pub. In reality, however, Ismaili Muslims do not pray in the same way, and a number of them drink alcohol; they are a very different group.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

Does the hon. Gentleman intend during his allotted time to refer to the majority of immigrants to the United Kingdom who are not Muslims? Does he intend to use the opportunity to talk about the positive benefits that migration gives and will continue to give to the United Kingdom, rather than playing into the hands of the xenophobes by constantly talking about the problems caused in some communities?

[Paul Scully]

Absolutely I do. I am trying to set the scene by reflecting some of the concerns, which are the reason why 198,000 people have felt the need to sign a petition. We must bear in mind that the reference to Muslims is only one part of the petition; there are references to a number of concerns about immigration, such as benefits. I will come to those, but first I will finish describing the example that I was giving.

The Ismailis in the area decided not to take that planning application any further because they felt that if they were not wanted in that area, they would go somewhere else. That is to the detriment of Worcester Park, because the members of the Ismaili community around the area, whom I know personally, play a positive role in society. They are successful businessmen, and successful in their various other fields. They play an active role in their communities through charity and philanthropic work, and they have fantastic support networks.

To pick up on what the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) said, that is the case for so many people who follow the Muslim faith in this country. Their religion dictates that they should be charitable and philanthropic, and that they should look out for people more vulnerable than themselves. Looking wider than that, many immigrants, especially from the Arab world and Asia, share the values to do with the importance and benefit of a fantastic education, the need for hard work, the need to succeed and look after their families, and the need to build up support networks. I absolutely echo what the hon. Gentleman has said. Immigrants from a number of different backgrounds play a hugely positive role—not only economically, but culturally—here in the UK.

I want to cover the statement in the petition:

“Foreign citizens are taking all our benefits, costing the government millions!”

There is no doubt that a number of people who have come into the country claim benefits—either out-of-work benefits or, more likely, in-work benefits. People tend to come to this country to get on; they do not come for the fun of it. They do not move halfway across the world simply to do nothing in the UK. Often, they want to take a job, look after their families and make the most of the opportunities that the UK has to offer.

In the UK, immigrants from within the EU often get the same level of benefits as they would in their home countries, although that is something that we, as a Government, are trying to change. To most people from outside the EU, we do not make available recourse to public funds, and rightly so. Since April this year, we have introduced an NHS surcharge of £200 for each year of an immigrant’s visa, because NHS tourism becomes less likely if people understand that there is a cost attached to coming over here for healthcare.

Those facts do not stop people holding the view, which I have heard from some of those I have spoken to on the doorstep, that many immigrants come into the country just to claim benefits. They do not want to work; they just want to claim benefits. Sometimes, the same people also told me, “They are taking all our jobs.” It is a kind of Schrödinger’s immigrant, and we cannot have it both ways; there cannot be lazy people taking all our jobs. I do not know whether hon. Members saw the viral spoof Donald Trump quote the other day:

“I’m sorry Clinton, but my ancestors didn’t make their way to this great country to have immigrants come in and take their jobs!!!”

Although that quote was a spoof, it reflects some of the arguments that we hear around the country, which is why it is incumbent on us as politicians to make the case that some immigration is very good for the country, both economically and culturally, but that we need to address mass, uncontrolled immigration full on.

I have met, as I am sure have many of my colleagues in the Chamber, people in the construction industry and the trades—carpenters, plumbers, electricians—who find the situation incredibly difficult because they feel that they are being undercut by European workers or workers from further afield. I absolutely understand their concerns, but we must also understand that we, as people who use those trades, take such workers on. I have employed a Polish plasterer, and I know colleagues who have used Romanian builders. Why do we do so? Because they are cheap. If their work is good and they can undercut the market, that represents open competition, which I absolutely subscribe to as a free-market Conservative.

One thing that drives people to the UK is the fact that we have the fastest growing economy in the developed world and in Europe. Yorkshire created more jobs than France last year, and the UK has created more jobs over the past few years than the whole of Europe. While our economy is doing okay—better than it has been over the past few years—and there is double-digit unemployment in several southern European countries, it is no surprise that people are attracted by the UK and that they come here to better their lives and those of their families.

There are two ways to tackle that. Either we can tank our economy—I do not believe that anyone here would subscribe to that solution—or we can make our immigration policy less attractive to unskilled economic migrants or people with skills that we do not particularly want to attract. That will allow us to concentrate on attracting the very best skilled workers and migrant entrepreneurs to the country.

The final point that I will cover from the petition is the mention of footage showing foreigners desecrating British soldiers’ graves. I am not sure why that was put in the petition. There is some footage showing people kicking over the graves of a number of soldiers, not all of them British, in Benghazi, Libya, two or three years ago. It is a shame that, because we sometimes shy away from talking fully and frankly about immigration, such issues can be conflated into what amounts, often, to a non-sequitur. It is important that we concentrate on the policies that the Government are introducing and those that we need to go further and introduce.

My own background is one of the big drivers for me when I think about immigration. As many Members know, my father was born in Rangoon in Burma. My grandfather worked as a port commissioner and was in charge of scuttling the docks in Rangoon before the Japanese came in. During that time, my grandmother and my two aunts were refugees at a camp in India and, by chance, they managed to find my grandfather in a fort in India.

My father came over here when he was 18. He finished his apprenticeship on the Glasgow docks. The docks, either in Rangoon or in Glasgow, gave him the welcoming present of asbestos inhalation, which unfortunately killed him 25 years ago. None the less, when my father came here, he made a real success of himself. He came with no money but with a great education from a Jesuit school in Amritsar. He worked incredibly hard, instilling in me the importance of a good education, and the need for hard work and family, which set me in good stead. When I look at my Burmese family, I see the support network that they have built around them. They do not look to the state to look after their own. My grandmother was a real matriarch and looked after a number of our extended family well into their old age. We can spread those values across the nation and we must herald some of the values that they hold dear.

I mentioned the fact that immigration is good because many of those people do jobs that others simply do not want to do. Of the NHS, 11% is staffed by people from abroad and 26% of NHS doctors are from abroad. The curry industry is an amazing industry that most people like, whether they are British or first-generation immigrants to the country. A lot of people enjoy their curry. I had tandoori chicken, which was served up by the café in Parliament, a little earlier on. It is our national dish. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) has some strong views on that, as do I as Chair of the all-party parliamentary group on the British curry catering industry. I have that role because the curry catering industry is a massive industry for the country, although it is struggling at the moment, partly because of some unintended consequences of our immigration policy, which we will perhaps hear more about later. I mentioned that there are jobs that people do not want to do. We have an ageing population so we need to bring people in. We need skilled people to come in to do those jobs so that we can create the wealth that helps to pay for pensions, freedom passes, our health service and all the services that older, retired people rely on, as we all do.

I will give one example of a migrant entrepreneur. A friend of mine and the Minister—a chap called Atul Pathak—came over here when he was young with very little money. He worked hard day in, day out in Southall on some pretty arduous jobs. Over the past few years he has gone from the ground floor of the hospitality industry to becoming McDonald’s largest franchisee, running 26 restaurants around London and turning over £50 million. He employs 2,000 people and has given 450 of those the opportunity to gain GCSEs in English and maths. He has provided a number of apprenticeships and some of his staff now have degrees in hospitality. He has helped to bring on thousands of people to follow something that was a job through to being a really satisfying career. He is a fantastic example and does a huge amount of charitable work. A lot of entrepreneurs who have come here from other countries come with a slightly different philanthropic view from ours as businesspeople in the United Kingdom. They are far more active in the charity environment. It is really important that we learn those lessons and share them.

I have talked about the fact that immigration is good for culture, which is important, but let me turn for a second to the fact that mass, uncontrolled immigration is bad. There are tensions when too many people come into the country, like the 2.5 million people—twice the population of Birmingham—who came in under the last Labour Government. That provided a big shock to our infrastructure, including to hospital beds, school places and housing, which are all issues that we are now having to tackle. There are various community tensions in certain areas—I mentioned Tower Hamlets and other towns—so we need to control numbers.

I am pleased that the policy of the previous Government, which we are carrying on now, has started to address the issue. It is like turning an ocean liner around: it cannot all be done particularly quickly. None the less, we have been slashing student fraud. We have struck off nearly 900 bogus colleges and made access to welfare and housing tougher, but there is plenty more to do. I am glad that the Immigration Bill will make it far harder for illegal immigrants to work and access public services, and far easier for us to remove people who should not be here.

The one area in which we need to go further is the European Union. The Prime Minister is trying his hardest to renegotiate a number of terms with the EU, especially regarding freedom of movement. My opinion is that we need to leave the EU. That would ultimately give us far more flexibility to control our own borders, which are strong. Bear in mind the fact that we have the channel; there is sea between us and the rest of Europe. There are tensions in the some of the central and eastern European countries, where we hear about border issues every day. We have a sea and a strong border, which we could do something about if we had the policies in place to do so. Leaving the EU would give us more flexibility to control our borders and tackle some of the unintended consequences of immigration from outside the EU. Things such as the curry industry—bringing curry chefs over—might benefit.

In conclusion, I want quickly to talk about refugees because we are in the middle of a full-blown crisis. We do not want to go back to the position of the early 2000s, when all the talk about immigration was of bogus asylum seekers. We need a situation where we can have strong borders, bring in the people we want and also fulfil our moral obligation—we have a rich history in this—of bringing in the refugees who are most in fear of their lives, so that they feel welcome.

We must have a welcoming environment for legal migrants and refugees, and a hostile environment for illegal immigrants. That needs to be distinct so we do not conflate two issues, but it is a difficult situation to turn around. I fully support the Government’s plans for immigration and the Immigration Bill. Now that we have a majority Conservative Government, we can do things that we could not necessarily do under a coalition Government. I look forward to the Minister’s response on how immigration policy will develop over the next couple of years.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Grant]

I am sorry if I am not making the point clearly enough, but by conducting the debate on the terms of UKIP and those even more extreme than UKIP, it allows people like the gentleman who started the petition to believe that they are in the ascendancy and on the front foot. I do not know anybody—it is certainly not the policy of the SNP—who thinks there should be utterly open, uncontrolled immigration into Scotland, and I would not imagine that any UK parties would want the same for England. One of the big problems is how the controls are defined. For example, the salary control prevents qualified nurses from getting into the country. How ridiculous is that? It has been pointed out that the controls that were set up supposedly to stop bogus students coming in to go to bogus universities seriously affected the financial viability of some of our great and most ancient seats of learning.

To finish the comments I was making on my links to immigration, my Auntie Mary was born in Scotland. She was an immigrant. My wee brother and wee sister were born in Scotland, and they are immigrants, because one lives in Ireland and one lives in Germany. Why is it that, as part of the demonisation process that is so built in that we do not even recognise it, when other people come here they are immigrants, but when we go there we insist on becoming expats? Some of the biggest and most concentrated immigrant communities that can be found anywhere are of British immigrants in parts of southern Spain, Portugal and France. If we allow the debate to be carried out in the terms expressed in the petition, we are inviting the far right and other countries to demonise and discriminate against British citizens in exactly the same way as some people would want us to discriminate against the citizens of other countries.

Among the other great disservices of the past few weeks is what I can only assume is a deliberate strategy of conflating the humanitarian refugee crisis with controls or lack of controls over immigration. Those are two completely different issues. We are not required to take Syrian refugees or refugees from anywhere else because of our membership of the EU. That is not affected by our signing up or not signing up to Schengen or anything else. A fundamental requirement of international law is that we give proper succour to refugees if they come in fear for their lives. We allowed the Home Secretary to make a statement about the Syrian refugee crisis headed, “Immigration”, which was an utterly shocking piece of bad naming, misrepresenting the true situation in the Mediterranean. Where people want to come here because they are in fear for their lives, that is not immigration. I fully agree with the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak that it is utterly and totally wrong to include hopefully short-term or temporary succour to refugees in an immigration figure.

[Paul Scully]

Would the hon. Gentleman not agree that the Government’s approach to the Syrian refugee crisis, which concentrates our help on the camps and taking people from there, directly helps refugees? Taking more people who are landing on these shores by crossing the Mediterranean risks giving support to human traffickers, who are bringing economic migrants as well as refugees.

[Peter Grant]

I had not intended to get into a debate about refugees, because the debate is not about refugees—that is what I am trying to say—but the direction I approach the matter from is that 4.5 million people have fled Syria because they would have died had they stayed. The United Kingdom takes 20,000 people. Who do we morally think we can tell to take the other 4,480,000? There are not places roundabout Syria that are stable enough to take those kind of numbers. That is why I welcome the Government’s moves so far. I am on the side of the bishops. The Government have not gone nearly far enough, but let me repeat: the petition should not be allowed to be about refugees. This is about immigration, and the two have got to be kept utterly and completely separate.

I was as shocked and offended as anyone when I saw footage a few years ago of people desecrating war graves. The desecration of any grave or any site of religious or spiritual significance is a terrible thing. What was done in the footage was done to create disharmony and conflict and to set communities against one another. That is why the militants did it. As has been pointed out, the petitioner was incorrect in stating that British war graves were desecrated. There were some British war graves and there were war graves of other nationalities who fought alongside Britain when Britain most needed them. They gave their lives in the service of the values that so many of their countries share with the nations represented in this hall today. A lot of them died in the uniforms of countries from which citizens would not be allowed to come if the petitioner got his way and if some of the reforms that the Government have talked about were implemented.

Let us not forget that, whether we talk about immigration or foreigners who have no intention of coming here even temporarily, we are talking about people whose countries suffered desperately in the fight against Nazism and about people who have come to settle in the UK whose fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers fought, risked their lives and sometimes lost their lives fighting for exactly the same values that our people did. It is wrong to start driving barriers between people based on the country they were born in, on the language that they speak, on the colour of their skin, on the god they choose to worship, on the way in which they choose to worship their god, or on their belief that there may not be a god at all. To discriminate against people on any of those grounds is rightly unlawful. More importantly, it is indefensibly immoral. There are no circumstances in which it is acceptable to discriminate on such grounds.

Like the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak, I have been on the receiving end of some very unpleasant emails from my constituents. I have had about 100 emails asking for an anti-immigration debate since I got elected this year and I think 99 of them have come from the same place. I got hate mail almost handed over to the police some years ago. I wrote a letter to one of our local papers in response to what I saw as xenophobic comments about immigration and refugees. I pointed out that in a few weeks’ time some of us would celebrate our patron saint. I was not referring to St Andrew, who comes a couple of weeks later. Being an adoptive Fifer, I am proud of the connection that we have with St Margaret.

I can understand and I share a lot of the feelings of those who earlier this year celebrated the achievements of the present monarch, and I can understand why English people celebrate the incredible achievements of the previous Elizabeth, who also reigned for a long time, but I believe the finest monarch that we had in our days of independent monarchy was Margaret, who is now a patron saint. She came to Scotland as a refugee. She did not choose to come to Scotland. She came as a refugee and became by far our best loved monarch of all times, certainly in the pre-Union days. When I have commented on that before, I have had hate mail accusing me of being a traitor to my country and of being a traitor to my cause. I made those comments because we just never know what outstanding acts of good can come from somebody who has come here in the most desperate of circumstances. We never know what exceptional contribution someone who comes here as an immigrant may or may not make, just as we can never know who the next great migrant emigrating from these shores might be and what good they might do in other countries.

In exactly the same way as closing down all international trade would harm us all, closing down all immigration would be a desperately sad step to take. In practice, that is what the petitioner is asking for. We cannot close Britain’s borders to anybody trying to come in without borders going up against anyone trying to go from Britain to other countries.

A couple of people have asked who the petitioner was. They have been identified. In fact, they were interviewed by a news website not far from the constituency of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak. It was somebody in Walsall. They are not a registered voter because, ironically, at the time the petition was started the young gentleman was only 17. Although some of us would have been happy to allow them to express their views through the ballot box, a majority of people in here would not have allowed them to do so. Perhaps he had to set up the petition because other people would not allow him a vote. When he was asked where he got the information in his petition, he said he got it off the internet, so perhaps that is an issue we need to look at.

I would be against rejecting a petition that appeared to have been supported by a substantial number of people simply because we found it offensive or we thought it was wrong. If people bring forward ideas based on falsehoods and on facts that are simply not accurate, the way to deal with it is to get the inaccuracies out into the open and to expose them for what they are. So when we get the response from the Minister—spokespersons tend to read through what the Government’s record is and what their future plans are—I hope the Government will take the chance to say unequivocally that the request that has been made in the petition is unacceptable, because the comments, arguments and statements of fact on which the request is made are utterly and completely untrue and unjustifiable.