Arch Cru Compensation Scheme

Debate between Tristram Hunt and Jonathan Evans

Wednesday 19th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)]

It is great privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen, and to follow the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns) who, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Tom Greatrex), has pursued this matter with such dedication.

I rise to speak on behalf of my constituents who have been affected by this debacle, including Michael Sharkey, Ian Matthews and Donald Tart. They have invested not hundreds and thousands of pounds but smaller amounts, which are highly significant for their future standard of living. There is widespread concern, nay fury, among my constituents that they are seeing only up to 70% of the returns in this so-called £54 million funding package. In many circumstances, they face the loss of more than 40% of their investments. As we have heard, we are discussing people’s lives and money that people had worked hard for and put away for retirement or hoped to pass on to their children or grandchildren.

Of course, we will not know the full scale of the negligence involved and the real losses until all the remaining assets of the fund are eventually sold. However, private advice has conservatively estimated the losses in my constituency alone at around £1.5 million, which is a sizeable amount of money for my constituents, or to put it another way that is around 1.5% of the value of the contract recently awarded to Capita to run the national pension scheme. As the authorised corporate director for the Arch Cru investment fund, and therefore having the regulatory responsibility that we have heard so much about today, the Government might think about stepping back from giving Capita further powers and authorities. We have heard about the extraordinary negligence and even allegations of criminal activity involved in the running of these funds.

In June, I tabled 19 parliamentary questions to find out just how much business this Government have awarded to Capita. As of 3 August 2011, the Government had awarded 447 contracts worth at least £112 million to Capita. The hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) has suggested that the Government have a role to play in bringing people to the table. I suggest that if someone is awarding £112 million-worth of contracts, they have a powerful role to play in bringing people to the table.

[Jonathan Evans]

Has the hon. Gentleman done the research to help hon. Members understand how many contracts Capita received before 2010, under the previous Administration? My guess is that it would be a significant multiple of the figure that he has just given.

[Tristram Hunt]

I was going to say that I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but he seemed to be making an unnecessarily partisan point when we are trying to work together for the good of our constituents. I will simply let it pass in that manner.

That figure of £112 million does not include contracts from the Department of Energy and Climate Change, contracts from the Ministry of Defence, which would only provide ranged values of contracts up to a total of £20.6 million and contracts awarded by the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills, which simply did not answer my question. I hope that the Minister will seek out the truth himself.