1. What progress he has made on his proposals to change the licensing of community transport.
In the first Transport questions since the beginning of the year, the Year of Engineering, I would like to put on record my thanks to my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes) and my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) for all the work that they have done The Government want to protect as many community transport services as possible. We will soon be consulting on the issuance and use of permits, and have been working to interpret the scope of the exemptions to the regulations as widely as the law will allow.
I thank the Minister for his answer. He will be aware that the proposal is estimated to cost the industry £37 million and each driver £1,500. It rather seems like the Government have taken a sledgehammer to crack a nut. What does the Minister say to Shotts’ Getting Better Together in my constituency, which provides essential community transport services, yet has no interest in being a commercial entity and could be lost to the community under these plans?
I do not recognise the description that the hon. Gentleman gives. I have been up and down the country talking to community transport schemes. It is not at all clear that the implication for local community transport operators will be anything like as severe as has been suggested, and the one case that has been tested has been referred back for further evidence gathering.
I am grateful to the Minister for recently visiting my constituency, where he saw the great work being done by Our Bus Bartons. He will know that such companies all over the country are urgently seeking reassurance, but can he clarify whether any action proposed by the transport commissioner reflects upon the consultation that is taking place, or whether the consultation will be taking place in any event?
The consultation will be taking place in any event, and the details will be announced shortly. I greatly enjoyed my visit to see the Our Bus group, which is a model of good practice in local community transport.
I welcome the Minister to his appointment. While I understand that the Government have said that they are not going to end the sections 19 and 22 arrangements, the letter they sent out in July last year has caused what the Select Committee on Transport has described as paralysis in the not-for-profit sector. Do we not now need clarity from the Government about what they intend to do, so that they can demonstrate real support for the community transport sector, including for firms such as Shencare in my constituency?
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for welcoming me to my job. I have actually been in it for a while, so I am sorry not to have made more impact on him, if not on the sector. In that regard, he will have seen—I am sure he has noted it carefully—the testimony that I and one of my officials gave to the Transport Committee, which put to rest the question of whether the letter was inappropriate or had caused difficulty. There certainly has been concern, and rightly so: it is a reinterpretation of the law. Some people may not be compliant, that is true, but the vast majority will be, and we expect the consultation to be successful in further allaying concerns.
North Norfolk Community Transport says that at the moment it is unable to get new section 19 permits because it has bid for some of its services competitively, but those services are cross-subsidising vital community services and it is doing exactly what the county council urged it to do. These vital services could go under unless that uncertainty ends, so can the Minister give some reassurance urgently?
The traffic commissioners are acting speedily and effectively and as a unified group on this issue. I expect the consultation to continue to give—through the proposed exemptions and workarounds that we have been looking at—further comfort to the sector.
2. What progress he has made on rail improvements in Devon and the south-west.
We are investing more than £400 million in the rail network in the south-west. This includes a fleet of brand-new trains for services to Devon and Cornwall, which will enter service later this year, transforming journeys for passengers. We are continuing to work with Network Rail and the Peninsula Rail Task Force to explore the potential for longer-term improvements in the south-west.
I welcome the Minister to his new job. The Waterloo to Exeter line serves Axminster and Honiton and the southern part of my constituency. It is a great rail line and it needs a second loop in order to get more trains into Exeter and then back up to London. Could the Minister give me details of what is happening with that?
The Devon Metro proposals for enhanced rail services in the Exeter area include aspirations for additional local services between Axminster and Exeter. This is being progressed as a local scheme by Devon County Council, and we will continue to provide assistance as it develops its proposals.
I welcome the Minister to his new position. The new Minister will be aware that the Government missed the Christmas deadline for funding the three-minute speed reduction between Plymouth and Exeter. At just £600,000, why did the Government knock back the south-west?
I can assure that hon. Gentleman that that is not the case. We are continuing to look closely at the issue, and we are working on it in the Department and with Network Rail.
I welcome my hon. Friend to his post. As he will know, one of the key improvements that could be made for my constituents would be the provision of a new station at Edginswell. Does he share the enthusiasm of his predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard)—whom I see further down the Front Bench, in his new post as a Whip—for that project, and does he agree that it would be a perfect beneficiary of the new stations fund?
I do share the enthusiasm of my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys. We are currently investing more than £40 billion in our network, including more than £15 billion on rail enhancements, as part of the biggest rail modernisation programme for over a century, and we are always on the lookout for good proposals to support.
I, too, welcome the Minister to his post. When will the electrification programme for the railways in the south-west—including the chunk to Bristol—be “un-paused”?
We are thinking about how we can deliver the best outcomes for passengers, because that is what is important to us. We are delivering the same benefits more efficiently, and at a lower cost to taxpayers. We are delivering faster journey times and better trains, and I think that Members on both sides of the House will welcome the new fleet of 29 Hitachi trains which will serve that part of the country.
3. What steps are being taken to increase the number of stations that are accessible to disabled people.
The Government are committed to improving station access for disabled people, including those with hidden disabilities. Further funding for the Access for All programme will be made available in the next rail control period, and we are introducing new accessibility commitments as part of franchises. In addition, whenever the industry carries out infrastructure work at stations, it must meet current accessibility standards. I must say “thank you” to my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), who did a huge amount of work on accessibility across all transport modes.
As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on disability, I have been hearing accounts from people throughout the United Kingdom about a lack of access to both underground and railway stations, which contributes to isolation and social exclusion and also impedes their ability to get back to work—and getting people back to work is one of the Government’s key tasks. Would the Minister kindly agree to discuss with the all-party group the progress that can be made if we work together on the issue?
I am aware of the hon. Lady’s work on the APPG. As she will know, I was chair of the all-party parliamentary group on eye health and visual impairment, and we did a lot of work together I believe that 75% of platforms are accessible by steps, but we need to do much more work. All train operating companies and Network Rail are required to have a disabled people’s protection policy as a condition of their licences The hon. Lady also contributed to the draft accessibility action plan. There were a number of recommendations, and I look forward to meeting her and ensuring that they are followed through.
21. Having previously chaired the sight loss group, the Minister may be aware of concern expressed by Guide Dogs and the Royal National Institute of Blind People. Equality disability training has been standard for bus drivers throughout Europe since 2013, but the UK’s opt-out will run out on 1 March. I asked about that during Women and Equalities questions last week, and the fact that the Minister knew nothing about it did not sound terribly good in the context of interdepartmental working. Will the UK meet its deadline, or will this be another loss from Brexit?
At present, bus drivers must undertake licensing training to ensure that they are able to deal with people with not just visible disabilities but invisible disabilities such as sight loss. They cannot obtain their competency certificates without that training. I will ensure that the issue is followed up at local authority level, and if there is a gap, I shall be more than happy to meet the hon. Lady to ensure that it is dealt with.
I recently undertook a journey on our Bexleyheath line service with a disabled person who was using a wheelchair, to demonstrate how inconvenient it will be when the Victoria line link is removed with the new franchise. She would then have to change at Lewisham, and she says that she would not undertake that journey. Is it right that we are designing disabled people out of our rail service? Will the Minister implore her colleagues to change their minds?
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to raise this. It is not acceptable, but I believe that it is going to be addressed later on down the line at Charing Cross. I refer, too, to my earlier response: all train operating companies have to comply with the disabled people’s protection policy, and if they are unable to, they have to provide alternative transport for the passenger, such as an accessible taxi to the next station. If the hon. Gentleman has a particular case, I will be more than happy to follow it up.
4. Whether he has plans to review the compensation arrangements available to rail passengers.
My hon. Friend will be pleased to hear that, principally because of greater awareness and greater ease in accessing compensation, passengers in the Greater Anglia region have received twice as much compensation in 2016-17 as they did in 2015-16.
I apologise for arriving late—due to a train delay this morning. We in the east of England are looking forward to our sparkling new trains arriving next year, but in the meantime we often face delays, and when people face delays they should be compensated. Will the Minister look at issues such as when trains are overcrowded and people have to get the next one, or when they are cancelled, and see if we can find some technical improvements?
I am glad my hon. Friend welcomes the new trains. Passengers can look forward to a complete fleet replacement, with over 1,000 new carriages by the end of 2020. This will mean passengers will be travelling on longer and, crucially, more regular trains.
The problems the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) describes as facing her constituents are exactly the same as those my constituents have been experiencing in recent months on Northern Rail. Pleas for a compensation system that recognises that delays might be short but repeated and that trains are often overcrowded so that they cannot even get on them are falling on deaf ears. Will the Minister undertake to take this up directly with Northern Rail since my own meetings with it have produced absolutely no progress on this matter?
That is why it is so important that trains are being extended and replaced. The crucial thing is that, where there are delays, passengers are more aware of, and have easier access to, compensation schemes, and overall across the system over £73 million was paid in compensation in 2016-17, an increase of over 64% over the previous year.
The compensation scheme works on the basis that the delays are an exception rather than the norm. Will the Minister sit down with me, or perhaps follow me on Twitter so that he can see the messages I have had every day since work was resumed after the holidays on south-east trains, with delays and disruption every day on every line?
I share my hon. Friend’s concerns and sympathise greatly with the experience of his constituents and other constituents in that area. The Southeastern service is one of the most congested in the country, and it has been vulnerable to the impact of infrastructure failures. We are working closely to ensure closer working between the operator and Network Rail to secure a reduction of such problems in the future.
Compensation arrangements have to work, so will the Minister outline whether he believes that the compensation system can be streamlined and, importantly, be accessible?
Passengers are accessing compensation schemes far more easily than ever before. That is reflected in the greater take-up of compensation payments, which is growing at a far faster rate than any delays in services. We continue to work with operators to ensure that this becomes easier for passengers to access and we will be looking carefully at that in the next franchise renewals process.
5. What recent assessment he has made of the role of private sector investment in the rail industry.
The private sector has generated almost £6 billion of private investment over the past decade, providing new trains, upgrading stations and transforming the passenger experience.
I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. The irony will not be lost on him that public sector satisfaction in the railways is declining as Government influence is at its highest since rail privatisation. What discussions has his Department had with Network Rail to change procurement and design practices so that the private sector can have more influence in funding and financing future projects?
I want to see both. We have just announced the biggest investment programme in our railways—over the period 2019 to 2024—since the steam age, including £20 billion of renewals. That is crucial: one of the reasons why we talk at Question Time about train delays is that the infrastructure in many places desperately needs renewal, which is why we are spending £20 billion on that. It is also important that we bring in additional private finance alongside that public investment, and I have been discussing extensively with Network Rail how we can make that happen.
The private sector can only bring in investment if it knows what the Government’s plans for infrastructure are going to be. Will the Secretary of State tell me now what the latest Government position is on the electrification of the trans-Pennine line?
I have just received the proposals from Network Rail, and we are now reviewing them. My aim is to start this £3 billion upgrade within a matter of months. The project is due to really get under way next year. We are looking at all the different options but, as I have said, electrification will be part of the programme.
Up until 1992, when the only investment in the railways came from the public sector, rail usage was declining. Since privatisation, we have seen a massive increase in the amount of people using the railways. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is because of the changes that the private sector brought in?
I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend. I do not understand the policy adopted by the Labour party. We are now seeing the construction of thousands of new carriages funded by the private sector, and we are getting rid of some of the legacy trains from the days of British Rail that were not up to scratch in those days and are certainly not up to scratch now. That is because private money is coming in alongside our investment programme.
The real question for the Secretary of State is: does he have the political will to ensure that the money is available to invest in the northern rail system in this generation? Not jam tomorrow. Trains today.
The answer to that is clearly yes, because every single train in the north of England is being replaced or refurbished as new. All the old Pacer trains are going, and we are about to start the trans-Pennine upgrade, which will account for one third of the total funding available for enhancement on the railway between 2019 and 2024. That is a large investment programme that will make a difference to the north, and it is a sign of our commitment to the north.
Following the sad demise of Carillion, will the Secretary of State confirm that he is carrying out a full review of the HS2 project, including the business case, to ensure that the remaining private sector companies have the capacity to deliver the project without serious overruns and extra cost to the taxpayer?
My right hon. Friend will be relieved to know that the demise of Carillion, a tragic event for this country and for corporate Britain, will none the less not affect the HS2 project. The existing contract is part of a three-company consortium, and the other two companies, Kier and Eiffage, are taking over responsibility for the project. The apprenticeships are being transferred, the staff are being transferred and the project will continue uninterrupted.
On 17 July last year, the day on which Carillion was confirmed in the HS2 contract, I asked the Secretary of State about the financial instability of the company. He declared himself to be confident that the expected results would be delivered. Given the unfolding events of the last few days, has he now reflected and does he now accept that he got it spectacularly wrong and that his judgment and confidence were disastrously misplaced?
I do not accept that at all. The hon. Gentleman referred specifically to the HS2 contract. At the time, I reviewed those carrying out the contracting very carefully, and I have carried out due diligence since. As I said a moment ago, the HS2 project will not be affected by this, even to the point, I am pleased to say, that the apprentices working with Carillion on the project are being transferred to one of the other two partners. The work will continue uninterrupted. There is no delay and there are no cost implications.
On Monday, The Times newspaper said: “The transport secretary’s decision to award lucrative contracts to an ailing Carillion is only the latest worrying misjudgment to come to light.” It highlighted his trip to Qatar on the day of the biggest rail fare hike in five years, the notorious £2 billion east coast bail-out and his dysfunctional dealings with trade unions in the private sector, saying that the Prime Minister “needs to consider whether it is time that this transport secretary left the station.” Has not The Times got it absolutely right?
The only station that I am going to be leaving is Euston station for a visit to the midlands this morning. There has been no £2 billion bail-out of Virgin Trains East Coast. The contracting with Carillion was actually not with Carillion, but with a consortium of companies that are equally responsible for delivering the contract and will do so. I am happy to stand here to defend the record of a Government that have done more for our transport system than has happened in decades. That is in sharp contrast with what the Labour party did over 13 years in government, which was very little indeed.
6. What recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of funding for transport in the south-west.
Figures for transport spend in the south-west show a significant increase—part of a pattern, Mr Speaker—totalling £1.7 billion in 2016-17 alone. That spend is helping to deliver a package of investment worth over £2 billion on the strategic road network in the south-west, as well as investing more than £400 million in the rail network.
I very much welcome the commitment to funding for the notorious A358 in my constituency, and I am pleased that the Secretary of State and Highways England listened to local concerns and my calls for a new consultation, which opened just this week with three proposals. However, I would like an assurance that the upgrade will deliver not only strategically, but for local people and for productivity in Taunton.
This is an important matter. The A303 and the A358 are a crucial part of our investment programme in the west country, and they will open up a new corridor for people travelling down to the south-west, but they do have to work for my hon. Friend’s constituents and others in the region, particularly for the new employment area next to the motorway in her constituency. I assure her that I will continue to work with her to ensure that the projects delivers both for the region and nationally.
There is some evidence that trains from Paddington to Bristol and onwards are much better, less crowded and more reliable. However, people face delays and overcrowded and unreliable trains when getting from the south-west to the midlands. Will the Secretary of State put some funding into those lines?
I am aware of the particular congestion problems on the CrossCountry franchise. We will be re-letting the franchise shortly, and I want to see longer trains with more capacity for passengers. All of us who travel on CrossCountry trains from time to time know that they are too short for the loads they carry, and we need to find a way of sorting that out.
I echo the concerns about CrossCountry trains. Even outside of peak services, cramped trains are increasingly the norm for my constituents, who are jam-packed into vestibules, and that comes on top of delays and cancellations. Does my right hon. Friend agree that CrossCountry needs to raise its game?
I do agree. This is a question, as it is across the country, of ensuring that we have longer trains for the future. That is central to our strategy and is what the private sector is delivering for our railways, and it needs to happen on CrossCountry trains as well.
On funding, Cardiff Central station—the busiest in Wales—is in urgent need of redevelopment to accommodate expected passenger growth of 22 million in the next five years. This week, our Labour council and the Welsh Labour Government announced their funding contributions and the private sector funding, but the project can go ahead only if there is UK Government funding, too. When will the funding be confirmed?
The important thing about Cardiff Central station is that there is huge development taking place around the station. I have met the developers and local politicians, and I want to see there what I want in other parts of the rail network, which is a real integration of station development with commercial development. That should be an absolutely integral part of what is happening all around the station, not just in the station project in its own right, and that is what I want to happen.
7. What progress has been made on improving road links to (a) Medway, (b) Kent and (c) the south-east.
Highways England is making good progress with upgrades on the A2-M2 corridor to improve links to Medway and Kent, and the preferred routes for the A2 Bean and Ebbsfleet junction upgrades were announced in 2017.
I thank the Minister for that answer. Given the impressive growth and regeneration that Medway has seen over the past 20 years and will continue to see, I thank the Government for the £6 billion lower Thames crossing. Will the Minister confirm that the supporting local highways infrastructure programme will go along with the project so that areas such as Medway can fully benefit?
As my hon. Friend will be aware, the lower Thames crossing is a transformational strategic road project with enormous benefits to Medway and to the region as a whole. We announced the preferred route last year, and we are now developing it further. On the local transport side, it is worth noting that the South East local enterprise partnership has secured nearly £600 million of funding from local growth funds, supporting around 30 transport schemes in Kent and Medway, in order to support the area’s continued economic growth.
18. As the Minister will be aware, one of the big investments announced for the south-east is the Oxford to Cambridge expressway, which will potentially go through Botley in my constituency. The people in my constituency are very worried. May I invite the Minister to come to Botley to meet residents and to allay their concerns about the possible bulldozing of hundreds of houses?
I would be delighted to come with the hon. Lady to meet the residents of Botley and to discuss these concerns.
Last week there was a horrific crash in my constituency in which a car ran into a parked lorry. Three men have died and one is seriously injured. I am not attributing blame, as we do not know exactly what happened, but the Minister will know that lorry parking is a long-running problem in my area of Kent. Will he meet me and representatives of Kent County Council, drivers and lorry parks to see what we can do to speed up the provision of increased lorry parking?
I am very sorry to hear the news of the crash last week. I would be delighted, as always, to meet my hon. Friend and Kent County Council. She should know this is a topic of great interest to me and the Department. Indeed, I met freight operators only this week in part to discuss these very issues.
8. What recent assessment he has made of trends in the level of passenger rail usage.
22. What recent assessment he has made of trends in the level of passenger rail usage.
Rail passenger journeys have more than doubled in the past 20 years, and journey numbers are at their highest level since the 1920s.
Journeys on the Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern franchise fell for the first time last year as commuters shunned its shoddy services. The management contract given by DFT means the state has to shoulder a £90 million loss as a result, and Office of Rail and Road figures show that passenger numbers are starting to fall across the country. Is the franchise model sustainable if that continues?
Passengers are switching away from using traditional season tickets to using pay-as-you-go travel. They are choosing more flexible ticket options to suit their lifestyle. Changing travel behaviour may mean that historical assumptions about the number of journeys taken per season ticket are no longer appropriate. Although the number of passenger journeys is reported to have decreased recently, it does not necessarily mean that fewer people are using the railway network.
Violent attacks on trains have risen by 12.5% in the past year, and sexual offences on trains have doubled in the past five years. A Passenger Focus report in 2014 said that the most important factor identified by passengers is personal security on trains. Wales has guaranteed a guard on every train, and ScotRail has done likewise. When will this Secretary of State take responsibility for passenger safety on trains?
The introduction of new trains across almost the entire network, many of which will have CCTV, will play a significant part in ensuring that passengers can continue to travel safely.
There is a direct link between competition on the line, usage and lower fares. We welcome the fact that electrification is coming to Corby and I am grateful to Ministers for making that happen. Will they now look at options for extending Thameslink to Corby?
I would be happy to discuss that proposal with my hon. Friend. Electrification can play a part in improving passenger experience and reducing journey times, and it is one of the things the Department continues to look at closely.
One of the things deterring people from using the railways in the wintry weather we have had over the past few days is the failure of Northern Rail to properly grit some of the stations on its route, particularly Crossflatts in my constituency, making it hazardous for any passenger who wants to use those stations. Is there anything the Minister can do to intervene to make sure Northern Rail properly grits all its stations on the route so that people can use the railways safely?
I thank my hon. Friend for his suggestion. We continue to work closely with Network Rail to ensure the impact of severe weather on the system is minimised. Across road, rail and aviation, we want our transport system moving whatever the weather.
I always thought the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) had a substantial supply of grit all his own.
19. My constituents can barely get a seat on the train, yet this month they have had the shoulder the biggest fare increases in the country. Although Whitehall and rail bosses crow about improvements to stations such as London Bridge, can the Minister tell me how such projects will benefit passengers in northern towns like mine?
It is northern towns like the hon. Lady’s that are going to be some of the principal beneficiaries of the replaced train fleet across the country. Passengers in her constituency will have improved, more reliable, safer and more punctual services.
9. What steps the Government are taking to support investment in transport infrastructure in the north.
As my hon. Friend will know, the Government are very committed to the northern powerhouse, and to giving the great towns and cities of the north of England more say over transport investment through Transport for the North. This Government are spending more than £13 billion to transform transport across the region—the biggest investment of its kind in the region for a generation.
The commencement of regional flights from Carlisle, which we hope will happen later this year, will be welcomed by my constituents. Will the Department look at ways to add additional services and to make it faster to reach central London from Southend?
I share my hon. Friend’s pleasure at the potential expansion of air services there, as elsewhere in the country. He should be aware that Greater Anglia provides train services from Southend Airport to London, and the entire franchise fleet is to be renewed, with more than 1,000 state-of-the-art vehicles and with the existing fleet retired by the end of 2020. That, combined with significant timetable changes, should mean that Greater Anglia is able to offer quicker, safer journeys, with reduced journey times, across the whole franchise—we are talking about something like 10%.
Is it not the case that if the Government had not given the £2 billion bail-out to the operators of the east coast line, they would have had sufficient money to fund every electrification scheme that has been cancelled, including the midland main line, and have funds left over?
As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, there has been no bail-out. [Laughter.] I notice that Opposition Members are happy to quote from The Times, and may I remind them that the Secretary of State responded to the scurrilous editorial piece with a letter of his own setting out the position? There has been no bail-out of any kind.
I welcome the Minister to his post. On his opening remarks, may I remind him that there is a north beyond the northern powerhouse, and it is called Scotland? In general, in order to deliver high-quality, reliable rail services, funding needs to be based on the needs of the sector, taking account of future growth, the size of the network and essential maintenance. Does he agree with those sound principles?
I certainly share the hon. Gentleman’s commitment to the fact that the north goes beyond the northern powerhouse—of course, I entirely agree with him on that. That is why the Government are involved with the borderlands growth deal, the precise point of which is to work with local authorities on both sides of the border. He will be aware that the high-level proposition to the UK and Scottish Governments on that was submitted last year. We will continue to work on that, and of course we will continue to invest in roads, alongside that process, to the extent that we can.
On the principles I was trying to lay out, Scotland has 17% of the UK rail network but was allocated only 10.4% of the UK spend. The Government regulator, the Office of Rail and Road, has stated that £1.9 billion is needed for essential repairs and £2.3 billion is needed to meet future demand. So why was the funding formula cut and why were experts ignored, leaving Scotland with a £600 million shortfall?
As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, there has been a fiscal settlement which has changed over time, very much in consultation with and with the support of the Scottish Government. Of course, any changes to UK funding in England will be followed by Barnett consequentials, with an impact in Scotland.
Well, investment does not seem to be working that well. The Carillion staff working on the Manchester-Bolton-Preston electrification project had their contract suspended this week. So can the Minister clarify this: should all these workers only expect the jobcentre phone number, as the Prime Minister said yesterday, or can he guarantee that these works, and all similar infrastructure undertakings, will continue to completion, with the current workforce, apprentices, supply chain and project plan?
The hon. Lady will be aware that this Government have made it clear that anyone turning up to work on those schemes through subcontractors will continue to be paid in the normal way. It is important to get that message out there, and not to spread misinformation or misunderstanding about it.
The problem with the Minister’s reply is that the vultures are already circling over the Carillion contract carcases, which will place these projects into future risk, not least as companies such as Interserve and Mitie have had profit warnings served in the last six months. So what due diligence has he instructed officials to undertake of all contractors, and will he end his market speculation by taking these contracts back in house?
Had the hon. Lady done her homework, she would know that there is almost no exposure to the rail sector through the companies that she mentioned. The fact of the matter is that the contracts have often been reinforced and proofed. Certainly on the road side, which I obviously know best—I can refer her question to the rail Minister—we have joint-venture partners that are jointly and severally obliged to pick up these obligations, and they will do so.
10. What steps his Department is taking to meet the target of at least 10% of transport fuels being from renewable sources by 2020.
13. What steps his Department is taking to meet the target of at least 10% of transport fuels being from renewable sources by 2020.
In September, we published our response to the consultation on amendments to the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligations Order 2007. It set out proposals to meet the 2020 target and reduce carbon emissions from transport. A draft statutory instrument to implement the proposals was laid before Parliament on 15 January. Subject to parliamentary approval, the legislation will increase targets for the supply of renewable fuels from April 2018.
Progress on the RTFO is positive. Are the Government ready to introduce E10 petrol, which is already available in France, Germany and Finland? That would also help the UK’s bioethanol industry, which is an important employer in Teesside.
I am aware that the industry is an important employer, and it has been a matter of concern to Ministers to ensure that it continues to succeed. I met representatives from Ensus in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency in November, and we have been having close conversations with them and others. E10 remains a commercial matter for the fuel suppliers. The RTFO encourages suppliers to use the most cost-effective solution. Our analysis suggests that E10 may not be required to meet the targets, but it may nevertheless be an attractive option for suppliers.
Abellio’s hybrid buses are generally a plus for the Uxbridge Road, but they are cancelled out by the ComfortDelGro group’s diesel vehicles, which pollute the lungs not only of my constituents on our major thoroughfare but of people all over the country, as they are standard vehicles. Surely the Government should be doing more to encourage best procurement practice and to rid our roads of dirty diesel.
As the hon. Lady will know, the Government are investing hugely in support for electric vehicles and in improvements to air quality across cities and other parts of the country. That is very much with a view to mitigating the effects of diesel fume particulates.
Fuel providers have stated that they require a Government mandate to introduce E10 fuel to avoid a breach of competition law. Will the Minister reconsider the possibility of mandating E10 fuel? If not, will his departmental lawyers work with fuel providers to overcome this legal hurdle?
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comment. He will be aware that we have this matter closely under review, and we are continuing to discuss it with suppliers and forecourt operators. In some other EU countries, there has been no such mandate and there has nevertheless been significant take-up.
11. What steps he is taking to ensure the provision of adequate compensation for passengers on Southern Rail as a result of poor service in the past 12 months.
My hon. Friend knows full well that I absolutely understand the difficulties that his constituents have faced. I hope he will accept that performance has improved over the past year, since the height of industrial action. We have had compensation arrangements in place, including the special compensation for past disruption, which saw £13.6 million paid to 58,000 passengers. We have also taken steps forward on the ways to implement Delay Repay and will keep the situation under review.
On 2 December 2016, the Secretary of State said in a written statement: “Southern passengers have suffered from unprecedented and sustained disruption to their journeys during 2016”, and offered some very welcome compensation for season ticket holders. The problem is that Southern passengers suffered from unprecedented and sustained disruptions to their journeys during 2017 as well. In fact, the punctuality figures for the most recent quarter are even worse. When are my constituents going to be compensated this year?
As I said, additional compensation measures are in place now. The issues that network currently faces are all to do with the condition of the infrastructure. My hon. Friend will know that we have just announced two major closures to allow upgrade works to take place, and there is a substantial ongoing programme of investment in that route, which I hope will make a significant difference.
Bedford commuters will lose their fast peak train services in May. Many now do not know how they will balance work with their childcare arrangements. Does the Minister agree that Stagecoach should compensate these people and rail users who, by the Government’s admission, have borne the pain of the changes to the rail network timetable?
I cannot promise—I wish I could—no change and no disruption as a result of major investment programmes. The hon. Gentleman will know that the combination of the upgrade to the midland main line and the Thameslink programme must mean, for an interim period, changes to services. There will in fact be more seats from Bedford in peak hours. Of course, many of the east midlands trains arriving at Bedford are already full, so I absolutely regret the fact that we have to inconvenience passengers, but we cannot upgrade and improve the network without taking some difficult decisions.
12. What estimate he has made of the number of journeys taken by bus in England in each of the last three years.
15. What estimate he has made of the number of journeys taken by bus in England in each of the last three years.
16. What estimate he has made of the number of journeys taken by bus in England in each of the last three years.
The estimated number of passenger journeys made on local bus services in England in each of the past three years is as follows: 2014-15, 4.63 billion; 2015-16, 4.51 billion; and 2016-17, 4.44 billion.
My constituents regularly contact me to complain about infrequent and unreliable bus services. Does the Minister think that there is a link between that, the decline in bus usage, and the 33% cut to the bus budget since 2010?
What is striking is that in many ways there is so much to be optimistic about with the bus industry. When I talk to operators, I see great investments in technology and ticketing, and tremendous potential for the industry in the context of the air quality changes that have been made by this Government.
In Bristol, more than 85% of routes are provided by First Bus, which makes a healthy profit every year, but under current rules it cannot use those profits to subsidise commercially unviable routes, which may be really important to local people. Why cannot bus companies’ contracts stipulate that they have to run those services using their profits from income-generating routes, instead of letting them pocket the profits while the local council has to foot the bill?
It is not historically the job of Government to be intervening in the precise allocation of a company’s profitability. I note that there has been a substantial increase in journeys in Bristol, from 32.7 million to 39.9 million over the past three years. If the hon. Lady has some specific proposals, I will be happy to look at them.
Mr Speaker, I hope you will not mind if I take this opportunity to record my gratitude to both the emergency services and railway staff for their outstanding response to the fire at Nottingham railway station last week, ensuring that everyone was safely evacuated. Damage was minimised and services were restored very quickly Around a quarter of all concessionary passholders’ bus journeys are for medical appointments, yet many struggle with inaccessible and irregular bus services, and seven years of cuts to supported services have only exacerbated those problems. Research from Age UK has found that 1.5 million people over 65 found it very difficult, or difficult, to travel to hospital appointments, and stressful, complicated or expensive public transport journeys inevitably lead to missed or cancelled appointments. Has the Minister discussed that pressing problem with colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care, and what does he plan to do to address it?
I thank the hon. Lady for her comments and I absolutely associate myself with her support for the emergency services in relation to the fire in Nottingham In many ways, the concessionary fare scheme has been a colossal success, as the hon. Lady will be aware. Something like 12 million people have concessionary permits in this country and they make enormous numbers of journeys every year, heavily supported by Government.
Government cuts have led to the axing or downgrading of 400 bus routes, and passenger numbers are now at a 10-year low. Will the Minister reinstate those services, or, if he is unwilling or unable to do so, will he give local councils the power and resources that they need?
I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his position on the Opposition Front Bench, and I thank him for the question. Of course, these services are deregulated and operate, in many cases, in collaboration with local authorities, which receive substantial amounts of funding from central Government. We expect them to deploy that money as they see fit.
14. What recent discussions he has had with representatives of the Civil Aviation Authority on health requirements for UK-based pilots.
The Civil Aviation Authority keeps such matters under constant review and has today announced that it will be issuing class 1 medical certificates with a restriction to applicants wishing to become commercial pilots where this is required for safety purposes.
The Secretary of State will be aware of the case of my constituent who has been denied his commercial pilot’s licence on the ground that he is HIV-positive. I am not entirely sure what the Minister’s answer means, but I hope it means that he will meet the CAA and the European Aviation Safety Agency very soon to stop them passing the buck, and let this pilot fly.
To reassure the hon. Gentleman, my answer means that today the rules are being changed, and while I cannot give a certain outcome to an individual case, people who suffer from conditions that have made it difficult for them to become commercial pilots will find it easier to become commercial pilots, as the CAA takes—I think—a more sensible approach to this matter.
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
I echo the comments of the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) about the emergency services’ response last week. I pay tribute to all those who carried out works across the rail network over Christmas, giving up their Christmas holiday period for the investment programme I am proud to be from a party of opportunity. We are a party of opportunity that provided this country with its first woman Prime Minister. Today, we are the party that provides the first Muslim woman Minister to speak from the Government Dispatch Box—my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani). I congratulate her, and I am very proud to sit alongside her today.
The Secretary of State will be aware that Essex adds over £35 billion to the economy; but our businesses that want to grow cannot grow, because of poor transport infrastructure. Will my right hon. Friend help those businesses by committing to back key projects such as the rail loop north of Witham, investment in the A12 and investment in the A120?
I absolutely understand the importance that my right hon. Friend places on transport links in Essex, which is why we are investing both in the county and across the country. Highways England is progressing the A12 improvements, which are now going through the consultation and design stages. On the railways, a number of improvements are required to the eastern main line, and the rail loop is one of those under consideration.
T2. Does the Minister agree with me and the Transport for the North draft strategic transport plan that there is a compelling economic case for a northern powerhouse rail network stop in Bradford, both for my constituents and for the wider region?
We are very closely studying the report by Transport for the North—a soon to be statutory body—and we will look at that scheme alongside others.
T4. Is the Minister aware that in west Norfolk we have a very active guide dogs group? They took me on a blindfold walk, which was a very moving experience. It brought home to me the number of obstacles that blind people face, such as unauthorised cars on pavements and unauthorised street furniture. What is the situation with the accessibility action plan?
I thank my hon. Friend for bringing the guide dogs group to the attention of the House. The Government are committed to ensuring that disabled people have the same access to transport and opportunities to travel as everyone else. The Department for Transport is currently analysing the responses received to its draft accessibility action plan and will publish the Government’s response in the spring. The final action plan will be published in the summer, and will set out the Government’s ambition for this agenda, based on the feedback provided, and the Government’s timescales for delivery.
T3. Do Virgin East Coast’s franchise promises to run trains every two hours from London to Bradford, Harrogate and Middlesbrough still hold good, or have they been scaled back?
There has been absolutely no change to any part of the terms of that franchise; as of today, there is absolutely no change. It is business as usual. I have set out in this House the challenges, but as of today, to be clear, nothing has changed—neither the service specification nor the contracts for franchise.
Will the rail Minister be kind enough to agree to meet the Kettering rail users group to discuss how rail services might be improved to and from Kettering?
Of course I would be delighted to meet representatives from the Kettering rail users group, and my hon. Friend.
T5. In my constituency we have the Greenock ocean terminal, from which goods are imported and exported around the world. What assurances can the Minister give me that Brexit will not adversely affect the transportation of goods by sea from my Inverclyde constituency?
I absolutely understand the importance for the future of our maritime sector—of shipping goods by sea. Indeed, I recently had the pleasure of visiting Montrose port to see the important work that it does for the east of Scotland. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the maritime sector, while often not the highest-profile sector in these questions, is enormously important to this country.
While many of us were enjoying our Christmas lunches, an army of Network Rail engineers were working hard making improvements and repairs across the country. Will the Secretary of State join me in congratulating them on their hard work and thanking them for it?
We often fail to appreciate the hidden army of people who support our transport system. Those who turned out over the Christmas period—with some extraordinary work was done—deserve all of our thanks. Whether it is the improvements in the north-west, the expansion of Liverpool Lime Street that has taken place over recent months or the extraordinary work at London Bridge, north and south we are seeing huge investment programmes that will make a difference to the passenger experience.
T6. The Orwell bridge was closed again yesterday, forcing about 5,000 lorries from Felixstowe, the UK’s largest container port, to take two hours each getting through Ipswich. Will the Secretary of State urgently meet me and other local MPs to expedite a northern bypass for Ipswich?
I will be delighted to meet the hon. Gentleman and colleagues about that. As he will be aware, the DFT was awarded £77 million at spring Budget 2016 for the upper Orwell crossings. That scheme was one of the first large local majors to be funded. We will happily revisit any discussion he wishes to have on this topic.
Does my hon. Friend recognise that many hospitals around the country do not have good public transport links? For that reason, will he write to the Health Secretary urging him to scrap hospital car parking charges?
As my right hon. Friend will know, the first debate I ever secured in the House of Commons was on car parking charges at Hereford Hospital—[Interruption.]
Will the Minister face the House, and then everybody can hear?
I apologise, Mr Speaker. My first ever debate in the House was on car parking charges at Hereford Hospital, so I absolutely understand and share my right hon. Friend’s concern. I am afraid that this has been the legacy of the Labour Government’s investment in private finance initiative projects in hospitals in the period up until 2010.
T7. The head of US aviation has stated that the UK had a month to outline an aviation safety strategy or be faced with costly disruption to transatlantic trade. What progress has the Secretary of State made on US aviation strategy post Brexit?
Since my appointment, in recent months I have had regular meetings with the US airlines and the US Federal Aviation Administration, and I have met and discussed these issues with my counterpart in the US Department of Transportation. We are making good progress with our successor arrangements for aviation after we have left the European Union.
On what evidence are the Government now pushing ahead with what I believe to be a flawed plan for expanding Heathrow? The updated national policy statement shows that it is more expensive, lower value, more congesting, noisier, and provides fewer connections. Will the Secretary of State meet me to discuss this?
I know how strongly my right hon. Friend feels about this. She and I have had many conversations about it and I know that we will carry on doing so. She and I, of course, do not share the same view—I believe that this project is strategically important for the United Kingdom—but I am happy to carry on discussing it with her.
T8. I was very disappointed recently when a Department for Transport publication on national strategic roads did not even mention the dualling of the A27 between Lewes and Eastbourne. Will the Secretary of State confirm in the House today that that was an oversight and that we will be looking to dual that shocking road?
The hon. Gentleman will know that his predecessor secured from me a commitment to allow the local authority to use funding allocated for the improvements to the A27 to review what the best options are east of Lewes. I wait to see the response of that work.
With the initial consultation currently open on “Shaping the Future of England’s Strategic Roads”, will the Minister confirm that the Secretary of State will look closely at the vital upgrade of junction 15 of the M6, serving Stoke-on-Trent?
I can certainly confirm that if that scheme is given the enthusiastic support of the local transport authorities involved, then we will look closely at it, as we would with all such bids.
T9. Given the importance to jobs and the economy of international connectivity through airports, such as Edinburgh in my constituency, will the Secretary of State say what discussions he has had with the European Commission about participating in the Open Skies agreement after Brexit?
We have two jobs to do for aviation post-Brexit. One is to conclude negotiations within the European Union, which will be part of the ongoing process of negotiating our successor arrangements, and the other is to negotiate successor agreements around the world. We are working on both those things right now.
On the east coast main line, rather than taking us back to the bad old days of British Rail, as the Labour party’s renationalisation proposals would do, will the Secretary of State instead consider the Competition and Markets Authority’s recommendations for more on-track open access choice and competition, with the far better quality and cost of rail services that it says would result?
There is no doubt that open access makes a difference. I do not think for a moment that those who, for example, live in Sunderland, Middlesbrough or Bradford and have services from Grand Central would say anything other than that open access has been a good thing. That is the area in which the private sector has really made a difference, bringing services to the network that never existed in the days of nationalisation.
With the Severn bridges at long last coming into public ownership on 8 January, will the Minister meet me to discuss the future operation of the bridges, including abolishing the tolls following the long local campaign?
I am sure the hon. Lady, on behalf of her constituents, will welcome the news that this Government are reducing or abolishing the tolls on the bridges. This will make journeys much more efficient and open up the area to much more economic opportunity. I am more than happy to meet the hon. Lady to discuss anything further.
At a recent meeting with senior HS2 personnel, they promised to provide all MPs along the route of HS2 with advance notice of construction works in their constituencies. They have not done this. Will the Secretary of State ensure that they keep their promises?
I absolutely will—no question. I expect HS2 to be good corporate citizens as it embarks on this huge construction project. If there are examples of its failing to do so, I invite all Members to come to me and the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani), who will be leading within my team on HS2. We will want to make sure that, where it is humanly possible to do so, we do the right thing by all those on the route.
What progress is being made on delivering bus franchising powers for elected Mayors?
As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, the Bus Services Act 2017 has created those powers. We are in conversations—my officials are in conversations —with Mayors in Manchester and elsewhere in the country, and we remain very interested in having further conversations with other Mayors who wish to avail themselves of these powers.
When can we expect a decision on the Transport and Works Act order application for the improvement of the Hope Valley line? The public inquiry was in May 2016 and it reported in November 2016, but so far the Department has been unable to say when we will get a decision.
I will seek to gee things along. The Hope Valley line, as my right hon. Friend will know, is one part of the package of proposals—some new lines, some upgraded lines—that Transport for the North has brought forward for the northern powerhouse rail. I will seek to make sure that that process is concluded as quickly as possible.
Will the Government work with businesses that supply renewable fuels to see what impact the renewable transport fuel obligation has on them, and will they continue to look to develop E10?
We have already consulted quite extensively, and we will continue to work with those businesses.
May I welcome the new HS2 Minister to her place and take this opportunity to make an early plea, on behalf of the residents of Erewash who are directly affected by HS2, for an urgent review of the statutory compensation plans for residents and businesses and of the way in which HS2 Ltd is administering this process?
My hon. Friend has previously raised that with me, and I am pleased that she has raised it with me again today. I am more than happy to meet her and take on board any concerns she has on behalf of her constituents.
Has the Secretary of State had a chance to look at early-day motion 775 about taking musical instruments on to aeroplanes? In his coming discussions on aviation, will he take the opportunity to meet the Culture Secretary to talk about how we might solve this real problem for musicians?
An airline’s hand luggage policy is obviously a matter for the airline, but I am very happy to have a discussion with the hon. Gentleman about the issue. There may not be a simple solution, but I am always happy to talk to hon. Members about the challenges they face.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani) on her appointment. Following her review of station accessibility, will she look carefully at the hundreds of applications from residents in my constituency for improvements at Stanmore and Canons Park stations which have not been provided by Transport for London, but will I hope be provided by the Government?
I thank my hon. Friend for welcoming me to the Dispatch Box, and of course I will meet him to discuss the matter further. I look forward to arranging that meeting.
The Minister may be aware that the level crossing in Pencoed in my constituency will now not be improved because of the cancellation of electrification, and that is causing access issues and considerable safety concerns. I made this request to the previous Minister, so will the new Minister now meet me, and a representative of Pencoed Town Council, to start the process of closing that level crossing and improving the highways around Pencoed?
Decisions on electrification do not and will not in any way impede safety improvements. We have announced a large amount of money over the next five years, and I am happy to see what we can do to move this issue on rapidly.
A very short question is required so, of course, I look in the direction of the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne).
Is there an end to M3 night closures?
As my right hon. Friend will know, these are night closures because of the protections being offered to daytime running. Upgrading of smart motorway junctions has already taken place—junctions 2 to 4 are complete, and work on junction 6 is due to complete soon. Other work on junctions 9 and 14 is planned, but it has not yet commenced.
Can the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) match that brevity?
The previous rail Minister agreed to meet me to discuss the reopening of the railway line to Fleetwood. Will the new Minister honour that and get Fleetwood back on track?
I am very happy to honour that commitment.
Similarly brief, the hon. Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes).
I will speak quickly. As the Minister said in his opening remarks, 2018 is the year of engineering. Will the new Minister, my fellow Brummie, say what the Government are doing to increase diversity within the engineering profession?
I give the hon. Gentleman permission to breathe.
I feel obliged to respond to a fellow Brummie. I congratulate the engineering envoy, my hon. Friend the Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe), who I believe is sitting in the Gallery. The Government have launched the Year of Engineering—I did that myself on Monday at Crossrail—and we are particularly keen to open up engineering as a career for young girls and boys, especially those from black and Asian ethnic minorities. I urge Members to become ambassadors for science, technology, engineering and maths in their constituencies if they have not already done so.
The environmental impact assessment of the Government’s decision not to electrify the Midland main line north of Kettering has revealed that 25 times more savings in carbon emissions would have been achieved with that electrification. If the Government are serious about their new commitment to the environment, will they think again about that decision?
I expect to see a transformation of technology on our railways over the coming years, with the introduction of different types of battery electric hybrid trains and hydrogen trains, and I see that as a priority. I want the first hydrogen train to operate on our rail network within a short period of time.
Will the Leader of the House please update the House on the forthcoming business?
The business for the week commencing 22 January will include: Monday 22 January—Second Reading of the Financial Guidance and Claims Bill [Lords] Tuesday 23 January—Remaining stages of the Nuclear Safeguards Bill, followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Telecommunications Infrastructure (Relief from Non-Domestic Rates) Bill, followed by a motion relating to the appointment of a board member to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, followed by a motion relating to the appointment of an electoral commissioner Wednesday 24 January—Opposition day (8th allotted day). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion, subject to be announced Thursday 25 January—Debate on a motion on joint enterprise, followed by a general debate on the proscription of Hezbollah. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee Friday 26 January—The House will not be sitting The provisional business for the week commencing 29 January 2018 will include: Monday 29 January—Remaining stages of the Armed Forces (Flexible Working) Bill [Lords], followed by remaining stages of the Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill Tuesday 30 January—Second Reading of the High Speed Rail (West Midlands - Crewe) Bill, followed by motions relating to that Bill Wednesday 31 January—Opposition day (unallotted half day), subject to be announced, followed by a debate on motions relating to the restoration and renewal of the Palace of Westminster Thursday 1 February—Business to be nominated by the Backbench Business Committee Friday 2 February—Private Members’ Bills Mr Speaker, I am tempted to burst into song at this point, because a little bird has told me it is your birthday tomorrow, but I will spare the House that embarrassment and instead wish you a very happy birthday. And what better way to celebrate than by listening to the debates on tomorrow’s valuable private Members’ Bills proposed by the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) and my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston)? The first will ensure that homes are fit for human habitation and the second will give much greater protection from stalking This week we achieved a significant milestone by completing all stages of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill in this place. We wish it well for its Second Reading in the other House the week after next.
I thank the Leader of the House for announcing the forthcoming business. I note, however, that the restoration and renewal debate will take place after an Opposition day debate, so that allows us half a day. That is quite surprising, given that the Government have tabled two motions, and it is almost like the motions were written for the previous debate. I can only think of a phrase that you, Mr Speaker, will be familiar with from tennis circles: the Government cannot be serious. It is as if the Joint Committee had never met. It took evidence and reported, but all the Government are doing through their motions is noting its report. Will they think again and retable the motions Last week, I asked for a list of ministerial responsibilities. I checked with the Vote Office today, and that has not been published, so will the Leader of the House please update the list The Prime Minister has made a speech on the environment, yet the Government vote against environmental protection and all the while trash Labour Wales. Let me put the record straight. She clearly has not read the briefing papers, because Labour Wales is either second or fourth in the world for recycling rates, depending on how they are calculated. Labour Wales introduced the 5p charge on plastic carrier bags in 2011; that happened in England in 2015 Will the Leader of the House please explain why the Government are stifling growth in Wales? There has been no decision on the Swansea Bay tidal lagoon. The Government’s own independent report, written by a former Minister, backed the tidal lagoon’s “strong contribution” to the UK’s energy. One hundred businesses and Members from across the parties have called for a decision. When will the Government make a statement on their position, or are they putting politics before people Will the Government put people first—before politics—and support the request from my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) for a fund to help families with children’s funeral costs? Will the Leader of the House confirm whether the Prime Minister actually said that the cost of burials is for the grieving? That might be right, but if the Prime Minister would meet my hon. Friend, she could explain that the fund would only be for those who cannot afford burial costs. Will the Government follow Labour Wales and do this in Martin Harris’s memory Will the Government respond to yesterday’s point of order made by the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) and the motion passed in the Welsh Assembly yesterday about retaining Welsh law following our withdrawal from the EU It looks like we are back to the “casino economy”—my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) has left the Chamber, but that used to be his favourite phrase—which brings devastation to people’s lives. Short sellers made £137 million when Carillion’s share price fell by 70% over the course of three trading days following the July profit warning. Hedge funds were betting on the collapse of the shares of a company that provides vital public services. When will the Government make a statement on the urgent steps that they are taking following Carillion’s insolvency? Will they set up a taskforce to support the innocent people who were doing their job on one day, but out of that job the next through no fault of their own When will the Government make a statement on why Richard Howson has a pay packet of £1.51 million from December, payable until October 2018, and is employed, while apprentices and other employees are being made redundant? May we also have a statement on why the Wood Group won a lucrative contract to carry out inspections, as the sole supplier, at the Government’s new Hinkley Point nuclear power plant, with Mr Howson as a director? Could the Leader of the House say whether directors’ disqualification proceedings have started against him and the other directors of Carillion Banks were the beneficiaries of quantitative easing, so will the Government ask them to quantitatively ease small business suppliers and pay them within the Government’s own deadline of 30 days? Will the Government ensure that the prompt payment code is now mandatory and not voluntary? That is why we need a taskforce, with a grid and a timeframe, as well as a debate so that the Minister can update the House next week This week, we remembered Martin Luther King, and it is sad that the President of the United States did not follow the tradition of previous Presidents and do public service. Martin Luther King looked beyond the colour of people’s skin to the content of their character. We also remember Cyrille Regis, who died this week. He looked beyond the racist chants and provided inspiration to many We have been offered the Bayeux tapestry. It depicts events in 1066, but we prefer to remember another Frenchman, Jules Rimet, and the events of 1966 Finally, Mr Speaker, I wish you a happy birthday. I do not know whether you look at the horoscopes, but they say that Capricorns have a secret desire “to be admired by their family and friends and the world at large”— it could not be more apt.
I am not sure I am going to argue with that one.
I am very tempted to give an opinion about that, Mr Speaker, but perhaps in private rather than in public. At our recent outing with the Youth Parliament, I certainly think that you had universal approval. Its Members were certainly delighted with your support for them, as are many people right across the country who are very grateful for your interventions to support those who do not always have their voice heard, so I would concede that your Capricornian enthusiasm is being met well I am grateful to the hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) for her comments and questions, and specifically for her point about Martin Luther King. I pay tribute to her, because she often raises the important progress that has been made on issues of equality. I am grateful to her for that, for what she is doing on the working group on harassment, and for her continual support through it for equality. That is incredibly important The hon. Lady asks about the restoration and renewal of the Palace of Westminster. The reason for the motions is that we want to be very clear that this is a decision for the House. The House needs to decide whether we can afford to justify the work that undoubtedly needs to take place to restore this Palace—a UNESCO world heritage site, with over 1 million visitors a year—at a time when there are great fiscal constraints. It is a genuinely open decision that the House needs to make, and what the Government have sought to do, taking into account the broad range of views across the House on what should happen, is to put forward, first, an open discussion about whether the House is willing to bear the cost from the taxpayer’s purse. Secondly, if the House does believe that now is the time, we need to think about how can we go about doing these things to ensure the very best value for taxpayers’ money. That is incredibly important The hon. Lady asked me to look at the update of ministerial responsibilities. I will absolutely take that point away and do that The hon. Lady talks about environmental protections and the work that Labour has done on recycling in Wales. I would point out to her that this Government were a key contributor to one of the greatest and first truly global legally binding agreements to tackle climate change—the Paris agreement. We decarbonised our economy faster than any other country in the G20 during 2016. And, of course, there was the fantastic piece of news that in June 2016, for the first time, wind, nuclear and solar power generated more UK power than gas and coal combined. So the UK as a whole is doing an incredibly good job in decarbonising and tackling climate change. It is also this Government who have kept 9 billion plastic bags out of circulation through the 5p charge, which has generated £95 million to be spent on good causes. That is incredibly important The hon. Lady raises the issue of Swansea Bay. As she knows, that is still under review. It is an incredibly expensive project, so it is vital that we get good value for taxpayers’ money On the cost of burials for children, I am very sympathetic to the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris), who has raised this with me in the Chamber a number of times. I will continue to look at whether more can be done but, as hon. Members will be aware, funeral directors and/or local councils often pick up such costs. The question is whether there should be something more centrally managed to address that, but I pay tribute to the hon. Lady for what is a very good campaign The shadow Leader of the House talked about Carillion, which is an incredibly important issue for the Government, as all Members will appreciate. There was a statement just this week from the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. He has made it clear that the Government are working on contingency plans. This is a very troubling time for many employees of Carillion, as well as those who are contractors and those providing public services. The Government will absolutely undertake to ensure that all public services continue to be paid for, and that those employees continue to be paid for the work that they do. There are many different resources for people, including a helpline from the Insolvency Service for businesses and employees who want more information. This is a difficult time, but the Government are doing everything they can, as rapidly as they can, to try to resolve issues and to preserve as many jobs as possible.
Order. As usual, a great many hon. and right hon. Members are seeking to catch my eye, and I am keen to accommodate the level of interest. However, it might be useful for the House to know that there is a Select Committee statement to follow, and that approximately 50 hon. Members are seeking to contribute to the two debates to take place under the auspices of the Backbench Business Committee later today. Therefore, if I am to accommodate the level of interest, or to get anywhere near to doing so, there is a premium on brevity from Back and Front Benchers alike.
I welcome the debate on restoration and renewal. I also welcome what the Leader of the House said about there being a genuine choice in that debate. It is important to do emergency repairs, but it is also quite right to reflect before we set up a delivery authority, because a lot of public money would be involved and we have to justify to our constituents that this is the right thing to do. May I therefore commend the Leader of the House on her approach?
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his contribution. He is right: this needs to be a decision of the House. It is vital that we take into account the value and importance of this building as a historic national icon that attracts many hundreds of thousands of tourists, schoolchildren and so on, and that is, of course, the seat of our democracy. On the other side of the equation, it is vital that we consider the costs to the taxpayer and value for taxpayers’ money.
Happy birthday for tomorrow, Mr Speaker. The card is in the post; you will receive it tomorrow morning. I thank the Leader of the House for announcing the business for next week As the repeal Bill heads off to the House of Lords, we have failed to address the devolution-threatening clause 11, even though we were promised that these issues would be dealt with by the Secretary of State in a series of Government amendments. Apparently it is all to be dealt with in the House of Lords—somewhere with which the Scottish people have no democratic relationship whatsoever. I really hope that this will all be resolved properly. To me—[Interruption]—it looks like we are taking power back—[Interruption.] Excuse my coughing; there was a bit of Theresa May about that To me, it looks like we are taking power back from, in some people’s words, unelected EU Eurocrats, only to hand it over to unelected Lords, aristocrats and bishops—but I suppose they are British unelected Lords, aren’t they? Apparently, to help the Government to get their Bill through the Lords, 13 new Government peers will be ennobled. And we have the gall to lecture the developing world about patronage and the quality of its democracy! Not to be outdone, apparently we are to get three new Momentum-style Labour Lords. I suppose those Comrade Lords will be donning the ermine for the few I suppose we should be grateful that we are at least getting half a day for restoration and renewal, but the Leader of the House seriously needs to think again about the time being afforded. There is huge interest in the issue, and I am already sensing the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) being wound up to spring forward and table a series of amendments. I appeal to the Leader of the House to think about the time allocated and to ensure that we get sufficient time to debate these issues, in which there is great public interest Talking about time, we wasted two hours yesterday on the simple process of recording our votes. Throughout the passage of the EU repeal Bill, we lost some 14 hours standing in packed Lobbies doing absolutely nothing. We have to seriously review how we do our work in this place. We have to replace the antiquated relic that is the way we vote in this House with electronic voting. I do not come to this House to stand in packed Lobbies; I come here to debate and to make sure that we participate. That is what our electors expect us to do; the Leader of the House has to get that sorted.
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for, as ever, expressing myriad thoughts As has been made very clear, amendments to clause 11 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill will be tabled in the Lords, the sole reason being the fact that the constructive talks with the devolved Administrations have not reached a conclusion. Surely the hon. Gentleman agrees that it is better to get that right than to rush it The hon. Gentleman gave his view of the other House, of which he is plainly not a fan. My view, and the view of many Members, is that the other place does an incredibly valuable job in revising and improving legislation. There is some real expertise there, and we count on being able to add it to the work of this elected House. I, for one, support it The hon. Gentleman talked about restoration and renewal, and paid tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) for all sorts of jumping up and down. I have not seen my hon. Friend do that, but he and I have had many discussions about R and R, and will continue to do so throughout the process Finally, the hon. Gentleman mentioned electronic voting. The House has considered that in the past and will keep it under review, but, as we have seen over the last couple of days, after a period when the House has not sat, meeting in the Lobbies and having an opportunity to raise issues with Ministers and other colleagues and share information is often incredibly valuable. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman is shouting from a sedentary position that it is all right for us, but I sometimes meet him to discuss issues that are of common interest across the House. I personally feel that the Lobby has a valuable role to play in our democracy.
One of the roles of the House is to scrutinise the work of the Government. May I ask my right hon. Friend to help me to obtain proper answers to two written questions that I tabled to the Department for Exiting the European Union about the publication of a position paper by the Government on services, which constitute 80% of our economy, and financial services, which will employ more than 1 million people, during the Brexit negotiations? The answers that I have received so far have been sent from an account called “No reply”, and they truly live up to that title.
I am genuinely sorry to hear that, and I shall be happy to take the matter up with the Department on behalf of my right hon. Friend. I should add, however, that—as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union said last night, when he paid tribute to many Members on both sides of the House—the Government have been shown to be listening very carefully to proposals for improvements to the Bill, and have adopted many of the suggestions made by members of all parties.
My constituency is plagued by dangerous drivers in high-performance cars. Loopholes in insurance rules mean that, although many are not adequately insured, they are able to abuse the system and stay under the police radar. May we have a debate about closing those loopholes to make our roads safer?
I thank the hon. Lady for raising an issue that is very important to people in her area, as she often does. I encourage her to seek an Adjournment debate so that she can discuss the specific examples that she has in mind.
I, too, welcome the motions relating to the repair and renewal of our historic Parliament. However, given that people and organisations throughout the country are having to make some really tough decisions, will the Leader of the House ensure that, having debated those motions, we exercise financial prudence in whatever decision we make about the future of the House?
My hon. Friend is right to point out that, whatever we do—whether we decide to look at the issue again later in the parliamentary Session, or whether we decide to take action now—at the heart of our decision must be the need to secure the best possible value for taxpayers’ money.
May I wish you a happy birthday for tomorrow, Mr Speaker? I would guess that we do not yet have to warn the London Fire Brigade about the potential for a conflagration from the cake I am grateful to the Leader of the House for providing a debate on restoration and renewal in Government time, but on the basis of the application for a debate on the subject that the Backbench Business Committee has already received, I suspect that a half-day debate may not be sufficient to assuage Members’ thirst, and that a subsequent debate in Back-Bench time may well be necessary. An awful lot of Members are very interested in discussing the pros and cons because whichever option is taken will not be cheap, and there are significant potential costs to the public purse as a result of whichever option we go for There is also an important debate this afternoon about RBS Global Restructuring Group, but will the Leader of the House think about having a debate in Government time about banking practice generally in the aftermath of the international financial crisis? I am aware of significant numbers of additional cases involving Lloyds, Allied Dunbar and many other banks in the banking system that have caused grievous problems to SMEs around the country, putting people into penury.
I certainly, of course, would welcome the Backbench Business Committee deciding to have a further debate on R and R. The hon. Gentleman raises an important point about the demand for debate on that. If Members want to do a tour of the basement to avail themselves of some very useful information prior to the debate, the engineers stand ready to provide those at their convenience. It is very enlightening, so if you—I am sorry, if Members—I am sure that you, Mr Speaker, have already done it—wish to do that, please do The hon. Gentleman raises the important point about the way banks have treated SMEs. As City Minister, I had some grave concerns about that and investigated a number of cases. I am sure that he will have support from hon. Members if he wants to suggest further debates at the Backbench Business Committee.
I am grateful to the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee for awarding me and 19 other colleagues a debate on the restoration and renewal of Parliament on Thursday 1 February because this has now forced the issue and we are now going to have a good debate. Can the Leader of the House say more about that If the second motion comes up for a vote because the first motion has not been passed, will the second motion be amendable? The motion I was going to put down for the Backbench Business Committee day debate was amendable, and was on the clear premise that, while we would set up a sponsoring authority, it would be on condition that this debating Chamber should stay in the Palace for the whole time. So if the second motion is passed, it is very important that it is amendable, so that this point of view can be put to the House.
Because of the seriousness of the decision before the House, the two motions will not be amendable; it will be a case of either the first motion or, if that falls, the second motion.
Today’s Financial Times reports pandemonium at some Carillion construction sites, and at PMQs yesterday there were no answers to concerns about the future of thousands of apprentices across the country, and there is much complexity over the various pension pots. May we have a Government statement on their progress in responding to this calamity?
We are of course taking every possible action to try to resolve the inevitable uncertainty when a company of this size gets into financial difficulties. The hon. Gentleman is right to focus on the issues for apprentices. My right hon. Friends are looking very carefully at what can be done. For those seeking advice, a webpage has been set up by the Insolvency Service, and there is also a dedicated website set up by the special managers PwC to provide more information to those individuals. The Government have set up a group to discuss the issues with trade unions and industry representatives, so as to be able to ensure that we get to the bottom of this as soon as possible.
Order. At approximately 11.40 am we will need to move on to the next business, so may I very gently say to colleagues that although I understand the desire to give some context and preamble before asking a question, Members who now proceed with what is probably a scripted and rather long question will be doing so knowing that they are stopping colleagues taking part? So may I appeal to colleagues to help each other?
We need a debate on Carillion. We have had a disaster in Taunton, just outside my constituency, where the roadworks went over time and over budget. It was a shambles. It is time to have a debate now, please.
My hon. Friend raises an important issue, which the Government are looking closely at. I encourage him to seek an Adjournment debate on any specific issues that relate to his constituency.
Is the Leader of the House aware that many people believe that the pressure on the health service is partly due to the collapse of the social network support services in our communities? May we have an early debate on what is going on in community support services?
There are many community support services that do an incredibly good job in further supporting people’s health needs, not least those involving the health implications derived from loneliness. The Prime Minister has announced that we have now appointed a new Minister to tackle that specific issue. The hon. Gentleman will be aware, however, that the NHS is now funded even more than it ever has been, with a further £6.3 billion of new funding announced in the Budget. The Government are determinedly tackling the need to recruit more doctors and nurses and to ensure that the NHS is able to meet the very particular demands that it faces this winter.
Did the Leader of the House see the opinion poll last week that showed that 84% of the people want money to be diverted from the overseas aid budget to the NHS? May we have a debate and a vote on this issue, so that we can see how out of touch this House is, once again, with public opinion at large?
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development has made it clear that she will ensure that the generosity of the British people towards international aid is put to the best use, and that she will be ever more demanding that we focus on those areas that other Governments cannot begin to deal with themselves. It is important to focus on the UK’s generosity with regard to aid in crisis, to supporting the rights of women and girls and to dealing with some of the problems of the very poorest in the world. It is the right balance that we should give to those who are far worse off than we are, as well as increasing funding for our vital NHS, as we have done.
May I wish you a happy birthday for tomorrow, Mr Speaker? Last week, I visited the Cudworth food bank, and I want to pay tribute to its work. May we have an urgent debate in Government time on food poverty and on why, following the roll-out of universal credit, this Government think it is acceptable for my constituents to choose between heating and eating?
I echo the hon. Lady’s tribute to the work of volunteers in food banks. They do a fantastic job. With the roll-out of universal credit, the Government have listened to Members across the House and to Citizens Advice. We have raised the value of advances. We have also ensured that people can get their universal credit on day one. We have reduced the waiting time to nothing and enabled transitional funding for people who are in private housing accommodation. People are always better off in work, but these measures will ensure that, as they transition to universal credit, the transition is made easier for them.
Following the publication of the motions on restoration and renewal, may we have a statement to update the House on what lessons have been learned following the reported cost overruns on the current Elizabeth Tower project?
My hon. Friend makes a good point. I was extremely concerned to hear about the cost overrun on the Elizabeth Tower. The House authorities were certainly also disappointed, and they have learned lessons. They have tried to ensure that the proposal for an Olympic-style delivery authority to oversee the restoration and renewal of the Palace will reflect the absolute need to ensure that the project, if it happens, is done with the best value for money for the taxpayer in mind and the tightest possible control on costs.
In 2017, 80 people were stabbed and murdered in London, and there were 37,000 knife-crime offences—an increase of 26%. This is an epidemic and a tragedy, and it must stop. The current approach is clearly not working, and a new approach is required. We need a cross-departmental debate in Government time on how to tackle the root causes of youth violence, so will the Leader of the House schedule time for one?
All Members are incredibly concerned about the incidence of knife crime, particularly among young people. I am sure that the hon. Lady will be aware that the Home Office is reviewing the matter and taking evidence and will be coming out with proposals for how to tackle the problem.
Jo Cox was a fantastic advocate for improving the lives of those who suffer from loneliness, and it is brilliant that that work will continue through the Jo Cox Commission on Loneliness with the support of the Minister for Sport and Civil Society. May we have a debate on what more can be done to ensure that nobody, young or old, finds themselves alone and without social interaction?
My hon. Friend is right, and I am happy to pay tribute to Jo Cox’s work, which inspired the Commission on Loneliness in her name. It is shocking that more than 9 million people in the UK always or often feel lonely. The Minister for Sport and Civil Society will now take forward the important work that the Jo Cox Commission has started, and I wish her great success. For my part, tackling loneliness is one of my top priorities in my constituency of South Northamptonshire, and we have tried to establish regular coffee mornings in some of my 92 villages, which goes some way towards getting people out to meet each other.
May we have a statement from the Education Secretary about the completely inexplicable decision by the Education and Skills Funding Agency to reject Exeter College’s bid to continue to deliver apprenticeships in local small businesses, despite it having one of the best records in England? I warn the Government that there will be serious consequences for the provision of apprenticeships in my local area.
I am sorry to hear about that. I encourage the right hon. Gentleman either to seek an Adjournment debate or to raise the matter at Education questions since it is a very specific point.
At a time when Cheltenham General Hospital needs capital investment in its emergency department, will hon. Members have the full opportunity to make the point that spending wildly disproportionate sums on this place will be unacceptable to my constituents and risks damaging the very democracy that we seek to uphold?
My hon. Friend is a keen advocate for his constituency. That is precisely the reason why we need to discuss affordability and value for taxpayers’ money as we seek to restore this Palace of Westminster, which is old and in a bad state of repair.
Following the restoration and renewal debate, may we have a debate in Government time about making this place and all public buildings truly autism-friendly?
The hon. Lady raises a good point. In looking at restoration and renewal, there is no doubt that considering issues such as autism-friendliness and making facilities appropriate for other disabilities will be absolutely vital should we decide to spend the money to repair this place.
May we have an urgent statement on the sensitivities around domestic violence? My right hon. Friend will know of recent tragic fatal cases in my constituency. Sadly, a senior Labour councillor, Mike Danvers, made a joke yesterday about beating one’s wife and, incredibly, that was supported as a colloquialism by the manager of Harlow and District chamber of commerce. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we should condemn that, that the councillor should resign, that the manager of the chamber of commerce should apologise, and that we should be sensitive about domestic violence?
My right hon. Friend is exactly right. There is nothing funny or at all amusing about domestic violence, and I certainly agree that people in public life need to be extremely careful about the jokes they make. I reassure my right hon. Friend that the Government are absolutely committed to stamping out domestic violence. We will be introducing a draft domestic violence and abuse Bill. Tomorrow, we will be considering the Stalking Protection Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston). It is vital that we do everything we can to stamp out domestic violence.
In 2006, Algeria introduced a decree stipulating that permission must be obtained from the state before using a building for non-Muslim worship. Since then not a single permission has been given to build new church premises and many churches have been closed. Will the Leader of the House agree to a statement outlining steps to encourage the Algerian Government to cease the closure of churches and to issue permits so that churches can continue?
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point about religious freedom, as he often does in this Chamber, and I encourage him to seek an Adjournment debate to take it further.
May we have a debate on the importance of the marine environment? Many of my constituents have written to me on this subject. Will the Leader of the House join me in celebrating the excellent steps the Government are taking to ban microbeads?
I am delighted to share my hon. Friend’s pleasure in the Government’s work on banning microbeads used in some cosmetics and other products. She is right that protecting our marine spaces is vital, and this Government have done so much. We are creating a marine blue belt around our overseas territories, and we are determined to stamp out the problem of plastics in our oceans.
In a Public Accounts Committee hearing this week, we heard the explosive fact that learndirect did not just take Ofsted to judicial review over its damning report but took out a super-injunction that served to stop Government bodies discussing learndirect during that time. That is outrageous behaviour. May we have a debate on the conduct of companies funded by public money?
The hon. Lady has great expertise in this area, and she raises an important point. I can tell her that the chief executive of learndirect has written to the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee on this issue. On learndirect’s specific legal costs, the Department for Education defines what is eligible expenditure of moneys provided for training but, as she would expect, any income over and above that can be used at the provider’s discretion.
Will my right hon. Friend provide for a debate in Government time on the progress of domestic preparations to leave the EU, both with and without a deal?
I am delighted that my hon. Friend has the appetite for yet more debate, over and above the 64 hours we have just gone through. There will be many opportunities to have further debates and discussions. I absolutely assure him that the Government are determined to make sure that we leave the European Union in a way that works very well for our EU friends and neighbours and for the United Kingdom.
This week Public Health England showed that in the most deprived parts of the country that are hit hardest by austerity, such as my constituency in Hull, life expectancy has fallen since 2011, breaking a peacetime trend going back to Victorian times. Can we please have a debate in Government time on why this has happened?
I also saw that report, which is of course very concerning. As I understand it, there are complex reasons for the fall, some of which are related to lifestyles, loneliness, mental health and so on. It needs to be carefully considered. If the hon. Lady wants to discuss the issues affecting her area in particular, I encourage her to seek an Adjournment debate.
A number of constituents have contacted me asking that the Government stick to their manifesto pledge to replace inclusivity rules that prevent the establishment of Roman Catholic schools. Will the Leader of the House ensure that the new Secretary of State for Education comes to the House to update us on the Government’s progress?
My right hon. Friend the new Secretary of State for Education has quite a lot to grapple with in his first few days, but I am sure he will be delighted to answer questions on that subject at the next Education oral questions.
I have received some wonderful and moving letters from young constituents at Garnetbank Primary School and St Mungo’s Academy regarding the unfair treatment of asylum seekers and refugees under the current family reunion rules. May we have a debate on all those issues so we can all stand up for refugee children across the world?
The issue of refugee children is a very grave one, and this country has been very generous in taking in refugee children. As the hon. Lady will know, the UK-French summit is taking place today; there will be further discussions at the summit about refugee children who are trying to cross over into the United Kingdom. We can all be proud of the fact that Eurostat figures show that in 2016 the UK resettled more refugees from outside Europe than any other EU member state.
I remind the House that a world heritage site is one that is of great importance to current and future generations across the world. I seek an assurance that in the difficult choices we have to make on the restoration of this building, we will be considering not just our own purposes in this building, but those who visit every year.
My hon. Friend is exactly right; that is the choice facing us. This is an incredible building and it is not just of value to us. We have more than 1 million visitors here every year; many tourists come here, and hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren come here as an iconic part of their education. This is one of the most famous sites in the world, so we have a duty, not just to ourselves but to our fellow countrymen and to the next generation of schoolchildren, to ensure we make the right decision.
One of my communities, Portland Street in Hanley, is being blighted by the sale of black mamba. Drug deals are being done in a BT phone box, conveniently turned away from CCTV. I have asked BT to move it, as have the police and the council, but because of what it is being used for it is making money. May we have a debate in Government time about businesses’ responsibilities to local communities who are suffering crime?
The hon. Lady has done a good job in raising this issue in the House today, and I am hopeful that she will see some pretty rapid action as a result. I encourage her to seek a Back-Bench debate on the subject of what more businesses can do. Many of them are very diligent in supporting their communities, but she is right to say that all businesses should be doing the same.
If we want to make our economy fit for the future and ensure we have the secure, well paid jobs people in my constituency desire and deserve, improving productivity is key. May we have a debate on improving productivity, particularly given the recent Office for National Statistics figures showing the largest quarterly rise in UK productivity since 2011?
My hon. Friend is quite right; the excellent productivity news is good, but there is much more to do. Britain’s productivity has long lagged behind that of our competitors and has been weak ever since the financial crisis of 2009-10. That is why our industrial strategy is focused on improving productivity, investing in research and development, improving skills, upgrading infrastructure and promoting the best possible environment for new and growing businesses.
Leaving aside my views on the project, the Government’s approach to restoration and renewal has today moved from circus to farce. It is approaching 18 months since the Committee I served on reported, with clear recommendations. If the Leader of the House is to take this House seriously and wants a proper debate, will she allocate a full day, make sure the motions are substantial and amendable, and come back again to ensure that the issue is given a proper debate?
It is astonishing that the hon. Gentleman says the Government are not taking this seriously. This is a matter for the House; the House needs to decide whether taxpayers’ fiscal issues can be outweighed on balance by the need to restore the Palace of Westminster. It is properly a debate for the House, and Government time is being given to that. Hon. Members will recognise that the Government have moved the date to a Wednesday for the convenience of Members, who made it clear that they did not want this debate to take place on a Thursday. What the Government are doing is facilitating a discussion and a decision by Members of this House, and it is right that we should do that.
As the second most fatal cancer, bowel cancer kills 16,000 people every year. Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating the bowel cancer screening team at Kettering General Hospital on the 10th anniversary of their successful and life-saving work, which has detected 800 cancers and 3,000 potential cancerous growths? May we also have a statement from the Department of Health and Social Care on similar successful initiatives across the NHS?
I am very happy to pay tribute to Kettering General Hospital for those excellent results. We should all be proud of the Government’s target of better results for cancer patients overall.
I am delighted that, as the Leader of the House said, the Government will tomorrow support the private Member’s Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) on the fitness of housing for human habitation, especially as it represents a damascene conversion from their previous stance. Will the Government also support my private Member’s Bill on the extension of the Freedom of Information Act to private sector companies that undertake public sector contracts? Such an extension might have alerted us sooner to the chaos at Carillion that both the company and the Government kept to themselves for too long.
I am certainly happy to look into what the hon. Gentleman says. He will appreciate that private Members’ Bills are exactly that and that it is for the Member to seek support from right hon. and hon. Members from all parties. I wish him luck in doing that.
As we start to debate the restoration and renewal of the House, will my right hon. Friend reassure us that as part of that debate we will consider the safety and security not only of Members and the people who work here but of the people who visit? That is so important.
Yes, my hon. Friend is right to raise the fact that when we restore the House we will address, largely, some of the issues relating to safety in this place. There are risks from problems with water, electricity, sewage and asbestos, and there are risks of fire and so on. The House is always maintained at a safe level, but there is no doubt that its restoration and renewal would solve those problems for much longer than we are able to ensure with the “patch and mend” approach that we currently have to take.
In the Welsh Assembly yesterday, Mark Isherwood, a Conservative Member, won by 31 to two a vote on a motion asking this House to re-legalise medicinal cannabis. Will the Government follow suit and give a fair wind to my private Member’s Bill, which would liberate seriously ill people from the threat of prosecution for using their medicine of choice?
The hon. Gentleman has championed this issue in the House. As he knows, the Government keep the matter under review, but it is not our policy to legalise the use of cannabis.
Will my right hon. Friend arrange for a statement to be made on improved co-operation on intelligence, defence and security, along with the decision to allow more unaccompanied child refugees to come to this country, which will result from President Macron’s visit today?
I think we all welcome President Macron’s visit to discuss further co-operation between the British and French. We already have a very strong bilateral relationship with France, particularly, as my hon. Friend mentions, on matters such as security and the migrant situation in Calais. I am sure that updates will be provided to the House following today’s summit.
My constituent Gemma Hartnoll founded the charity Wings Cymru to tackle period poverty. Too many young people in schools, homeless people and those who need food banks cannot afford sanitary products. May we have a debate in Government time on how we can tackle this very personal and intimate crisis?
I share the hon. Lady’s concern about this issue, which can be humiliating for young people. I absolutely empathise with her point and encourage her, at least in the first instance, to seek an Adjournment debate so that she can hear from a Minister what more can be done.
Earlier this week, the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee published an important report on the safety of electrical goods in the UK that highlights some serious safety concerns about 1 million Whirlpool tumble dryers and plastic-back fridge-freezers. The matter requires an urgent response from the Government, so when can we have a statement?
I encourage my hon. Friend to write to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to seek its thoughts. I would be happy to take up the matter on his behalf.
In the light of the collapse of Carillion, do the Government intend to make a statement on the decision to award the Department for Work and Pensions facilities management contract to Interserve, another company with huge debts and a large pension deficit that has issued numerous profit warnings?
As the hon. Lady will be aware, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has already made a statement, and I am sure that he will make further such statements. The Government are very focused on looking at this from every aspect. I have been absolutely reassured that all Government contracts are kept closely under review, as indeed the ones with Carillion were. As she will know, the decision was taken following profit warnings that Carillion contracts would be awarded as joint-venture contracts, to ensure continuity should something happen. Equally, she must understand that profit warnings in themselves do not mean that it would be legitimate then to rule out a company from being able to accept Government contracts.
Order. The pressure is growing for short single-sentence questions without preamble, to be brilliantly exemplified, I feel sure, by Mr Drew Hendry.
The Government continue to fail to act on the fact that consumers in the highlands and islands pay 2p to 6p more per unit for their electricity than those in other areas due to unfair network and distribution charges. May we have a debate in Government time on how to end the shabby treatment of people in the highlands and islands and other rural areas?
That is an issue that I was very concerned about as Energy Minister, but the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that, to a large extent, electricity prices in the highlands and islands and the subsidies and extra support are a devolved matter. There were many debates on fuel poverty and on the support available for people through that. What the Government are doing, which is not a devolved matter, is introducing the energy price cap. The Prime Minister has made it her personal priority to bring forward proposed legislation to ensure that people are treated fairly.
Cardiff Central Labour councillor Ali Ahmed is currently in Bangladesh with representatives of the Cardiff Bangladesh association, presenting a £40,000 cheque for the Rohingya relief effort. May we have a debate in Government time on the genocide caused by the Burmese military, which has created the refugee problem in Bangladesh?
The whole House is very concerned about the humanitarian crisis that has been caused by Burma’s military. Many Rohingya have been killed and more than 650,000 have fled to Bangladesh. The hon. Lady will be aware that the UK is one of the biggest donors to the Rohingya refugee crisis, and the Department for International Development has stepped up efforts with an additional £59 million to support the latest influx of refugees. We had a debate only recently on the plight of the Rohingya people, and she may well wish to seek a further Backbench Business debate to hear more from Ministers.
Can we have a debate or a statement on the public services in relation to the retention of pay? As the Leader of the House will know, many staff are leaving their profession—teachers and public service workers—and there have been closures in Coventry. Can she do something about that?
I think the hon. Gentleman is talking about retention of public sector staff. [Interruption.] Yes. As he will be aware, in the NHS, for example, there will be 5,000 new nurse training places each year starting this September. The Government are committed to ensuring that we retain staff: for example, many more teachers are returning to teaching following a career break. What is important is not just retention, but attracting people back after a period of time and of course getting new people into public sector professions, which is something on which the Government are focused.
May we have a debate on the capacity of UK border and immigration MP hotlines? My office needs to urgently raise the case of Gospel Ocholi, a talented young footballer and refugee who wants to take part in a Partick Thistle training academy in Portugal. Can a Minister come to this House and explain how MPs are supposed to raise these cases if we cannot get through to the hotlines?
If there is a problem with hotlines, the hon. Gentleman should raise it with the Department. I am happy to do it on his behalf if he emails me, and I will take it up for him. With regard to the individual case, he could perhaps raise it at departmental questions.
This Chamber rightly sees a lot of robust partisan politics, but we should never forget the ethos of public service, which I believe motivates the vast majority of elected representatives in the UK. There was no better example of that than my friend and colleague Councillor Kieran Quinn, the leader of Tameside Council, who tragically collapsed on Christmas eve and died on Christmas day. He was just 56. I know that there are many colleagues who plan to be in Greater Manchester for the funeral on Monday. I ask the Leader of the House to join me in praising the life, work and commitment of local leaders like Kieran, who do an incredible job in difficult circumstances, often at great cost to themselves and their families.
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to pay tribute to his constituent councillor, and to all those who give so much of their time, very often unpaid or by working extra time that is unpaid, in serving their community. We owe them all a debt of gratitude.
May we have a statement about the impact of the removal of employment and support allowance mortgage interest support on people such as my constituent Jonathan Parsons, registered blind, who had paid into the system all his working life?
I am sorry to hear about the case that the hon. Gentleman raises. He may want to raise that at departmental questions as a specific constituency case.
TotsBots in my constituency manufactures eco-friendly reuseable nappies, but there have been examples of companies that are falsely advertising and the nappies go to landfill sites. May we have a debate in Government time about false advertising and the damage it causes to parents?
False advertising is incredibly harmful, and if the hon. Gentleman has examples of such incidents he should certainly raise them with the Department. He may well wish to initiate an Adjournment debate on that.
Last Friday, Nottinghamians woke up to the awful news that our recently redeveloped train station was ablaze. Will the Leader of the House allow a debate in Government time to consider the terrific work done by Nottinghamshire fire and rescue and the police and council in tackling the fire and having things running again within a day?
I think we all realise what a debt of gratitude we owe to our fire officers, who do such an amazing job, so quickly and at so great a risk to themselves. I absolutely pay tribute to them, alongside the hon. Gentleman.
With my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter), I would like to request an urgent debate about requiring private companies providing public services to be subject to the same standards of openness and transparency as the public sector, so that companies like Carillion can no longer hide behind commercial confidentiality.
The hon. Lady raises an important point, again in the context of what has happened with Carillion. She may rest assured that the Government will be looking carefully at whether we can improve processes as a result of this experience, but equally she must recognise that there is great value to the taxpayer in being able to use private sector companies to deliver some services that are of much better value and efficiency to the public sector than bringing them all in-house.
On 6 December 2017, the Secretary of State for Scotland gave undertakings with regard to an amendment in the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill. May we have a statement clarifying the record and explaining why it was not met?
I encourage the hon. Gentleman to take that matter up directly with the Secretary of State at Scotland Office questions.
Only Iran and the House of Lords, with its bishops, incorporate religious clerics into their legislatures, and next week in the House of Commons we will have Church of England questions. May we have a debate in Government time about moving away from a medieval set-up and separating the UK state from the Church?
The hon. Gentleman mentions an extremely controversial idea, which would have significant constitutional implications. As a first port of call, he may well wish to raise that at Church Commissioners questions next week.
Mr Speaker, I am grateful for being called last—it gives me an additional chance to exercise. Will the Leader of the House recognise the concerns of hard-working GPs in Plymouth that primary care is in a state of crisis, with GPs working to the point of exhaustion? May we have a debate about the state of primary care?
GPs do a fantastic job and we are all incredibly grateful to them. We know that they are under pressure. We know that there are numerically more doctors now than ever before, but equally there are greater demands on their time than ever before. That is why the Government have provided an extra £6.3 billion of funding for the NHS at the last Budget, to ensure that we can meet the demands that are being made on GPs and others.
I am very grateful to the Leader of the House and to colleagues for their succinctness in enabling us to finish on schedule We now come to the Select Committee statement. The Chair of the International Development Select Committee, Mr Stephen Twigg, will speak on his subject for up to 10 minutes, during which—I remind colleagues who have forgotten the procedure, or inform them if they were not aware of it—no interventions may be taken. At the conclusion of his statement, I will call Members to put questions on the subject of the statement and invite the hon. Gentleman to respond to those in turn. Members can expect to be called only once. Interventions should be questions and should be brief. The Front Bench may take part in questioning. I call the Chair of the International Development Select Committee, Mr Stephen Twigg.
I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker, and to the Backbench Business Committee for allowing me time, on behalf of the International Development Committee, to speak to the House today about our second report of this parliamentary Session, “Bangladesh and Burma: the Rohingya Crisis” The scale and depth of the suffering of the Rohingya has rightly given rise to substantial activity in this House. As well as inquiries by my Committee and the Foreign Affairs Committee, we have had an urgent question, debates both on the Floor of the House and in Westminster Hall, and a significant number of parliamentary questions. The International Development Committee is examining DFID’s work in Bangladesh and Burma, and this report is our first output The dire circumstances of the Rohingya are of course ongoing. In addition to the £59 million that DFID has allocated to humanitarian aid for the Rohingya, there will doubtless be calls for further emergency relief as this crisis continues. Additionally, DFID’s budget for more conventional, longer-term development aid in Burma and Bangladesh next year will total about £170 million. We are examining that in the next stage of our inquiry I pay tribute to the people and the Government of Bangladesh and to the many organisations and individuals who have been working in Cox’s Bazar and elsewhere to assist the Rohingya people. The Rohingya have been devastated by decades of marginalisation and abuse, leading to the events of the past six months, which the United Nations has rightly described as a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing” perpetrated by the Burmese security forces. This week we have heard deeply disturbing reports of a possible agreement between the Governments of Bangladesh and Burma to repatriate displaced Rohingya. The potential return of over 100,000 Rohingya to Burma without any clear understanding of their legal status or knowing anything about their final destination is of course of very grave concern Early in the conflict, the Government presented a five-point plan to help galvanise the international community into action. The plan involves the cessation of violence by the Burmese; guaranteed humanitarian access to the affected parts of Burma; repatriation, but only on a voluntary basis, with safety guaranteed; full implementation of the Annan advisory committee’s recommendations; and, crucially, full, unimpeded access for, and co-operation with, the United Nations Human Rights Council’s fact-finding mission. Our evidence is unequivocal that none of those strands of the plan are anywhere near being realised today Our report looked at the previous periods of displacement of the Rohingya and, indeed, other minority groups over the past two decades. In no instance was the outcome satisfactory, and the Committee has little confidence that it will be any better this time. The idea that the Rohingya could be returned to live in internment camps controlled by the Burmese military is surely completely unacceptable We welcome the £59 million commitment that the United Kingdom Government have made to respond to the crisis, and, in particular, the swiftness with which that was pledged. However, the Government of Bangladesh have told us that they expect the cost of effective provision of basic services for the displaced Rohingya eventually to total more than £1 billion. The Geneva conference in October secured commitments to provide about a quarter of that sum—£266 million. There is clearly still a huge funding gap, and other donors need to rise to the challenge in the way that the UK Government, to their credit, have done We expressed particular concern about large-scale gender-based violence committed by the Burmese military. This is not something new. Predecessor International Development Committees have reported on this, in 2006 and 2014. The Governments of the time, in their responses to those reports, agreed with the Committees’ harrowing assessment about the Burmese army using rape as a weapon of war. Our own evidence heard that this situation is, if anything, worse than ever. ActionAid stated in its evidence to us: “Girls as young as 5 years of age have been reported to have been raped by multiple uniformed actors, often in front of their relatives. There are reports of rapes being widespread, extremely violent, and accompanied by mutilation. There are reports of pregnant women being attacked and their foetuses removed from their bodies.” We were very disappointed that the Government seem reluctant to commit their full specialist sexual violence team to the region. This flies in the face of the commitment made by the former Foreign Secretary Lord Hague to give a big focus in UK policy to this issue. In conflicts where rape, sexual violence and torture are used, it is essential that official, contemporary, reliable evidence-gathering by forensic professionals occurs as quickly as possible. The Burmese Government’s claim that they have investigated and that their investigation clears their armed forces of wrongdoing are, in the words of our own Government, “simply not credible” There are also issues arising in the camps in Bangladesh. Poor lighting, the lack of privacy around toilets and washing facilities, and the absence of any security for women and girls who work outside the camps have created an environment that is fundamentally unsafe, particularly for women and girls. As we were told in evidence, women and girls are therefore more likely to be victims of trafficking, and more likely to find themselves forced into early—including childhood—marriages The most effective way to deal with any crisis is of course to prevent it from happening in the first place. There is nothing new about this situation with the Rohingya. Human Rights Watch has been reporting on the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya and asking for action by the international community since at least 2013. Since 2015, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s early warning project has identified the Rohingya as one of the world’s vulnerable populations most at risk of genocide. The disparity between what the international community was saying about the conflict and what we were told by these civil society organisations is very stark. Its effect is that there has not been the quick, effective response from the international community that might have prevented this from happening. In fact, our evidence suggests that in some ways the opposite has happened. The continued engagement by the United Kingdom and other countries with the Burmese authorities seems to have been interpreted by their military as tacit acceptance of their treatment of the Rohingya people. We also note that there has been considerable over-optimism about the speed and breadth of democratic reforms in Burma In conclusion, the Rohingya crisis provided the international community with an immediate test case for the 2016 consensus reached at both the world humanitarian summit and the New York declaration on displaced people, including refugees. It is clear that the commitments made in 2016 have been tested to destruction by this crisis. It is vital that the United Kingdom continues our commendable commitment to humanitarian aid. The five-point plan is welcome, but it would be totally unacceptable for repatriation even to be considered until we see fundamental change in Burma itself. Surely we owe it to the Rohingya refugees and to the Rohingya who still remain in Burma to continue to give the House’s attention to the crisis. I thank you, Mr Speaker, and the House for giving me the opportunity to raise this issue today.
I know there is a problem with UN peacekeeping in the region, but what is the feeling about the Security Council coming to an agreement to put in peacekeepers? There is a dire need for them.
That is a very important question. It falls a little outside the remit of our inquiry, so it is not a matter on which we took a lot of evidence or reached conclusions in the report. The hon. Gentleman has raised a very important point, and it may be an issue on which our Committee and the Foreign Affairs Committee can work together. Ultimately, if there is to be a point at which the Rohingya feel they can go back, they will need guarantees, and I personally think he is right that peacekeepers could form part of the solution.
I thank the Chair and all members of the International Development Committee for an informative report that goes further than previous reports. Does my hon. Friend agree that there continue to be serious concerns regarding the terms and conditions of repatriation? Where will refugees return to when all their houses and villages have been burned? What human rights protections will people be afforded once they return, and what stops genocide happening again? Surely the British Government must now change their stance, which is more focused on the rights of the Rohingya as opposed to the transition to democracy. The Rohingya must have a voice at the table if we are to achieve democracy.
I thank my hon. Friend for his question and for his passionate advocacy of the Rohingya cause. I know that his constituency contains a significant Rohingya diaspora community, on whose behalf he speaks. I agree that the Government’s approach needs to place greater emphasis on the protection of the Rohingya, and indeed other minorities in Burma—that was what we alluded to when we said that there was “over-optimism” about the pace of democratic reform in that country. I also agree that conditions simply are not yet there, and—to put it bluntly—are unlikely to be there in the foreseeable future, to allow any significant voluntary return of the Rohingya to Burma.
I welcome my hon. Friend’s report—he is a good friend—and I thank him for continuing the work that many of us have taken up on the Rohingya cause and for the work of his Committee in broadening out into various different areas. Does he agree that there are a series of problems in Burma, not least the multiple insurgencies involving different ethnic groups? Focusing on the Rohingya is essential not just because it speaks to Burma, but because it speaks to the wider problem of diaspora and refugee populations. Getting this right is essential, not just for solving the problems in Burma, but for addressing many of the other problems that arise in refugee situations around the world.
I thank my hon. Friend, the hon. Gentleman who Chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee, and I pay tribute to that Committee for the report it published late last year. We sought to develop and supplement that report, rather than repeat it, and the work of that Committee in describing this crisis as a crime against humanity was an important contribution to the debate. He is right: this crisis is important in its own right, but there are enormous lessons for situations in other parts of the world, including in parts of Africa where there is a massive displacement of people, and the world seems incapable of getting its solutions right.
I congratulate my hon. Friend on the powerful way he introduced the Committee’s report. Does he agree that one of the most tragic things for many Rohingya who have fled Burma is the fact that their relatives have simply disappeared? Paragraph 138 of the report suggests that the International Commission on Missing Persons should get involved in Burma and Bangladesh and use their data-matching techniques to try to identify the remains of those who have disappeared, and—hopefully down the line—to ensure proper accountability for these crimes.
My hon. Friend is an active and valued member of the International Development Committee, which he rejoined having previously served on it in a predecessor Parliament, and he is right to draw attention to our recommendation on that important issue. Understandably, in a crisis that has moved so quickly and at such scale, there has been a focus on immediate humanitarian relief, but it is vital that those questions of justice and accountability are also addressed. The report by the Foreign Affairs Committee addressed those issues in some detail. Our report contains an important addition, and I thank my hon. Friend for reminding the House of that.
I served with the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) on the International Development Committee for—if memory serves me correctly—four and a half years, and I can testify to the truth and accuracy of what has been said by way of a tribute to his work and his passion for the issues raised.
I thank the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), and his Committee, for their remarkable work. Aung San Suu Kyi was a previous heroine of mine. Has this report analysed why there has been no action from her, and why she has been so unusually disappointing in the tragedy that has occurred?
Like the right hon. Gentleman, everyone on the Committee felt a huge sense of disappointment at the lack of words from Aung San Suu Kyi. It was not the main focus of our inquiry, but we did take evidence on it, as is reflected in the report. Even at this stage, she has an opportunity to speak out and provide leadership. The evidence that we and the Foreign Affairs Committee took from Mark Farmaner, from Burma Campaign UK, was clear that her voice could make a real difference. Of course, we are also saying that in the end it is the military in Burma who hold the reins of power and that it is for them to change, but if she spoke up, I think it would be more likely that they would change their position.
The report is clear in highlighting where the UK Government have been slow to act. I hope they have been listening and, in particular, will now allow these 70 experts in gender-based violence to get out there as soon as possible. Does the Chair agree, however, that particular attention must be given to a clear and decisive plan for repatriation, not just on security and safety but on the legal status of every Rohingya who voluntarily goes back to Burma, and that the international development agencies need to have oversight at each and every stage?
I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman. He is a new member of the Committee, having joined after last year’s election, and serves with distinction. He is absolutely right that if there is to be any sort of process of repatriation we need assurances about the legal status made available to any returning refugees. There is a particular issue about babies born in refugee camps and what status they might have if they return. We say in the report that as well as the Governments of these two countries, we need to listen to the Rohingya themselves, and we need the community leaders in the camps to be heard and to have their say on behalf of the Rohingya if there is to be any possibility of voluntary repatriation.
I commend the hon. Gentleman for his statement and his Committee for its report. It says that 870,000 Rohingya have fled Burma to Bangladesh since 2012 and that 660,000 of them have done so only since last August. The largest camp, Kutupalong, which I visited with other MPs in November, is now equivalent in size to Bristol but does not have a hospital, has inadequate schools and not enough roads, is one of the most densely populated refugee camps in the whole world and is very vulnerable to an outbreak of disease. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, whether the Rohingya are in Burma or Bangladesh, the fundamental problem is that they are stateless and that until that issue is resolved, their rights will never be properly protected?
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. This is one of the most fundamental issues we need to address. The position of those who are displaced and, as he rightly says, the status of those Rohingya in Burma—those who have not fled or who have returned—need to be resolved. The international community needs to take this issue seriously and engage with the Burmese Government on it. He is right to remind the House about the sheer scale of this displacement over a very short period. That is partly why I pay tribute to the Bangladeshi people and Government. In reality, the vast majority will be there for some time, so there is a big job of work to do to ensure that services such as health and education are made available to refugees who—let us face it—are likely to be in Bangladesh for years.
This is an excellent report, and my hon. Friend rightly praises the Government of Bangladesh for their efforts, but it needs to be recognised that they need not validate the actions of the Burmese army in recognising the permanent status of the Rohingya. That is important if we are to move to the next stage of giving support to the 50,000 women who will give birth this year after being raped and providing more permanent shelter before the cyclone season. This is an excellent report, but we have to move to that next stage and give support to the Bangladeshi Government and people.
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. No two situations are the same, but we can learn lessons from other countries that have taken large numbers of refugees. One of the proposals that was made to us, and which we highlight in the report, was for the creation of a special development zone in Bangladesh, similar to what has happened in Jordan, to enable job opportunities for both the Rohingya and, crucially, the host population, the local Bangladeshi population.
All of us who visited the Kutupalong site had an experience that was overwhelming and heartbreaking. We heard at first hand the terror of the refugees at the possibility of repatriation, and the only possible practical way to achieve that is with support from the United Nations or the British Army. We have a wonderful record of peacekeeping in these impossible circumstances. Is that not the best way, although a very difficult way, to go forward and to ensure there can be a long-term solution?
I thank my hon. Friend. In a sense, that question takes us back to the question from the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) at the beginning. I absolutely agree. One of the dangers with these crises is that they hit the headlines for a time, and then the attention of the media and the political world moves on. It is vital that we do not allow that to happen. This is about addressing the crisis now but also being there to support long-term solutions, and a potential role for UK peacekeepers is part of that.
I thank my hon. Friend for his statement, and the Committee for this important report. He and other colleagues have talked about the trauma that has been suffered by victims of sexual and gender-based violence and by those who have lost relatives without knowing whether they will ever know where their remains are buried. Does my hon. Friend agree that, in addition to the immediate need for humanitarian and medical aid, there will be a real need to give priority to long-term psychotherapeutic services for the victims in Bangladesh and for those who return to Burma?
I very much agree. [Interruption.] Welcome to the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. I raised this issue yesterday at Department for International Development questions, in the context of Yemen. The excellent organisation War Child has made the suggestion that at least 1% of all humanitarian aid should be spent on mental health and psychosocial support. For anyone who has been through this sort of conflict, and for children in particular, it is vital that they get that support.
I do not have a question, but following agreement with Mr Speaker a moment ago, I just want to say thank you to the Chair of the Select Committee for his work and to the members of the Committee and those who have spoken today. There will be a response from the Government in due course in the usual manner, but, of course, the matter will be a subject for discussion for some time to come The Committee has rightly put a spotlight on a situation that is unlikely to ease soon—a desperate situation. I want to assure the House that it is a matter of focus every single day for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and DFID. That is true of not only the plight of the Rohingya at the moment—I was in Geneva last week to speak to international organisations about that—but the need for a solution for them, and that remains a priority for the Government. I thank the hon. Gentleman and colleagues again for the report.
Before we begin today’s debates, I should point out to the House, though it is obvious, that a great many people wish to speak this afternoon, and we obviously have limited time—just under five hours—for two important and heavily subscribed debates. Sometimes on Thursdays, we are a little bit lenient with time, but the recommendation from the Backbench Business Committee is that the person moving a motion should take around 15 minutes of the House’s time. Over the last few weeks, that has risen to well over half an hour, but today I am going to enforce the 15-minutes—or thereabouts—limit. That means about 17 minutes, not 27. I should also warn the House that, after the motion has been moved, there will be a limit on Back-Bench speeches, initially of five minutes, but that is likely to fall to four minutes. This is good; it is because there is so much interest in the subjects that we are debating this afternoon.
I beg to move, That this House is deeply concerned by the treatment of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by the Global Restructuring Group of the Royal Bank of Scotland; notes that there are wider allegations of malpractice in financial services and related industries; believes that this indicates a systemic failure to effectively protect businesses, which has resulted in financial scandals costing tens of billions of pounds; further believes that a solution requires the collective and collaborative effort of regulators, Parliament and Government; and calls for an independent inquiry into the treatment of SMEs by financial institutions and the protections afforded to them, and the rapid establishment of a tribunal system to deal effectively with financial disputes involving SMEs May I echo your comments, Madam Deputy Speaker? As generous a soul as I am when it comes to interventions, I will limit the number I take to two or three, if at all possible, because I understand that Holocaust Memorial Day is also a crucial issue that everyone here would want to see debated fully afterwards. None the less, there are a lot of Members here, on both sides of the House, who want to speak about an issue that has deeply affected many of their constituents and small businesses across the country. I thank hon. Members for their support for this important debate, as well as the Backbench Business Committee for allowing the time, particularly the Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns). He has made it clear to me and others that he was keen for the debate to take place, and here it is. As the details of the various scandals that have hit our financial services sector trickled out over the last few years, I think we all started by treating the stories we heard with a certain scepticism. They just did not seem to make sense. Indeed, when I read letters from one of my constituents, my first reaction was to think that the story he was telling simply could not be true. “No bank could have dared to behave in such a brazenly outrageous way,” I said to myself. My constituent, Andi Gibbs, was forced by his bank, RBS, to buy an interest rate-hedging product, which should have protected his business against rising interest rates, but in fact drained it of cash. RBS then placed the business into its Global Restructuring Group. He lost his business, his home, his marriage and, I think it is fair to say, almost his sanity. His crime: nothing more than being an entrepreneur who banked with RBS.
Does my hon. Friend agree that the RBS Global Restructuring Group had real cultural problems? When its top tips included the advice, “Rope: Sometimes you just have to let customers hang themselves”, there is clearly something very wrong occurring.
I agree with my hon. Friend. We know that 16,000 small businesses were put into GRG from 2008, and the vast majority were liquidated. That tells us all we need to know. This was meant to be somewhere from which they could try to come back as viable businesses, but far from being an intensive care unit, it was more like an abattoir, where they were stripped and taken apart.
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one reason why many Members found this story almost unbelievable—a story that affects so many of our constituents—was that the conditions of any settlements agreed by the GRG with businesses that were in trouble included gagging orders, or confidentiality agreements, which have prevented them from speaking openly about the plight that they have faced?
I agree with the hon. Gentleman. Indeed, some businesses ended up in GRG simply for saying, “I’m not happy with my bank. I want to move.” When we talk about how they were “stressed”, we should also be aware that the bank used this term as it saw fit. Many businesses were treated appallingly, and the hon. Gentleman raises the point very clearly As time has gone on, we have discovered that Andi Gibbs is not alone. He is not even one of hundreds, but one of thousands. As many Members will be aware, the stories keep coming, backed up by evidence. It has now become clear that we have not just a series of individual scandals, but a full, systemic failure that needs to be addressed by this House. However, I want to focus briefly on what got us here and, more importantly, how we work toward a constructive solution.
Does the hon. Gentleman share my disgust that, four and half years after I referred, as Secretary of State, many of those cases—the Tomlinson report—to the Financial Conduct Authority, we still have only an interim report? Is he aware that the BBC has seen a copy of the final report? It contains the following incriminating phrase: “Management knew or should have known that this was an intended and co-ordinated strategy and that the mistreatment of business customers was a result of that”, and the head of GRG responsible for that policy, Mr Nathan Bostock, is now chief executive of Santander.
That is a very valid point. I hope we will hear from the Government today that there will be action on this issue. Owners of small and medium-sized businesses, including many of my constituents and those of other Members, are tired of the foot-dragging that has gone on for long enough. The Treasury Committee supports the report’s publication, and even the Financial Conduct Authority would probably conclude that it would be far more helpful for it to be published. Its publication is long overdue. People need to see the full extent and scale of what RBS and, potentially, other banks have been up to.
Will my hon. Friend give way?
I will give way one final time.
My hon. Friend said earlier that this situation affected failing businesses. My constituent Andrea Willows is in the public Gallery today. Her business was not failing, but the bank absolutely refused to provide any kind of funding for a shorter-term loan payoff, attributing it all to a larger loan pay-off instead. She had to come up with the full cost of multiple loans to pay off about £635,000, which made things completely impossible for her. That is exactly what these banks have done: they have made it impossible for hard-working people to continue to run their businesses although they were not in trouble in the first place.
I agree with my hon. Friend. During my time on the all-party parliamentary group on fair business banking and as a Back-Bench MP before that, I heard many similar stories of companies that had been forcibly distressed, or had been described as being distressed by the bank and then carved up like a Sunday roast.
Will my hon. Friend give way?
I will continue As many Members will know, the stories keep coming, backed up by evidence. It is now clear that we are seeing not just a series of individual scandals, but a full, systemic failure that needs to be addressed by the House Let me now focus on how we can move forward. The APPG on fair business banking has identified a series of achievable and transformative objectives that will support our business community. My focus today, however, will be on dispute resolution, restitution, and the need for an independent financial services tribunal with the teeth that will enable it to tackle complex and, for the individuals involved, life-changing scenarios I want to touch briefly on the past, because it is important to separate the crises into two distinct phases. The first crisis, in 2007-08, was a crisis of liquidity. The second, which we are discussing today, is a conduct crisis that not only spans the financial services industry, but extends to the role of the professional advisers who are such an integral part of the system. They are Law of Property Act receivers, surveyors, accountants, insolvency practitioners and solicitors. They are all fundamental parts of this matrix, and I will return to them shortly The recent section 166 FCA report on RBS GRG concentrates on the years between 2008 and 2013, when banks were under extreme pressure to shore up their balance sheets. However, that behaviour did not spring up spontaneously. Senior banking insiders who worked in RBS between the mid-1990s and the crisis are clear that there was such a modus operandi in GRG for years before the liquidity crisis. Indeed, GRG and its predecessor, Specialist Lending Services, had been known as the “mortuary for businesses” since the late 1990s. During those heady days of liquidity, businesses might have had an opportunity to re-bank with competitors, but once the liquidity crisis hit, that was no longer an option Ever since then our business community has had to deal with the consequences, which have been ramped up to an industrial scale Although the title of the debate refers to RBS GRG, it is just a symptom of the underlying issues. In the course of the APPG’s work, it is hard to identify an institution that has not found itself at the centre of a conduct scandal, and I am sure that other Members will give many examples today. The APPG has come across similar instances among the major banking institutions. The HBOS Reading fraud, as a result of which bankers and their associates were jailed for a total of 47 years earlier this year, may seem easy to push aside as “a few bad apples”, but, in reality, it is a consequence of the same systemic failure.
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
I will make some progress first In the HBOS case, as with GRG, quite simply, everyone thought that they would not get caught, and so it escalated. We have to ask ourselves how it is possible that this has gone on for so long, completely unchecked. We should have caught it much sooner, but instead it has been left to a dedicated group of individual victims such as Paul and Nikki Turner—and to a relentless pursuit by journalists such as Andy Verity, Joe Lynam, Siobhan Kennedy, James Hurley, Jonathan Ford, Ruth Sunderland, Tom Warren, Ian Fraser and Heidi Blake, to name just a few—to keep the issue alive. That is the journalism that the British public need: journalism that investigates the acts of the powerful and holds them to account. It is the fourth estate playing its rightful role in a healthy, functioning democracy Even now, as we begin to get our heads around the issue, we are still not addressing it properly. Why? Because our response thus far has been piecemeal. We must take a step back, and look at the entire ecosystem in which such behaviour managed not just to survive, but to thrive Let me briefly remind the House of the possible scale of the scandal. At its peak, GRG held assets of more than £90 billion on its books—all the businesses that were put into special measures. We cannot know for sure how many of those businesses would have survived in another, more benign environment; that is a “how long is a piece of string” question. Indeed, some businesses were placed in GRG for no other reason than the fact that they had made a complaint against the bank. We have to ask ourselves how many of them should have been there in the first place Much has been made of the fact that the businesses were “distressed”, but that is a subjective and ambiguous term. We do know that 90% of GRG-administered businesses never made it back to mainstream banking. That is a very high proportion. The cost is immeasurable, but we believe it to be in the tens of billions. Let us be clear: that is the potential size of the injustice that has taken place in our country. If it is indeed that big, it may be the largest theft anywhere, ever. If we begin to take into account the opportunity costs to the economy of business failure and businesses that have been unable to grow—if we begin to include the loss of jobs, homes, health, relationships and taxes—we see that the costs are likely to be immeasurable Scandals on this scale cannot happen in a vacuum. The role of Law of Property Act receivers, solicitors, insolvency practitioners and surveyors must be considered. Even in circumstances in which every person playing a part has played to the letter of the law, the outcomes have been catastrophic. We have to ask ourselves how that is possible As things stand, a business owner understandably assumes that the whole system works effectively, and that when it fails, he or she will have access to justice. That is a logical assumption for those of us who believe that all aspects of our lives should be covered by the rule of law. Anything else is little better than the Wild West, and is no basis for the stable and successful economy that Members in all parts of the House want to see The House must tackle the inherent inequality of power in the relationship between businesses and their lenders. From the moment when a business signs a one-sided contract laden with onerous and ambiguous contractual terms, through its life cycle, and into—potentially—insolvency, there is nowhere independent and affordable for that business to go if it is in dispute with its lender. In all cases, businesses must rely on the limited scope of the financial ombudsman, various trade associations and individual institutions to handle complaints. What is the outcome? The public, and businesses, see a group of large, powerful institutions and trade bodies operating from behind castle walls, with no transparency or external accountability, save an expensive and prohibitive court process that is beyond all but the most well-resourced. Justice, for them, is out of reach, and RBS knows that When ad hoc redress schemes are set up to deal with scandals such as interest rate hedging products, GRG and HBOS Reading, they are wholly unsatisfactory and largely discredited. They appear to be a cynical exercise in limiting financial institutions’ liabilities rather than a genuine attempt at restitution. The fact that the entire exercise is conducted behind closed doors and the banks are allowed to act as judge, jury and executioner only fuels suspicion. The use of an “independent person”, whom the bank itself appoints, will never instil trust. It is akin to a burglar being allowed to pick the members of the jury for his trial To add insult to injury, in the cases of the interest rate hedging product scheme and the RBS GRG scheme, the fact that insolvency law allows the institutions to pay themselves back for their own misconduct brings the process into the realm of farce. It is a system that does not instil confidence. The best our institutions can say is, “Trust us, we’re doing the right thing; but if you don’t like it, sue us.” We have only to look at the content of the debate today to see that self-regulation alone is simply not enough I want to be clear: those of us who support this motion are not calling for extensive regulation. We are, however, calling for accountability, transparency and justice, because without proper transparent accountability there can be no trust. Ultimately, trust is what the financial sector depends upon; if we undermine and pollute it, it will never survive in the long run The cold fact is that right now in this country the trust that once existed has been shattered. This distrust has become so severe that it is affecting business confidence and productivity. The Government’s own industrial strategy cannot be delivered on these shaky foundations. Simply, if we are to move on, we need to get a handle on the issues and look at the whole ecosystem for our businesses. That is why today we are calling for an inquiry that cuts across departmental lines and looks at the protections afforded to businesses during their life cycle. That way we can map out a long-term plan to ensure sufficient safeguards to prevent such things from ever happening again. More urgently, we are calling for a tribunal system to be set up to deal with financial disputes, a system analogous to that which already exists for employment tribunals. That does not require any primary legislation. The legislation already exists to enable the rapid establishment of a tribunal; it just needs the political will to carry it through Andrew Bailey at the FCA has openly supported the tribunal idea, but we are concerned about the recent focus on extending the remit of the Financial Ombudsman Service as this is not the right solution for what is a very complex problem. Once established, this tribunal system will help to ensure that banking works better, not just in the interests of its customers, but for the banking industry itself. This is important because we all acknowledge that the financial sector is critical to the UK’s future prosperity, and the relationship that SMEs have with their bank is a central part of that. In an effectively regulated economy, the relationships between SMEs and the finance sector should be symbiotic, not parasitic; each supports the sustainable growth and the success of the other. But that is not where we are It is time that the Government, the FCA and Parliament step up to the plate to ensure that businesses get fair treatment and access to affordable justice. Our businesses deserve nothing less. Our economy requires nothing less, especially at this critical time with Brexit approaching This matter has been left to drift in the regulatory and legislative wilderness for too long. The consequences have been catastrophic not only to individual lives but to confidence in our entire financial system. In the wake of Brexit, the introduction of a tribunal system will help to rebuild the strong relationships that once existed between SMEs and their banks, helping the growth of our economy and the international reputation of our financial sector It is, however, important to say that constructive progress has been made. The banking futures project brought together stakeholders across the spectrum to produce a coherent and ambitious plan for rebuilding trust. If Members have not read it, I would certainly suggest that they do so. The all-party group on fair business banking and finance has formed a working group, which will be formally announced in the near future, to discuss and look at this area. We should have no doubt that this is an important first step for businesses and industry, but it is just one part of the jigsaw, for with a problem this big, only a systematic, open-minded challenge to the status quo will work for businesses, our banks and our economy. This is an opportunity for us to show the business community and, indeed, the country that behind the lively exchanges that take place here and are seen on television, we as parliamentarians can put aside political point scoring and come together and work toward a common goal. I therefore commend this motion to the House.
Order. There will now be a time limit of five minutes.
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis). I congratulate him on securing this important debate, with the support of the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), at the Backbench Business Committee hearing. The fact that so many Members are present on a Thursday for this debate shows how many of us have constituents who have been affected by the RBS Global Restructuring Group, and their problems are the reason why we are here. The debate is being watched closely both in this House and outside. I pay tribute to my constituents who have been affected and the many other people who have contacted me. As the hon. Member for Norwich South said, people have lost their homes, their health and their marriages, and in some cases far more than that As we heard from the former Business Secretary, the right hon. Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable), it is now more than three years since the publication of the Tomlinson report, which led to the FCA’s decision to appoint an independent investigator to look in detail at what happened at GRG. The previous Treasury Committee, under the chairmanship of Andrew Tyrie, took evidence from Mr Tomlinson and RBS. RBS then had to apologise to the Committee for giving misleading evidence about the role and objectives of GRG. The Committee pressed for disclosure of the findings of the FCA’s independent review. The new Treasury Committee in this Parliament, which I am privileged to chair, has been determined to continue the work of its predecessor, hence the number of documents tagged with this debate listed on the Order Paper.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that apologies simply are not good enough? For the many of our constituents who have suffered in their business interests and personal lives, we need this inquiry and tribunal so that we achieve justice for our constituents.
My hon. Friend makes an important point with his customary passion, and he is absolutely right. I will come on to talk about the tribunal, but he is right that there are significant losses, some of which cannot be quantified. However, sometimes just starting by saying sorry can take the sting out of the situation, but we are still waiting for that Faced with the FCA’s continued refusal to publish the section 166 report, my Committee appointed an independent QC to review the summary and to make sure that it was an accurate reflection of the full report with no material omissions. The FCA’s final summary was finally published on 28 November 2017. Although it is written in neutral and technical language, it exposes a litany of poor conduct, mentioning “insensitive, dismissive and…aggressive” relations with customers and “a culture of deal making…that set little store by the interests of customers” It also referred to “inadequate and inappropriate” complaints handling and a failure to handle “inherent” conflicts of interest—the list goes on. Just yesterday, in a letter to me, RBS published its 2009 “Just Hit Budget!” memo, which we had already heard about. That lifts the lid on a culture at RBS, however much it tries to distance itself from that Given all that, it is unfortunate that the FCA and RBS decided to state that “the most serious allegations made against the bank have not been upheld” when the FCA published its interim summary. I think we all agree that what happened is still very serious, and I am sure that many firms agree It is also disappointing that RBS—again, pressed by the Treasury Committee—has disclosed that it does not accept many of the findings. In particular, it disagrees that inappropriate treatment of SMEs was “systematic or widespread”. RBS appears to be isolated on this, with the FCA supporting the conclusions of the independent review The Committee will take evidence from RBS and Promontory, the firm that conducted the review, very shortly. I encourage all Members who have not yet sent us evidence on behalf of constituents to do so. While the Treasury Committee does not consider individual cases, we will keep RBS’s feet to the fire over the functioning of its redress scheme I agree with the spirit of the comments of the hon. Member for Norwich South, too, because he is right to look at not just what went wrong, but the future, as the second half of the motion does. For small, financially distressed businesses, as he said, what we have is not a partnership of equals, but an unbalanced and potentially exploitative relationship in which banks can use their legal and financial firepower to ensure that their interests prevail over those of their customers As we have heard, the FCA told the Committee in October last year that it is considering broadening the scope of the Financial Ombudsman Service, but there is concern that the Government might not be prepared to consider a legislative solution. I would welcome the Minister addressing that point. The House will have to seriously consider whether the FCA solution is merely a sticking plaster, and if so whether the responsibility falls to us, as parliamentarians, to consider what legislation might be required.
I have read the exchange about this matter between the right hon. Lady and the FCA. Does she agree that it is a real concern that that correspondence conveys the impression that the FCA is rather intimidated by the potential actions of RBS? Should it not be the other way around?
The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. Yes, of course it should be the other way round—the FCA is the regulator. While this is about an individual case, it is of course also about the wider message that is sent about the system of regulation and lending to SMEs As we have heard, one of the solutions could be a new dispute resolution regime for SME financing. I recently discussed such a proposal with my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) and the all-party group on fair business banking and finance, which has done important work in this area, on which I congratulate it. Another possibility would be to bring corporate lending of a certain size within the regulatory perimeter, thereby allowing the FCA to consider taking action against firms directly for any failings. Those are not mutually exclusive suggestions. I would welcome the Minister’s commitment to publish the Treasury’s analysis of the costs and benefits of moving the regulatory perimeter on small business lending. I would also welcome confirmation that the Treasury does not rule out a legislative approach to establish a new tribunal or to introduce a perimeter change, if either were deemed appropriate The GRG was a warning that all was not well, but at the moment only the advent of the FCA’s senior managers regime is preventing such cases from arising again. I hear constituents and others saying that they will never trust a bank again and never ask a bank for money again, and this should be a chilling moment for all banks involved in lending to and working with SMEs. Bank lending is an important part of this country’s financial infrastructure, which was why the then Government stepped in during the financial crisis in 2008. I assure the House that the Treasury Committee will continue to consider the options available to provide further protections to SMEs in their dealings with the banks.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) on securing the debate. It is also a real pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) For me, the most alarming aspect of the whole issue of the banking sector’s treatment of SMEs is the conspiracy of denial that has existed between banks and their professional advisers. That has been reinforced by the very institutions that are supposed to regulate the financial sector. My constituent Mr Kash Shabir is a victim of what is at the very least grossly unethical practice—it is much more likely to be criminal fraud—at the hands of Lloyds bank, the same bank that was behind the HBOS Reading fraud. His case is a lead case, having formed the backbone of an inquiry by the then Business, Innovation and Skills Committee in March 2015, under the chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West (Mr Bailey), and of two Westminster Hall debates that I led, on 16 September 2015 and 18 April last year When lending to Mr Shabir was no longer attractive to Lloyds after the financial crash, it reneged on its lending commitment, relying on an alleged breach of the loan to value covenant. That breach was then justified by a down-valuation of his property portfolio, which was worth in excess of £10 million. The valuation was provided by Alder King LLP, a firm of chartered surveyors whose employees were embedded in Lloyds bank and then rewarded with lucrative LPA—Law of Property Act 1925—work. The substantial evidence that I have considered over the past three years leads me to conclude that criminal acts have taken place, followed by a cover-up by the parties concerned The senior management of Lloyds, Alder King and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors have all refused to meet me and Mr Shabir to discuss his case. None of them has the guts to sit in a room with me and my constituent to listen to his legitimate complaint. The approach taken—primarily by Lloyds, but also by Alder King—has been to use the gross power imbalance that exists between SMEs and the big banks to bully and belittle SME victims to the point at which at least one victim has taken his own life. The big banks hold all the power. They have an army of expensive lawyers. They obfuscate and delay, knowing that if they keep batting away their victims’ complaints and concerns, those individuals will eventually capitulate because they have no other choice.
The hon. Lady is making a powerful speech. She and the hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) have both referred to the HBOS Reading case, in which guilty verdicts were delivered on 30 January last year. Does she share my concern, and that of my constituents who have been affected by this, that there has still been no settlement with Lloyds bank a year after those verdicts were delivered? This reinforces what the hon. Lady is saying.
I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman Statutory limitation periods are run down through deliberate delays by the banks. They know that they hold all the financial cards. How can any of their victims afford to litigate to seek proper redress when they have already lost their businesses and homes as a consequence of the banks’ actions?
That is absolutely correct. Earlier I mentioned the case of a constituent who has spent at least £45,000 trying to tackle an injustice of which she is so undeservingly the victim. That has used up all her husband’s firefighter pension.
My hon. Friend provides a powerful example of that gross imbalance of power. Legal expenses insurance is also extortionate and therefore out of the question. My constituent was quoted a premium of more than £1 million for insurance cover for his litigation against Lloyds. These are deliberate tactics by the banks to prevent their victims from getting redress, and they absolutely stink All the time this is happening, Lloyds senior executives present a public face of claiming to know nothing of what has gone on. I have copies of letters written by Members of this House in 2014 to the Lloyds chief executive and the regulators, formally alerting them—if they did not already know—to the irregularities in that bank. Lloyds itself commissioned an internal report in September 2013—the HBOS and Lord Turnbull report—which highlights many acts of criminality, as well as confirming that the bank knew about the HBOS fraud as far back as 2008. The chairman and the chief executive of Lloyds have both maintained that they had no knowledge, but I do not believe those assertions to be accurate. This prompts the question that if the bank had knowledge of the fraud in 2008 and the HBOS convictions took place in 2017, why did the bank pursue personal guarantees on those fraud victims for nine years until the case went to trial? There can be only two answers to that question: either the bank is entirely incompetent; or those running it have not been honest. I am calling today on the Lloyds chair and the board to publish that report in its entirety Following the conviction of the six HBOS individuals who are now serving a combined prison sentence of 48 years, why has there been such a failure by Lloyds to compensate its victims? Similar practices have been shown to have been prevalent in the Bristol offices of Lloyds, but as yet no police force has carried out a proper forensic investigation. Anthony Stansfeld, the police and crime commissioner behind the successful HBOS convictions, is determined to see a full and proper investigation into Lloyds Bristol and has passed evidence to Avon and Somerset police. I am calling today on its chief constable to expedite an investigation As evidence of abuse by the banks and of conspiracy with their advisers grows by the day, the banks cannot say at the highest level that they were unaware of what was happening and somehow insulated from the abuses that were taking place. The chief executive of Lloyds, Mr Horta-Osório, has made many public statements—that to the Evening Standard on 17 May last year is just one example—saying that he was unaware of the victims’ complaints before the Reading fraud trial. However, I understand that the Turnbull report confirms both his and the Lloyds board’s knowledge of HBOS criminality. I also have a letter dated 22 May 2014 from the right hon. Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable), written when he was Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, confirming that he met Mr Horta-Osório to discuss my constituent’s case, and that Mr Horta-Osório had assured him that “he had looked into the case personally” It appears that Mr Horta-Osório is not as remote from these victims’ cases as he claims It is imperative that we have a full inquiry into the actions of Lloyds and the other banks we have heard about today, and that should include a consideration of individuals’ culpability. It should also compel full recompense to those who have been affected by the abuse. Such full recompense should be the subject of genuine independent third-party administration, not the charade that has developed around Lloyds’ handling of the victims of the HBOS Reading abuse. That is why I support the establishment of an independent tribunal system and the motion before the House.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) on securing this debate. I was pleased to be a member of the Backbench Business Committee when his application came before us, because such debates show the House at its best I have a confession to make: I am a capitalist. But I am a capitalist who believes in a system that depends upon sound financial management. The dishonest practices and systemic mismanagement by RBS in this case fundamentally undermine capitalism. We know that the behaviour of the bank was wrong, both legally and morally, as reported and evidenced in the Tomlinson report and the FCA’s skilled person reports. The injury to individual businesses and the business banking system as a whole has been compounded by the system of redress, which is judged to be inadequate by many Like many hon. Members on both sides of the House today, I have constituents who have been affected by this case. Just one such example of malpractice was the forced liquidation in 1998 of Pickup and Bradbury Ltd, a company formerly owned by a constituent of mine, Mr Eric Topping. Pickup and Bradbury was a building and joinery company based in Stockport. It was a business customer of RBS and, like many other businesses, used an overdraft to manage its cash flow. In 1998, the overdraft was £345,000—not an unreasonable amount for a business of that scale—and the company had been happily trading and growing under that arrangement for several years. Then, in February 1998, RBS wrote to Mr Topping saying that it wanted to reduce the overdraft facility to £200,000 and, moreover, that the company owed the bank over £700,000—a figure that is still in dispute today Unable to operate under more restrictive conditions, the company was moved into RBS’s Global Restructuring Group, according to RBS, to help it to repay the money it owed. While under the administration of the GRG, the bank’s advisers consistently undervalued the company’s assets, while simultaneously overvaluing its liabilities, to support its claim the company was unviable and, in July 1998, it forced Pickup and Bradbury into receivership. The GRG engineered the fall of the company by demanding aggressive repayment plans and allowing insufficient time for company directors to appoint independent valuers to prove the worth of the company’s assets and its solvency. Mr Topping believes the difference between RBS figures and his own was around £2 million Knowing that time is short and that many right hon. and hon. Members want to contribute, I will move on from that case and put some questions to the Treasury Bench. A scandal such as this, just like LIBOR before it, is yet another reason why people and businesses lose faith in the banking sector. Faith in the banks is essential for faith in our whole capitalist system, which I have hitherto been proud to defend. This scheme was organised fraudulent asset stripping on a massive scale, leading to the forced liquidation of many businesses—companies that people had poured a lifetime of effort into and which were their livelihoods. In the case of my constituent and many others, those businesses were their nest eggs for retirement. RBS likely made billions from the activity, but how many lives and livelihoods did it crush in the process We on the Conservative Benches in particular rightly tell the country we stand up for hard-working people. Mr Topping, and hundreds of business owners like him, are just such hard-working people, yet they have had their assets stripped by RBS and now have very little to show for it. It is time that we stood up for them. I have some questions for my hon. Friend the able and newly appointed Economic Secretary to the Treasury. While Her Majesty’s Government have a controlling stake in RBS, what is he doing to ensure that the bank does the right thing by its former customers, both by the law and by the sense of common decency on which all civilised business ultimately depends?
The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent speech, but may I ask him to widen his ambition? My constituent Derrick Cullen was the victim of Lloyds bank, so it is clear that the conspiracy was not confined to one bank, but was industry-wide— the lies spread across the industry. On that basis, the Government should do more than use their powers on a nationalised bank; the action must be systemic across the whole banking system.
The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight the broader practice in the banking sector. I have confined my remarks to RBS given that it was a constituency case, but he is absolutely right and perhaps draws on the work of the all-party parliamentary group on fair business banking and finance. I pay tribute again to the hon. Member for Norwich South and to my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) for their assiduous work on that APPG The hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd) is generous in allowing me an extra minute through his intervention, but I have only one more sentence to say to the Minister. I will put it as simply as this: what does my constituent have to do to get back the money that was stolen from him?
Order. I remind the House that there are no extra minutes. There are only 24 hours in a day, and we cannot add more minutes by taking interventions. The minutes have to come from somewhere else. Gosh, everyone could do with a spell in the Treasury.
Perhaps I should begin with the confession that I am not a capitalist, but I do share the hope of the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg) for fairness. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) on securing this debate. The motion primarily relates to RBS, but it acknowledges that the problem goes far wider than just one bank. At the heart of the motion is the proposition that several banks deliberately managed the closure of businesses to protect their own interests and in doing so prioritised the realisation of assets over any other outcome. The Tomlinson report, about which we have already heard, suggested that the banks had a deliberate strategy to artificially distress viable businesses, to engineer loan-to-value ratios to cause a breach and to revalue assets downwards to trigger a default. The banks had all the power and businesses had no meaningful recourse, and professional advisers were either ineffective or took the side of or even aided the banks. In the brief time available to me, I want to highlight two constituency cases. The first is Mr Graham Stewart, a builder and property developer, who was courted for his business by Lloyds bank in 2003. His accounts were successfully managed locally and regionally at first, but then the fateful decision was made to transfer his accounts to the Bristol business support unit, and that is when his troubles began. The review periods on his loans were shortened, repayments were doubled and charges were added at every single stage. He was told to sell some properties and to use Alder King, Lloyds chosen valuer, which systematically undervalued his properties. When he complained, his loans were called in. I understand that some of the banks may have accessed the enterprise finance guarantee scheme to cover their losses, and advisers got their fees, but my constituent was left with huge debts. He had never missed a payment and had never been in arrears My second constituent is Ben Warren, who was an Allied Dunbar client. Allied Dunbar was sold to Zurich Financial Services Ltd in 1998 after several mis-selling scandals, and parts of it were sold on a decade later. The deposit book was attractive, the loan book less so. Despite assurances to clients that they would not be materially affected by any transfer, within 14 days of the transfer, 95% of loans were declared to be impaired. That affected 300 people, including my constituent. A third were pushed into bankruptcy. The companies protected themselves at every stage by betting on the financial market. My constituent described it as like selling a car and then betting on whether it would break down. Mr Warren has a very simple question for the Minister: why does the UK allow companies based in offshore tax havens to manipulate small and medium-sized enterprises in that way? It certainly seems like systematic manipulation. To many, including myself, it looks like criminality The HBOS Reading fraud cost Thames Valley police £7 million to investigate, so where are the resources for such a Herculean task as investigating this situation? Allied Dunbar victims went to Northumbria police’s economic crime unit, which said that it lacked the resources to investigate and directed them to the Serious Fraud Office, which then sent them back to Northumbria police’s economic crime unit. We need accountability; we need transparency; and we need justice for the victims, including compensation. As we have heard, we need to protect SMEs in the future with a more effective tribunal system. Finally, and importantly, we need the Treasury Committee to continue to take a keen interest in the matter.
As a member of the Treasury Committee, I can assure the right hon. Member for Tynemouth (Mr Campbell) that the Committee is taking a keen interest In 2016 an RBS document leaked to the BBC proved that “staff were asked to search for companies that could be restructured, or have their interest rates bumped up.” Yet in November 2017 the FCA announced its conclusion that RBS had not set out to “artificially engineer” SMEs to fall into the GRG and that “there was not a widespread practice of identifying customers for transfer for inappropriate reasons, such as their potential value to GRG” All I can say is, what absolute balderdash, and I will explain why In February 2009 I received a telephone call from the RBS bank manager who was looking after the accounts of our self-storage business in Edinburgh. He simply said that we were going into default, that our interest rate would immediately be put up to 6% above base, that RBS was looking into other issues and that we would be going into GRG. We had not breached any covenants, so I asked him for an urgent meeting. RBS had competed with Lloyds for our business, and we had a term loan on a building in Edinburgh, the Jenners depository, of which I was then, and remain today, the major shareholder. That term loan was 1% over base, and of course banks did not want term loans of 1% over base in February 2009 We got the meeting. The bank manager came in and said he had remodelled our management accounts and that we were breaching covenants. I tried to find out how we were breaching covenants, and he could not tell me. When my bookkeeper was looking over his shoulder as she gave him a glass of water, she spotted that he was using the management accounts of February 2006, some three years previously, to claim the breach, so I showed him the door and did not hear from him again for three weeks, when he came back and told me that we were in breach of our covenants because our building had devalued by 40% and that we were immediately being moved to interest of 6% over base I called the bank manager in for another meeting and said that we must get the building revalued. Other Members have mentioned Alder King and others. Self-storage is a very specialist business and RBS wanted just to use its own valuer. I smelled a rat and insisted that a self-storage valuer was used. RBS said that we had to bear the £15,000 costs, to which I responded, “Here’s the deal: if the valuation remains the same, which is fine for our covenants, or goes up, you pay it.” RBS was confident the valuation would go down. When the valuation came back, it had doubled and RBS had to pay the costs. Needless to say, RBS was livid The manager disappeared from our radar and RBS proceeded to make things as difficult as possible for us because, as I said, no bank wants a loan of 1% over base. We then tired of RBS and moved our term loan to Handelsbanken, obviously at increased expense but we had lost faith in RBS I later learned from a bank manager who had moved on to a different role that after the October 2008 bail-out—when Fred Goodwin had left and Stephen Hester had arrived—we were an unsuccessful part of what was called “project dash for cash.” The plan was to seize assets through perceived default, and between 2007 and 2012 more than 15,000 companies were moved into GRG to await their fate. From my own experience, I have no doubt that many of those customers were not treated with proper care and attention I also have no doubt that the FCA’s conclusions, to which I referred earlier, are wholly wrong and that there was a widespread practice of identifying customers for transfer to GRG for inappropriate reasons.
What are my hon. Friend’s conclusions about the culture that prevailed in RBS at that time? Does that culture continue to this day?
I do not know whether it continues to this day because I no longer deal with RBS, and I would not deal with it again on principle. The culture at the time was disgraceful. My business was making a profit when RBS came in, and it has made a profit every single month since. That is a good example of how RBS tried it on I was lucky to be in a robust enough position to send RBS packing. None the less, it was a very stressful and unpleasant experience. For a variety of reasons, countless thousands were not as fortunate, and many lives were needlessly ruined by the disgraceful and unscrupulous behaviour of RBS bank managers across the country. Those customers deserve proper redress. I support the motion.
The testimony we just heard from the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr Jack) was incredibly powerful and valuable I speak as a co-sponsor of the debate, and I agree with every word of the opening statement by the hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis). The revelations in the report of the independent review are absolutely shocking, and that is without the revelation from my right hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable) that the full report says “Management knew or should have known that this was an intended and co-ordinated strategy” Why was that left out of the report’s summary? It potentially makes the FCA complicit in the cover-up, which is incredibly serious and needs to be considered Even without that, the report of the independent review highlights systematic failures, which in itself is an incredibly important conclusion. There was a failure to fully recognise and manage the conflict of interest between GRG’s twin objectives of turning around businesses and making a financial contribution to RBS. The review concludes that the commercial objective had been the strategic focus of management. That prompts the question: was GRG just incredibly stupid, or did it know exactly what it was doing? If it did know what it was doing, it amounts to theft of assets from people who, in many cases, were running entirely viable businesses—the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg) described it as asset stripping. These were people who had grafted throughout their adult lives to build up their businesses, which were destroyed by this outrageous behaviour. It is an extraordinary scandal The catalogue of unacceptable behaviour outlined in the review and exposed by brave whistleblowers demonstrates an absolutely rotten culture: victory emails celebrated taking assets off businesses; there were incentives for staff to take more money off stressed businesses to boost their bonuses; and what of the role of lawyers in managing the conflict of interest, or of the accountants, or of the auditors? Who was complicit in this scandal? That is why the hon. Member for Norwich South said we need an inquiry to find out who is culpable.
The right hon. Gentleman is making a powerful speech. He mentions the relationship between the FCA and RBS. Is he aware of the leaked minute from an FCA board meeting that says that one of the reasons why the FCA will not release the full report is that it is concerned about being sued by RBS? Does that not raise the question of who is regulating whom in this relationship?
The hon. Gentleman is entirely right. We rely on the regulator to be powerful and tough in such situations The human cost is incalculable. People have been driven to suicide and marriages and health have been destroyed, but who has been held to account for this disgusting behaviour? People and businesses ruined must have justice. I say to the Minister that an independent tribunal is essential. It would act as a deterrent to bad behaviour; banks would know their actions have consequences if they knew it would go to an independent tribunal My constituent Mark Wright is an RBS whistleblower. His career and his health have been destroyed. He and others are the heroes of this sorry story, risking everything to do the right thing, yet he has also been horribly let down by the regulator. The FCA, including its chief executive, Andrew Bailey, dismissed his concerns, but this week he won a vital victory when the complaints commissioner ruled that the FCA was wrong to reveal his name to RBS. What cavalier disregard of a whistleblower’s rights! The FCA fought the complaint all the way, only apologising right at the end. The case was brilliantly pursued by Steve Middleton, who deserves enormous credit. He is now setting up, with others, Bank Confidential—I declare an interest in that I am a patron—to protect whistleblowers and expose wrongdoing The truth is that whistleblowers have no real protection in this country. Contrast that with the situation in the United States, where the Dodd-Frank legislation introduced the Office of the Whistleblower, which is there to protect whistleblowers. Whistleblowers are rewarded financially for doing the right thing—they are awarded between 10% and 30% of the sanction collected against the firm, which can run into millions of dollars. What a contrast with the position in this country! We need our own office of the whistleblower, and whistleblowers should be guaranteed anonymity; they should be rewarded for their bravery. Maintaining the integrity of the banking system is of fundamental importance to us all, and whistleblowers are necessary for that purpose My fear is that in the aftermath of the crash in 2008, all the focus of the banks, the regulator and Government was on rebuilding balance sheets, and a collective blind eye was turned to how that was achieved and how many victims were left along the way—business owners and whistleblowers. The Government and the FCA now need to act to clear up this scandal and to get new arrangements in place to rebuild trust in British banking and give justice to those ruined by this outrageous behaviour.
I welcome this important debate and congratulate the hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) on securing it. I am conscious of following a very powerful speech. I think Members on both sides of the House will be horrified and sickened by the contents of the RBS memo, and I congratulate members of the Treasury Committee on putting it in the public domain. Gloating and cruel, it is a symbol of a profoundly sick culture within that bank. To give RBS its due, let me say that I welcome its £400 million compensation fund and the complaints procedure presided over by a former judge, but there is still a long way to go. Sadly, as a number of hon. Members have pointed out, the issues raised by RBS are not confined to that bank. The solutions we need are industry-wide One of my constituents had an experience with HSBC of exactly the same kind as those experienced in RBS cases. His lighting business had a cash-flow problem, which was no fault of his—indeed, it was partly the fault of the bank for authorising a payment which he did not believe could be authorised. His secured loan was turned into an overdraft and then he was offered a nine-year sustainable loan to work out of the debt, on the condition that he first paid a one-year loan without being chased for it. He did that—he did all the right things—but the nine-year loan was never forthcoming; instead he was offered a series of one-year loans at increasingly high interest rates, with increasingly high charges. In effect, he was made to work on an ever-faster-moving treadmill just to stand still. This was a perfectly viable business and a very hard-working man who has done a good job. In 2014, the financial ombudsman finally ruled against HSBC, saying that it should restructure the loan on the original terms that he had been offered and repay all charges made There are two disturbing aspects of this case. The first was the bank’s fundamental approach to this small business: this was not relationship banking and it was not an attempt to build a company over the long term; it was an attempt to sweat it for everything it was worth and to push it towards bankruptcy. The second and even more disturbing aspect was the bank’s response to the ombudsman’s ruling: instead of complying with the clear spirit of that ruling, the bank seized on an imprecision in the ruling to try to retrospectively force a much more onerous loan on to my constituent. After a second successful appeal to the ombudsman, the bank will still only offer my constituent a loan on far more onerous terms. As a result, nine years on, he is still in dispute with the bank. His life is on hold and his home is under threat, but despite everything he has managed to keep the business going—good on him, but it is not thanks to HSBC For victims of RBS GRG and other banks, we need a profound change in the culture of small business lending in Britain. I agree with many of the suggestions that other hon. Members have made. We need an ombudsman or regulator that banks are more frightened of, with stiffer penalties and clearer, quicker and more specific remedies. Since 2010, we have made real progress in reforming the banking sector: we have replaced the tripartite system that failed so spectacularly; we have seen the Vickers report and the ring-fencing of retail banks from investment banking; we have ended “too big to fail”; we will see bankers stand trial next year for their role in the financial crisis; we have introduced higher capital requirements and safer banking measures to increase competition and encourage challenger banks; we have the new open banking, the tougher bank bonus clawback regime and the bank levy. Despite all the good work that has been done, there is still a lot to do. The next reform made by the Treasury must be to put in place a stronger regulator and ombudsman, and to secure justice for our small businesses.
I congratulate everybody involved in bringing this important issue before the House for debate today. I was first confronted with some of these issues in my former incarnation as Chair of the Select Committee on Business, Innovation and Skills, when a number of the cases outlined by Members today were brought to my attention. As I studied them, my first instinct was that these were just isolated cases of maladministration and that banks could not possibly be behaving in such a way, which one would assume contravened not only any sort of ethics or sense of fairness, but the law itself Further investigation and consultation with other Members demonstrated that what I thought were one or two isolated incidents of maladministration were in fact part of a national problem resulting from a culture that obviously prevailed within the financial services industry, and that in many ways was propped up by other professional and corporate organisations—valuers, receivers and so on—who were making money out of it. Therefore, I particularly welcome the emphasis a number of Members have put on pointing out that, although this motion focuses on RBS, this is a general and systemic problem, as was determined by the fact that about 60% of lending to small and medium-sized enterprises was done by two big banking conglomerates, Lloyds and RBS. They, by their actions, set the culture and tone of how banking has dealt with small businesses and the way small businesses perceive the banks I applaud the motion, because it makes it clear that although RBS may have implemented some remedial actions, this is a general problem that needs a general solution. I read the minutes of the Treasury Committee interviews with Andrew Bailey of the FCA, and one of the most astonishing things I read was the regular comment made by him that such actions were “outside the regulatory perimeter”. What an astonishing thing for somebody in charge of the organisation designed to implement regulation to acknowledge: that for a long period banking practices had actually gone on outside any sort of regulatory perimeter. One would reasonably expect such a body to be pressing the Government to pass the necessary legislation to alter that position. In part, these huge personal, economic and business problems have arisen because of the failure of that body to make that case In the past, like many other people, I assumed that banks giving loans to business did so because there was a mutuality of interest: the bank would make money, the business would thrive and the country would thrive via the economic benefit that that would bring about. Instead, a process has been built into our economic system by which the organisations that were supposedly providing the lifeblood of our economy—driving productivity, investment and so on—were in fact destroying it. Indeed, their future depended on their destroying, through corporate theft, financially sound businesses that were providing employment and contributing to the economy. The Orwellian name of the Global Restructuring Group hides the fact that it was effectively death row for businesses, and its structure was mirrored by other banks. All that underlines the proposals in the motion that imply that the Government, through the FCA, must impose a far more rigorous regulatory environment to drive the change in culture that is so necessary.
Order. After the next speaker, the time limit will be reduced to four minutes.
My constituent Dean D’Eye and his family and friends have been terrorised by insolvency professionals working for GRG and Dunbar bank. Mr D’Eye’s life’s work has been taken away from him. He had a development company in south London that had a value of £140 million, as well as a thriving youth-hostel business that employed 100 people. Dean D’Eye’s father and step-mother, Derek and Ann D’Eye— 82 and 71 respectively, and also constituents of mine—have been evicted from their home, and numerous other family members and friends have been attacked using predatory litigation tactics. The whole D’Eye family faces complete wipe out It all started 16 years ago when Mr D’Eye became a customer of the Romford lending division of NatWest, which is now part of RBS. NatWest funded his investment business and he was mentored on business development by Dunbar. During the third quarter of 2008, GRG started to hound him, despite his never having missed an interest payment and at a time when interest rates had plummeted. GRG thus managed to get him into insolvency by 1 June 2009 The loss of a large proportion of the group’s cash flow started to cause issues with Dunbar bank, which was by early 2010 starting to experience significant problems itself. The Zurich group moved the bank to its centrally managed business division, which was headed by Mr Colm Holmes. Mr D’Eye, who is present in the Public Gallery, has described the business division as an extortion racket. As is evident from this debate, the GRG’s tactics are becoming well known, but I wish to highlight Dunbar’s far more aggressive actions and the systematic destruction of its clients’ former loyal staff, long-standing suppliers and valuers. I am pleased that the Treasury Committee is looking into the matter Mr D’Eye describes the current situation with respect to small business lending in the UK as utterly unsustainable, and I think we all agree. Financial institutions have been allowed to run riot with demands for personal guarantees in all aspects of business, and the limited-liability company may well soon head into extinction. If we combine that with the fact that banks do not seem to be trusted and have not been brought to justice for their actions, we have the perfect storm for SMEs. UK productivity cannot improve without a thriving SME sector. We have some of the best entrepreneurs in the world, but we must sort out the banking infrastructure on which they rely—as well as getting justice for those poor devils who have suffered so much as a result of the banks’ actions.
If we do not agree today that there is going to be justice for all those people who have been damaged by the banking crisis—by the illegal actions that have taken place across the banking sector and among the organisations that worked alongside the banks, including the valuers and surveyors—all the distrust of this House will be valid. It is in our power to give those people justice, and that justice must start today My constituent Mr Smith ran a small engineering company and had banked with NatWest for 12 years. He took out a £180,000 mortgage on a new building. He reduced the mortgage because his company was doing well; in fact, it was worth £220,000 fairly quickly. He decided to invest in new equipment to help him to expand. Unfortunately, when the bank agreed to fund the investment in new equipment, it put a second charge of £80,000 on his home, assuring him that it was not a problem because the bank would always negotiate with him if his company had any difficulty There were rumours that the bank needed money, so Mr Smith asked the bank manager whether things were okay, but he was assured that it was as safe as houses. As we know, though, the bank collapsed, and within weeks the flow of work into Mr Smith’s company also collapsed. A contract worth £30,000 was closed down literally overnight Mr Smith then had a problem with the Royal Mint, which was supposed to make a payment into his bank account on the Wednesday but rang at the last moment to say it would be made on the Thursday. Unfortunately, Mr Smith had arranged to pay suppliers on that same Wednesday. Instead of doing what it had always done previously, which was to act reasonably and say, “Don’t worry about it,” the bank charged him £600, adding to his financial problems The situation quickly became a huge problem for Mr Smith. He started to get phone calls from a few departments at the bank. [Interruption.] I am sorry about my phone ringing, Madam Deputy Speaker! In fairness, it did seem like it was RBS calling. The bank was calling Mr Smith to ask him to come in to discuss his loans. That was when he entered the GRG bracket. In the end, he was forced to close his business Despite Mr Smith’s attending court on numerous occasions and being a litigant in person, RBS often did not send people, or appeared badly prepared. It was only when I finally managed to get through to the bank and criticised its actions that it agreed to a meeting with Mr Smith. The bank actually said to Mr Smith’s wife, “It is not a matter of if we will take your home, but when.” Mr Smith and his family have gone through hell. Like many of the companies that have been discussed in the debate, they would have been a cornerstone of Britain’s economic recovery. Instead, trust, confidence and belief in the British banking system has been systemically destroyed.
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on an issue that has deeply affected so many small and medium-sized businesses throughout the United Kingdom. The Royal Bank of Scotland should be one of the jewels in the UK’s crown: a principled yet profitable business carrying the great name of Scotland and doing business in every corner of the globe. Perhaps it was something that we could be proud of before 2007, but actions of the bank that have been uncovered since then have lost it almost all its credibility The Global Restructuring Group is responsible for much of its now bruised brand image. It was responsible for stripping businesses which were deemed to be perfectly viable. Those are not my words, but the words of the Tomlinson report, which stated: “GRG artificially distresses otherwise viable businesses. Through such actions, GRG placed businesses on a journey towards administration, receivership and liquidation.” One of GRG’s tactics was to appoint its own valuers to appraise assets put forward by companies against loans, deliberately undervaluing the assets and then putting them into GRG even if those companies were not behind with their payments. My hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr Jack) described very well the challenges that businesses and individuals have faced in that regard. Anyone can see that that should be absent from business practices in the United Kingdom Of course, RBS denies that it made any money from such practices, but we must remember that the senior management of the bank created the circumstances in which it became so desperate to liquidise many of its investments. It must also be pointed out that the Financial Conduct Authority found that GRG’s actions failed to comply with the bank’s own standards. It is only right for the FCA to hold the bank to account and to fight on behalf of customers—business or otherwise Unfortunately, such practices are not confined to customers of Royal Bank of Scotland. As many Members may be aware, UK Acorn Finance Ltd is held responsible by many in the agricultural industry for forcing farmers into bankruptcy or eviction. One example is that of Kevin and Angela Holt who farmed in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Moray (Douglas Ross). They are, in their words, victims of a fraudulent loan scheme that led to the loss of their farm. I am sure that there are countless small businesses that see their circumstances reflected in today’s debate It is also important to remember the problems that financial difficulties can lead to. It not only leaves a hole in the bank balance, but leads to mental health problems and can cause irreparable damage to families, especially in small businesses. The businesses affected are not faceless corporations, but, in many instances, small family companies supporting local employment and the local economy. I am very grateful to the Government for what they have done in continuing to fight hard to strengthen the financial sector, but more needs to be done As I have said, RBS is no stranger to bad news. Bankers’ bonuses, branch closures and bail-outs highlight but a few cases. One needs only to ask some of my constituents for their thoughts on the recent announcements to understand the consequences of its actions on local people and the injustice that they feel. However, the acts of the Global Restructuring Group are perhaps its most intemperate over the past decade, since the beginning of the great recession. It is our duty in this House to stand up for those who have been crushed by the immoral acts of this corporation, which, as we all know, is now owned by the taxpayers of this country.
In the brief time available, I will add my voice to that of those calling for a proper inquiry into the scandal and a proper tribunal system for dealing with SMEs that are in difficulty I wish briefly to cite the example of my constituent Anthony Molyneux, whose small business has been mishandled by RBS over the past several years. Equally—as we have heard, this is a much wider problem—I could cite the case of my constituent David Farnden, who has been treated appallingly by the Yorkshire Bank over a long period of time Mr Molyneux’s experience is one of the thousands of cases in which RBS has put its profits before small businesses that needed, expected and deserved its support to turn their businesses around. He estimates that at least £1.5 million of assets were sold for around £260,000 to make a quick buck for RBS. The problem started when he was alerted by one of his tenants that an auction sign had been placed outside one of his premises. The auctioneers confirmed that RBS had placed his premises up for auction to pay back some of the debt that it claimed he owed RBS did not follow the correct processes when it used the TR2 process in the sale of Mr Molyneux’s land. It did not communicate properly with him and did not give him adequate opportunity to clear his arrears. After a long dispute about the amount he owed, he got an agreement in writing, and then RBS came back demanding more money I do not have time to go into the long list of very serious concerns about the process and ethics of the sale, suffice it to say that Mr Molyneux took his case to the financial ombudsman, which upheld his complaint. It recognised wrongdoing on the part of RBS, but said that, in the absence of the loan agreement that RBS said could not be found, it would be for the courts to decide the legality of the bank’s actions. That left the onus on Mr Molyneux to undertake a very expensive and risky court process. Six years on, the issue has not been settled, and he has not had an adequate settlement for his dispute. Sadly, that case is typical of the kind of failings revealed in the FCA’s report on RBS It is clear from this debate that small businesses across the country have suffered as a result of a system that lacks adequate checks and balances. The incidents are not isolated, as we have heard. Sixteen thousand companies were handled by the GRG. Of those, only one in 10 ever returned to health and, at the same time, the GRG became one of the bank’s most profitable sectors. We have heard that there has been a systemic failure. The banks have failed to recognise and grasp the glaring conflicts of interests between their commercial aims and their obligations to businesses and all of us to help SMEs to turn around and make a profit It is clear from this debate that my constituent’s experience is one of many examples in which SMEs have been the victims of a banking sector that is focused solely on profit, not on supporting its customers or our wider economy. It is also clear that the financial ombudsman is unable effectively to provide for accountability in cases such as the ones that we have heard about today. It lacks the power or authority not only to prevent such examples of corporate greed, but to achieve justice for those affected. In the wake of the FCA report, which has exposed a widespread failure in the system, the Government must take action, so I strongly call for a Select Committee inquiry—a proper inquiry—and a proper process to bring RBS and the other banks to justice on behalf of my constituents and those of other Members.
First, I must draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I have been in business for 25 years and still am today, and our business was once a customer of RBS. Thankfully, we did not suffer from any of the tragic circumstances that many Members have talked about today I thank my co-officer on the all-party group on fair business banking, the hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis), for clearly setting out the case for a tribunal, to which I need to add very little detail. I will, however, make some further points. There is not only a case for justice here, but an economic imperative. We know that the powerhouse behind our economy is SMEs. Some 99% of all businesses are SMEs. They employ 60% of our private sector workforce and create 51% of its turnover, yet they have suffered terribly from these colossal injustices. There is now a crisis of confidence between our businesses and our banks. The Treasury is doing great work in trying to find funds for new companies and scale-ups that cannot borrow, but what about those companies that will not borrow because they just do not have the confidence to do so? Many people in the Public Gallery can provide great evidence to show that, in their minds and the minds of many other business people, that is absolutely the case This is about not just RBS, but many other banks, such as HBOS and Lloyds. We are talking about tens of thousands of businesses, but that statistic masks individual tragic stories. These are people’s lives and their life’s work. My constituents John and Kerry Welsby had a good business. They were persuaded to take on a loan that the bank salesman did not understand, and that they could not understand, but in the pressure of business, sometimes people take on such loans. They signed up to the loan but, as interest rates fell, the cost went from £6,000 a month to £17,000 a month. That broke the business. The bank then decided that it would compensate them for the cost of the loan—a few hundred thousand pounds, which is an awful lot of money—but what about the cost of the business that was broken? That was their life’s work—tens of millions of pounds. It is an outrageous injustice The difficulty, as we all know, is not only that banks are too big to fail, but that they are too big and too wealthy to sue. No form of justice is available in this situation. I do not believe that the Financial Ombudsman Service could deliver the solutions we need. We need to look at other solutions to provide justice. Our all-party group is considering the idea of a tribunal and we need to ensure that we get that justice. In a tribunal, the plaintiff will not have to carry the costs of the defence if they lose, so it represents an accessible form of justice. We believe that that could be delivered through secondary legislation, but obviously we need to look into that The all-party group accepts that we need to do proper research. One thing we absolutely cannot countenance, and that even businesses that have been wronged in this process will not countenance, is to stem the flow of lending. We cannot afford to do that, so we must take the time to conduct research. We are prepared, as an all-party group, to do that. We have support from some surprising places—participants in the financial services industry. We just need time for the Treasury to work with us to ensure that we deliver the right solutions for justice and to benefit small businesses and the UK economy.
For 10 years, I have been dealing with George Jones, a farmer in my constituency. George has been a victim of big banks, small banks, dodgy accountants, solicitors and valuers for the past 13 years. He has been let down by all the organisations that should have been there to help him, including various police forces, police and crime commissioners, the Independent Police Complaints Commission, the Solicitors Regulation Authority, the Financial Conduct Authority and the Serious Fraud Office My constituents and others from around the country are looking to us today, as parliamentarians, as their last hope of gaining justice. I hope that we do not let them down. The web of deceit between a whole range of organisations is highly complex, from the big banks—RBS and Lloyds—to accountants, solicitors and valuers. I hope to discuss the impact of this national scam as it pertains to my constituent George and his family. In doing so, I am heavily reliant on George and his friend, Martin Wickens, who is an expert in this area and has been working with him George Jones and his family were treated extremely poorly by Barclays. Within days of his father suffering a stroke, Barclays was round at his farm, stating that a new bank mandate was immediately required. Barclays leant heavily on my constituent, reorganising the finance not to the benefit of George or their mutual benefit, but to the benefit of the bank. It acted with indecent haste. Barclays also leant on him for insurance policies, saying that without insurance, the interest charges would be increased. Barclays effectively turned its back on my constituents Once Barclays had turned its back on George and his family, the family were forced to go elsewhere for finance. They turned to Peter Williams, a renowned agricultural solicitor who often featured in the agricultural press. Peter Williams, with his contacts in Burges Salmon Solicitors, UK Acorn and Commercial First, was able to get my constituents’ debt down by £100,000. The costs to George and his family were £130,000. They then proceeded to tie George and his family up in debts, loans and mortgages that they could not get out of. My constituent is now a pensioner, and he will likely die in harness. He is effectively a slave to these parasitic financial organisations—and he is just one of 46 cases. As I mentioned, the organisations that should have been investigating this have let George down. His friend, Martin Wickens, has done an analysis of 20 of the cases, and the modus operandi of Burges Salmon, UK Acorn and Commercial First is the same as has been repeated around the Chamber today: undisclosed conflicts of interest; valuation rigging; the payment of substantial secret commissions of up to £92,000; mortgage churning; regulated mortgages advanced on unregulated loans; conspiracy to defraud and document forgery; false accounting; and breaches of the Law of Property Act 1925 In conclusion, I shall refer to the answer to a written parliamentary question that I tabled. George and other taxpayers have paid £134 billion to the banks since 2008. I hope the Treasury Committee will pursue this. I hope that we have an inquiry and that a tribunal is set up, and I hope that Avon and Somerset constabulary will now pursue Burges Salmon, Acorn Group and Commercial First.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) and the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) on securing this important debate. I wish to be associated with their remarks and with those of my right hon. Friend the Chair of the Treasury Committee Little did I know, when I left school at 16 to join the Royal Bank of Scotland as a junior bank officer, that all these years later I would be standing in the House of Commons talking, I am afraid, in negative terms about the Royal Bank of Scotland, which, as one of my colleagues said, was one of Scotland’s finest institutions and now badly needs to be restored Little did I know, either, that I would end up speaking so often in this place about the Royal Bank of Scotland, most recently about the branch closures in my constituency. There is a theme here. The Royal Bank of Scotland is going to leave small businesses in Stirling, especially in Bridge of Allan, Dunblane and Bannockburn, with no branch to interact with to transact their cash management. I think, as we look through the issues today, we will see a theme of casual disregard and contempt for small and medium businesses, and that, I am afraid, pervades RBS’s approach to business customers On the activities of the GRG, the FCA’s October 2017 report makes depressing reading. I lost count of the number of times the words “inadequate”, “inappropriate”, “systemic” and “failure” were linked to a wide range of activities. Many Members from all parties have examples of how these systemic failures have affected individuals. I am no different. However, I am mindful of ongoing investigations involving cases in my constituency and I have no wish to prejudice or jeopardise their progress by making reference to them. I shall simply say that, in the cases that have been brought to my attention, there remain many unanswered questions for the Royal Bank of Scotland to address and many injustices to be put right.
My hon. Friend mentions that he was employed by that bank, of which he was once very proud. Could he make any comment on what has brought us to the position where he is now embarrassed, perhaps, about his previous employment?
I am not sure I am embarrassed about my previous employment, but what has brought us to this situation is a culture—a culture that, I am afraid, is institutionalised and industry-wide. That culture is captured in the document in my hand, which, thanks to the offices of the Treasury Committee, is now publicly available. The document, entitled “Just Hit Budget!” contains many sentiments that betray the culture of the Royal Bank of Scotland of that era, but I sincerely hope not of this era, although I remain unconvinced Interestingly enough, the chief executive of RBS, in correspondence to my right hon. Friend the Chair of the Treasury Committee, in my eyes justifies the letter by saying that “it was written in 2009 by a junior” bank “manager” Frankly, a junior bank manager would not have written that document without understanding that it conformed to the culture of the business that they were operating in. I am afraid that the chief executive is condemned by his own justification, which does not wash In the time that I have left, I will not try to rehash many of the things that have been said, but simply say this. There is a gap in funding support for small and medium-sized businesses in this country, and it is holding us back as an economy. These companies are the lifeblood—the engine room—of our economy, and it is not acceptable that they do not have recourse to an independent mechanism to which they can bring their complaints of unfair and unreasonable practices when dealing with our financial institutions Given the appalling conduct uncovered in many reports—not just the report that I referenced earlier—there is obviously a failure to comply with the voluntary code, however much the banking lobby may continue to stand by it. In fact, ironically, the stronger that lobby—funded, in part, by the inappropriate gains that have been made through the immoral practices in relation to small and medium-sized businesses—the stronger is the case for an independent body. They had their chance, in my eyes, and I am sure in others’ eyes, and have failed. It is time, and it is right, for this Parliament to take responsibility—to step in and to act to ensure that an independent body, as described by me and others, is created, and as quickly as possible, because enough is enough.
As we have heard, this debate is about wider failures, which go beyond RBS GRG. I would like to highlight the extent of the problem by drawing on the experience of my constituent Mr Derek Carlyle, who is in the Gallery today. I pay tribute to the late Jimmy Hood, the former Member for Lanark and Hamilton East, who first raised this case in a Westminster Hall debate on 10 March 2010. The record of that will show a more thorough account of the case than I will be able to give today Almost eight years later, things have moved on significantly for Mr Carlyle, but the issues he faced and the considerable challenges he had to overcome remain today. What started as a good relationship with RBS took a turn for the worse in 2008, when a promise to provide development funding was withdrawn. Mr Carlyle went on to fight for 10 years in the face of relentless intimidation, bullying and underhand tactics by RBS. It sought to destroy Mr Carlyle, and it almost succeeded. It manipulated his personal bank accounts, seized his assets, forced his company into administration and set about preventing solicitors from acting on his behalf. His solicitor at the time, also a small business, found itself under siege, inundated with requests and bombarded with phone calls—so much so that it was unable carry out its usual functions and provide a service to its other clients. In the end, it felt that it had no option but to cease representing Mr Carlyle. Eventually, his case was taken by a firm of solicitors that was not specialised in litigation and first had to seek the permission of RBS before it could act Mr Carlyle had to go all the way to the Supreme Court to settle his case—the only person to do so—and it came at a huge financial and personal expense. He lost his business and his house; his private life was affected; he suffered damage to his reputation; and he was forced into bankruptcy. The great unfairness is that the bankruptcy restriction order against him is still in place today, meaning that he is unable to act as director of a company, unable to borrow more than £500, and even unable to become a Member of this House should he wish to turn his talents to the world of politics. How can it be fair for someone to fight for almost 10 years, be vindicated in the highest court of law, and then, at the end of it all, find themselves significantly disadvantaged in what they can and cannot do in their personal and professional life? The legislation that controls bankruptcy in Scotland is devolved. I am disappointed that the Minister for Business, Innovation and Energy in the Scottish Parliament has declined to intervene to correct the unfairness that means that Mr Carlyle is still subject to the bankruptcy restriction order Most of us would not have the determination or strength of character that it took for Derek Carlyle to win his case. He was told on more than one occasion to give up. He says that he relied on others who put their neck on the line, and no small measure of luck. If this can happen with a bank that is over 70% owned by the taxpayer, it can happen with any bank. It shows that we have a completely dysfunctional system where the balance of power is heavily in favour of not just the banks, but professional advisers who are integral to the system, such as surveyors, insolvency practitioners and solicitors. Moreover, bad behaviour is rewarded because outcomes like Mr Carlyle’s are rare and almost impossible to pursue. It is in the interest of small and medium-sized enterprises and the banks to sort this problem now. It is not going away, and failing to tackle it will only push it further down the road. The last thing we need is another banking scandal It is not sustainable for banks to continue to act as judge and jury, and it should not take what Derek Carlyle had to go through to reach a fair outcome. I fully support the recommendation of the APPG on fair business banking. We need to bring complaints out into the open. We need an affordable, accessible dispute resolution process. It needs to be a completely independent system that sits outside the regulatory structure and has the knowledge and power to deal with the complex disputes that will be brought before it. The best way of achieving that is through a public tribunal system, and I hope that Members across the House will back those calling for that.
This is clearly an important debate, as evidenced by the testimonies that many Members have from their constituencies about RBS GRG. But it goes far wider than that, because RBS was not alone in facing allegations of mis-selling, of treating companies badly at the height of the banking crisis and of poor redress since. I am sure that many Members will have had cases of Clydesdale’s tailored business loan mis-selling, where redress has not yet been made and constituents may have lost their homes, businesses and livelihoods as a result. It is also the case—this adds to our frustrations and those of our constituents—that some products were regulated and others were not and that some customers were deemed to be “sophisticated investors” while others were not. In short, there was an opaque regulatory environment that may have been sufficient in the good times, but most certainly was not when the money ran out and the banks were at their most stressed All the banks came under scrutiny, but much of the focus, understandably, was on RBS because it had such a large market share; because, by some measures, it was the largest bank in the world; and, not least, because of the allegations surrounding the treatment of businesses after they entered the bank’s GRG. I will not describe the genesis of the products that people bought, as the hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) did that well. I simply say that, when businesses wished to extract themselves, sometimes their only way of escape was to pay substantial sums, larger than any capital ever borrowed, but as they were distressed themselves as the economy downturned, that was not possible, and so, in the case of RBS, they went to GRG. One would have thought, as many have said, that this was to help businesses to recover, but few did. To be fair, some of those businesses are likely to have failed anyway, while others were potentially viable, and referral to GRG may have caused some difficulties. But the key point is that some definitely experienced actions that were likely to have resulted in material financial distress One of the many reasons this was able to happen is that in some cases commercial lending was not regulated. To be fair to RBS, it did work with the FCA and it has implemented the complaints review. It also trained the team under Sir William Blackburne, who was honest in saying that outcomes were not being delivered quickly. However, all that remedial work, some of which was very good, is undermined by the swirling belief that refuses to go away that businesses referred to GRG were cash-poor but asset-rich, and artificial default events were engineered. In short, the businesses were asset-stripped These allegations are made all the more persuasive by the fact that, as we now know, GRG had a commercial objective and was part of “project dash for cash”; and by what we have seen since the Treasury Committee published the “Just Hit Budget!” memo and the memo from 2008-09 I fully support the motion. I want to end because time is short. The memo from RBS GRG said that a customer should transfer to GRG if a significant deterioration in any aspect of their activity had happened, where a breach of covenant was likely but had not happened, or where they may miss a contractual payment to anyone. So even businesses that stuck to the terms of the RBS agreement could be referred to GRG. That was completely wrong.
Much as I support calls for a tribunal system and an inquiry, the longer I listen to the debate, the more I believe that there has to be much greater involvement of the police in what are clearly criminal conspiracies—particularly, perhaps, in relation to agreements between valuers and the banks to drive down the values of properties. The hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) is absolutely right that while we cannot forget the personal damage done to small business owners, this is an attack on the whole of the UK economy, which is underpinned by those small businesses. It should therefore be taken seriously in criminal terms at the national level My constituent Graham had his business destroyed by Clydesdale and Yorkshire bank, which unlawfully mis-sold tailored business loans to him and to other SME customers. The selling involved widespread and systematic unlawful conduct, including making deliberately false representations to coerce customers into taking on the obligations under tailored business loans. Customers were not told about any interest rate swaps associated with or embedded into their tailored business loans, nor were they given the bank’s standard terms and conditions before or at the time of entering into the TBL. There was no mention of potentially substantial early termination penalty charges—break costs—allegedly associated with such interest rate derivative products As a result of this mass mis-selling, customers of these banks have suffered significant financial losses. The hidden break cost liabilities asserted by the banks meant that it became virtually impossible for customers to pay off their TBL completely or to switch their borrowing to another bank, as the hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie) said. SMEs were therefore locked-in victims, forced to continue paying interest rates as high as 6% or 7% on these loans when the base rate was reduced to 0.5% SMEs were subjected to various other forms of abuse, including the manipulation of property valuations mentioned previously, which resulted in alleged covenant breaches of the loan-to-value ratio on the property underpinning the loans, as well as the unlawful repossession of properties, the manipulation of overdraft facilities to exert additional pressure, the unfair imposition of inflated bank charges and the unlawful calling-in of personal guarantees. It is no wonder that so many small businesses, and the families underpinning them, have gone under in these intolerable circumstances From investigating Graham’s case and those of other constituents, I, like other hon. Members, am absolutely clear that the Financial Ombudsman Service is not fit for purpose, perhaps because it lacks the skills to understand these very complicated financial instruments, perhaps because it is under-resourced, or perhaps because it lacks the political will and is too close to the banks. It could also be—the Minister may want to consider this—that the legislative regime under which it operates is not sufficient and that it does not have sufficient scope. I have one final point to make. This scandal has been compared to the PPI scandal, but I think it is in a league way beyond it. Adding extra money to somebody’s payment protection insurance and then skimming some off the top is one thing, but deliberately driving down, crashing and destroying somebody’s business, to which they and often their families have dedicated their lives, is in a league beyond anything we can comprehend. I return to the point I started with: this is criminality and it should be dealt with as such.
I join others in congratulating the hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) on securing this debate and in thanking the Backbench Business Committee for granting time for it, especially after a debate on the subject was cancelled before Christmas. It is clear from the contributions today that we could easily have filled a whole six hours, there is so much going on. I think it started for all of us with individual constituents coming to us, and we began to realise that this issue extends across the entire country One of the key questions, or perhaps the key question, that remains to be answered is whether the behaviour of the RBS GRG was, to paraphrase the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb)—I hope this is not unparliamentary language—a cock-up or a conspiracy. Either way, the decision to seize and strip the assets of thousands of small businesses across the country has, as we have heard, caused untold misery to the owners and employees of these businesses and their families, and it seems to have caused genuine damage to the economy as a whole The fact that we are having this debate is a tribute to the campaigners, the various organisations that have raised awareness with their MPs and the work of the all-party group on fair business banking. Those campaigners include one of my constituents, Mr Neil Mitchell, who I know is watching this debate very closely. We have heard many powerful testimonies from constituents, and I want to share some of my constituent’s experiences Neil was the chief executive of Torex Retail. He alleges that the RBS Global Restructuring Group “conspired by unlawful means” with Cerberus, a private equity fund in America, to engineer the sale of Torex to Cerberus for a cut-price £204 million in June 2007, which is more than 10 years ago. He alleges “systematic institutionalised fraud” by the RBS GRG in relation to its dealings, which have cost him his business, and time and money afterwards in his campaign for justice. Although I, like many Members, have been able to table parliamentary questions, speak in debates and write to and meet Ministers, Mr Mitchell has faced the burden of this case. While he is rightly seeking restitution of his own losses, his greater motivation has been to support other affected businesses in seeking justice and the establishment of a system that will mean that this kind of scandal can never happen again All Mr Mitchell really wanted was a meeting with the chief exec of RBS, and I wonder how much grief might have been avoided if RBS had been willing to meet constituents and business owners much earlier in the game. Instead, Mr Mitchell commenced private legal action against RBS, Cerberus and KPMG; he reported his case to the Serious Fraud Office and the FCA, launched a civil legal action against the companies involved and financed a private criminal investigation with a view towards a private criminal prosecution. He has also played a part in the “ripped off” campaign. I pay tribute to his dogged determination and that of many other campaigners There are some key questions that the Government need to answer and that we perhaps all need to reflect on. First and most important, in whose interests were the decisions of the RBS GRG to force these businesses into default? Who has the beneficial interest in businesses that were secured borrowers being forced into default? Whether for an individual or a business, what is the primary objective of engineering the deliberate default and stripping of assets of businesses that potentially have long-term viability? Many of these businesses were stripped of fixed assets that realised capital for a state-owned bank, and individuals were forced out to the labour market, with all the cost to the state and loss to the economy that unemployment brings I thoroughly agree with all the calls for a dispute resolution mechanism and, indeed, for a public inquiry into the actions of GRG. Every victim of mis-selling should be given fair and equal opportunity to receive justice. Banks have to fulfil their duty to have the public interest at their heart, and that has to be put at the heart of banking culture in the United Kingdom.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) on securing the debate with the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), and on his excellent opening speech. He set a high bar, and his speech has been consistently matched by speaker after speaker in this debate I wish to raise the case of my constituent Ms Julia Davey, who ran two successful businesses, Angelic Interiors Ltd and Angel Group Ltd. I wish to place on the record my thanks to her barrister, Mr Simon Reevell, who represented Dewsbury in this House from 2010 to 2015, for his extensive briefing and assistance. In short, as at 30 April 2008, Angelic Interiors had fixed assets of over £30 million, with shareholder funds of £6 million; it was placed into administration in July 2016. At the same time, Angel Group had fixed assets of over £100 million, with shareholder funds of over £60 million; four years later it, too, would be placed into administration and then liquidated in 2015. Ms Davey has, by her calculations, personally lost over £6 million From the House of Commons Library briefing, it is clear that the focus of the Global Restructuring Group of the Royal Bank of Scotland was in many cases to liquidate companies, rather than to support them. The main charge is that it promoted the realisation of assets over other outcomes and that there was no attempt to rescue them Mr Reevell’s brief says that the Tomlinson report makes it clear that RBS used its Global Restructuring Group artificially to distress the businesses of a significant number of its customers. Accounts were moved to GRG and customers were then charged exorbitant fees and/or forced to relinquish control of their businesses. The method used within Lloyds Baking Group’s London and south east impaired assets department was to compel customers to accept the involvement of what they were given to understand was a turnaround company. Very high fees were levied for this service and the “turnaround” company gradually gained control of the business and misappropriated its income before appropriating and/or disposing of its assets Lloyds’ business support unit based in the City used a similar method in respect of Ms Davey, and her business. In 2009, her account was transferred from Leeds to the BSU without her knowledge. In September 2011, Ms Davey was told that she must retain the services of a third-party turnaround company, Baronsmead Consultancy. She was obliged to pay the fees charged by that firm, which were in excess of £644,000 for some 10 months’ work. The total taken from Ms Davey in costs and fees during the period that her business was in the BSU was in excess of £6 million. She believed that the turnaround company was working for her and was, in conjunction with the bank, aiming to return her business to mainstream banking. She would still believe that to have been the aim, but for information provided to her by a whistleblower inside the turnaround company, who was appalled that while the so-called turnaround company was purporting to assist Ms Davey, it was actually colluding with the bank to put the business into administration. At a time when the BSU had already decided to close down Ms Davey’s business, it was taking millions of pounds from her on the pretence that the business was to be turned around. This was not only deceitful, but wrong, and I would have thought criminal Part of the motion says that this House “believes that this indicates a systemic failure to effectively protect businesses, which has resulted in financial scandals costing tens of billions of pounds” The losses include those of my constituent Ms Davey. She is still waiting for justice, and I look forward to the Minister telling me how she will secure it.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis), and members of the all-party group, for securing this vital debate Small and medium-sized enterprises form the backbone of our economy as well as our communities. The banking industry exists to support them, but the widespread malpractice that plagues the sector has shown that the banks fail those responsibilities catastrophically. Members have given details of the shameful behaviour of RBS, but as has been shown today, such behaviour is not exclusive to that bank One constituent of mine—a customer of Lloyds— has lost millions as a consequence of such immoral practices. Mr Alun Richards, who is in the public Gallery today, was once the owner of an extensive farming and property business in west Wales. He became a customer of Lloyds which, after a period of time, decided suddenly and without warning to transfer his account to the Lloyds recoveries unit in Bristol. After Lloyds made that decision, Mr Richards was soon left with nothing. He lost millions of pounds, and the bank took away all his assets, including his home. The manner in which it did so was inappropriate, irresponsible, and without any real explanation. There was little to no support available to Mr Richards, or any attempt to save the business. The solicitors, TLT of Bristol, acting on behalf of Lloyds bank, did so with intimidation and disrespect. Indeed, one Lloyds representative who met Mr Richards was not a Lloyds employee but on the payroll of chartered surveyors Alder King In the years that followed, Mr Richards raised complaints with the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors about the behaviour of Alder King, as well as with the Solicitors Regulation Authority regarding the behaviour of the solicitors involved. Each of the two regulatory bodies did little to nothing to investigate the situation. I have received many letters from both organisations, and to say that their responses have been half-baked would be an understatement Considerable attention has been paid to this issue in the House, including several Westminster Hall debates, and the beginnings of a sitting by the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, during which the share price of Lloyds Banking Group dropped. Perhaps this debate will make Lloyds listen and realise that Members of Parliament are going nowhere, and neither are our constituents Such mistreatment of SMEs by the banking sector is a stain on the industry, and it is immoral, unjustified, and—unfortunately—widespread. I hope that after this debate, the Government will give due consideration to the atrocious behaviour by Lloyds, Alder King, and regulatory bodies such as RICS and the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Such regulatory bodies are there to deal with complaints, but they have utterly failed I am grateful that the Chair of the Treasury Committee spoke in this debate and said that she is in favour of some additional work on this issue. As I have told her, I am now composing a cross-party letter that will go to that Committee and call for a fuller and wider inquiry into the malpractices of the banking sector. This issue goes far beyond just one or two banks, and the system must be better regulated to prevent such behaviour. I hope that the Government will use the examples presented in this debate as evidence to do that, and I fully support the motion and the need for a tribunal service In the 30 seconds remaining to me I will also try to speak on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan). He is unable to attend this debate as he has a diary clash, and he apologises that he cannot be here. His constituents have suffered losses as the results of the practices of Lloyds bank and the receiver Alder King. He points out that the experiences of his constituents are similar to those related by hon. Members in previous debates, and they involve conflicts of interests, actions by banks that damage rather than support local businesses and an unhealthy culture that leads to unethical banking practices that have bankrupted many people who trusted their bank to act in their interest.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) for securing this important debate I was shocked when, soon after being elected, I was approached by constituents who had been affected by major banks employing such unfair and—one can say this—dishonest practices when dealing with their businesses. Although this debate is nominally about the practices of RBS, all the evidence I have seen shows that it is a widespread problem and that financial institutions are preying on businesses that have been given little, if any, protection from regulators or the criminal justice system. The financial institutions perpetrating these practices are in such a position of power that the Government must look at rebalancing the situation For many people, running their own business is not like having a job; it becomes more like part of the family. These are businesses that people have inherited from their families or built up from a small idea, and for many business owners they mean everything. Like others who have spoken in this debate, I too have constituents who have had their businesses destroyed after a lifetime of work. They have lost their homes and had their families torn apart; they have lost their health and their future, and they have been living a hand-to-mouth existence, just so that some banker can receive an obscene bonus My constituent Peter Way—he is here today in the public Gallery—had his prestigious business, which employed more than 500 people, taken away by Bibby Financial Services, which is no stranger to this type of skulduggery. Bibby put my constituent under such undue financial pressure with no warning that it destroyed not only his business, but nearly his life. Such things have taken place right across the asset financial sector, and on an industrial scale, by the majority—if not all—the asset finance companies Another constituent, Bryan Evans, had a business called EP Leisure, and he has also been the victim of unscrupulous practices by financial institutions. Barclays bank employed a firm of valuers called Lambert Smith Hampton. It vastly devalued the land owned by EP Leisure, which put undue pressure on Mr Evans’s business. Following reports back to Barclays, the bank decided that EP Leisure was no longer a profitable investment, and the very same company that devalued the land was called in to become receivers for EP Leisure’s land. That matter is the subject of an ongoing police investigation, and despite continued inquiries from Mr Evans, my predecessor, and even his predecessor, we are no further forward in getting justice for Mr Evans Why are we not getting that justice? We are not getting it because business banking remains an unregulated activity. Financial service providers can wait out many people who will eventually run out of money, time, or indeed sanity. There is no equity in legal representation—big banks have big expensive lawyers on their side, and there is literally nowhere for people to turn when such things happen to them What can the Government do to stop this scandal from hitting our SMEs? We need the rapid establishment of an independent, external service, such as the financial services tribunal system suggested in the motion. Today we have heard one shining example of a committed police force that acted against HBOS and secured convictions for fraud, but we need that to be the norm and not a one-off. SMEs provide the backbone of our economy. My constituents, and everyone who sets up a business and puts hours of dedication and hard work into it, deserves protection from underhand practices. I call on the Government to act to bring such practices to an end.
If we did not think before that there was a systemic crisis in banking, this debate has confirmed that there is The actions of the Global Restructuring Group have impacted on businesses and jobs in my constituency. I do not want to speak today about RBS’s past mistreatment of its customers; instead I will concentrate on the way that the bank continues, today, to behave towards the businesses it has damaged. Some businesses seeking redress from RBS may be able to access the compensation scheme that the bank announced last year, but for those unable to pursue that route, the only course is legal action It is pretty shocking to watch the extraordinarily aggressive approach that the bank is taking to litigation. Costs are escalated to such an extent that all but the richest litigants are unable to pursue their cases. Satellite litigation is launched against claimants’ funders, lawyers, and other third parties. Perhaps most shamefully of all, the bank has repeatedly been criticised for failing to provide full and frank disclosure in the courts during its defence of those claims. In 2016, in a well-publicised and ongoing dispute between Property Alliance Group, which is based in my constituency, and RBS, the bank was expressly criticised by Mrs Justice Asplin in the High Court for taking what she described as a “cavalier” attitude to disclosure. Last week, with the case now heading to the Court of Appeal, the court was again forced to order RBS to hand over more documents—clearly the bank has paid no heed to demands for disclosure. That is not an isolated case. LEXLAW has detailed other cases where RBS failed to provide full disclosure to the court and the claimant. That is clearly not how litigation should be conducted Equally, there are concerns about how the bank is operating the compensation scheme announced last year. At £400 million, the fund sounds generous, but in reality it does not come close to recognising the true extent of the harm caused to businesses or the benefit that RBS has enjoyed from GRG’s activities. The fund addresses only a limited range of GRG’s misconduct and is available only to a fraction of the businesses that suffered. Research carried out by Property Alliance Group suggests that the real size of RBS’s compensation scheme should be at least 10 times its current scale—closer to £4 billion than £400 million—and that is because one of GRG’s most heavily criticised practices was the process by which the bank bullied customers into giving away equity stakes in their business in return for its continued support. These so-called upside instruments have been criticised widely but were profitable, and if we look at the balance sheets and reports and accounts of the RBS subsidiary that managed the assets, SIG Holdings, we can see that the bank profited to the tune of £400 million from these practices. As will be immediately apparent, that £400 million, from just one area of the bank’s misconduct, equates to RBS’s entire compensation scheme, which covers all areas of misconduct What is more, the accounts of SIG Holdings for the year ending 2016 show that the bank set aside just over £40 million in practice for the costs associated with the complaints process and the automatic refund of complex fees to customers. Andrew Bailey, the chief executive of the FCA, told the Treasury Committee last October that RBS had paid or made offers of about £115 million, which is well short of the £400 million fund, and neither is it clear that the money has been either paid or accepted by claimants In conclusion, this debate does not just concern RBS’s past actions; it continues to do all it can to avoid its responsibilities. Far from rebuilding trust, the bank continues to treat its customers with disdain, both in the courts and in the operation of its compensation scheme.
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) on securing this debate on a subject that has cost so many of our constituents so much. Public dissatisfaction with the conduct and running of our banking sector has been one of the dominant themes of the past decade, much of it prompted by the behaviour and management of RBS, which, as the hon. Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr) pointed out, is in the news again this week with regard to bank closures We should remember, however, that there is a wider issue. What we have is the banking system’s systemic failure to protect its own customers. We must not underestimate the impact on those customers, each of whom is an individual—a business person—with a family. Owners of SMEs have found that they are the victims of this systemic failure that has cost them their businesses and, in some cases, their homes. I have a constituent who has been pursuing a case for 10 years. Following a review by the FCA, he been awarded compensation, but he does not believe that that compensation takes into account the consequential losses of his business and property, and the costs of having to arrange another loan. He estimates that he is now more than £1 million worse off than before he went into business with this national bank In the decade in which my constituent has pursued his complaint, I am his third Member of Parliament to whom he has brought his case. We are still having to argue that the system is wrong and needs to be changed. His is typical of businesses caught in a trap without fair protection in law. For businesses that want to challenge a bank in court, the process is slow and expensive, and if they lose, they will have legal costs to pay on top of what the original problem might already have cost them. Where is the incentive for the banks to avoid malpractice and obey the law if they know they cannot be challenged because their victims cannot afford to take them to court That is exactly that situation that many of our constituents have found themselves in. They want their day in court, or at least the opportunity for a legal process to decide what is fair. Yes, we have the financial ombudsman, but that can only arrange fair and reasonable settlements as it sees it. What about those who feel—rightly or wrongly—that they deserve better than that fair and reasonable settlement and that the ombudsman’s view falls short? That is why I believe we need a tribunal system that will allow the many SMEs that have been mis-sold to and mistreated—some would say cheated—by the big banks the chance to feel that the system can protect them. The process would be cheaper and less formal, and complainants would not need a lawyer. We know that such a process works in other places. The system has failed. It allowed malpractice that cost hard-working individuals their businesses and homes. This is an injustice that we have an opportunity—indeed, a duty—to address, and I ask the House to support the motion.
I thank the hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) for securing this debate and all right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken. We have heard significant contributions and good personal stories although, unfortunately, some were very hard to listen to In Northern Ireland, SMEs account for 75% of employment, 75% of turnover and 81% of gross value added. The private sector has clearly taken us away from the past, and it is important that we do so. I have written to the FCA, and Andrew Bailey in particular, outlining the case for UK SMEs. I am reminded that the former Chair of the Treasury Committee referred to HBOS as the second-worst failure in British banking history—it was beaten, of course, by RBS. In our correspondence, Mr Bailey made a couple of relevant points. The only planned action to which his reply referred was that the FCA expected to issue a consultation on the expanded role of the Financial Ombudsman Service in undertaking more disputed cases with banks. As of last Friday, however, nothing had happened, so everyone is dragging their heels, and the FCA board seems to have no suggestions or comments to make. I respectfully ask the Minister and Her Majesty’s Government what action they would consider taking to further support SMEs I am aware from my right hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) that the all-party group on fair business banking proposes an independent tribunal system, which is good news. I am also aware that a freedom of information request has shown that since July 2015, the FOS has considered some 633 mis- selling complaints from micro-enterprises regarding fixed-rate commercial loans and mortgages. Some 21 were upheld with awards of greater than £75,000, and some recommendations were for as much as £150,000, but are the successful complainant businesses actually receiving from the bank the money recommended above the current statutory award? I can say now that some of my constituents have not. It is absolutely disgraceful that while their complaints have been upheld, the moneys are still lingering somewhere other than where they should be—with the complainants In the short time I have, I want to illustrate my point with the case of a large family dairy farm in Northern Ireland. It took out a £1 million loan with Danske Bank on the day of the highest LIBOR rate, on 1 October 2008, and since the day of £1 million loan drawdown on 22 January 2009, the farm has paid almost £500,000 in capital and—wait till you hear this one—£535,000 in interest, including another £62,000 because it moved to another bank. That bank has really screwed them, if I can use that word. I do not know if it is unparliamentary language and I apologise if it is, but that is how I feel. The Democratic Unionist party is watching how the FOS process handles this mis-selling case There are lots of other cases as well. Another bank that has treated small businesses in Strangford with disdain is the Ulster Bank. It has “restructured” its loans—that is its way of describing what appear to be deliberate destabilising assaults on small businesses. How do we quantify compensation for lost opportunities? The fact is we cannot. Small businesses have gone under, drowning as they watch the Government bailing out bankers. I call for the return of the old-fashioned code of truth, honesty, fairness, common decency, integrity and transparency throughout the whole banking industry. I call for the return of the bank manager who actually knows people, rather than glancing at an online profile. It is time that we did our best for our people.
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting the debate, and my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) and the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) for securing it This afternoon, we have heard about horrendous and nightmare cases, and I do not intend to add to those, because every Member of the House will have had through their constituency doors businesses and individuals who have suffered at the hands of the banks. We have also heard this afternoon that this is about not just one bank but many banks—it may, indeed, be every bank. To pick up on a comment made by my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South, this is about conduct. It is about the deliberate choices the banks have made to facilitate profit for some When constituents and businesses come through our doors, they are coming to their MP as a last resort. I ask how many individuals and businesses gave up along the way, when it became just too hard to pursue what really was a battle against a giant. I raise that question because the banks’ conduct is one of the indications our communities and constituents take on board as they judge our banks and our banking system. The conduct we have heard about this afternoon—it has been around too long—is severely damaging the fundamental reputation of our banking system I had the honour of leading a Westminster Hall debate on 11 January during which we looked at banks’ responsibility towards communities. Today’s debate, which has explored the conduct of the banks, has shown how society’s trust in our banks is very much at a crossroads. I will be very interested to hear the Minister’s views about how we can start to rebuild that trust in a fundamental part of business. We need the banks, but we must remember, and the banks must remember, that they need our communities as well We are looking for answers about transparency and about honesty. I want an answer on banks’ willingness to see imaginative answers to the problems they are confronted with, and I echo the call for a tribunal system. I would also raise the question of fair funding. As the economy becomes more complex, and as our communities and SMEs start to lose confidence in banks, or that confidence is at a crossroads, they are starting to look to other areas for funding. That is another major issue coming this way. I call on the Minister to seriously consider facilitating roundtable discussions on the question of banks’ responsibility to communities, our SMEs and those people who have supported the banks for so long.
I also commend the hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) for bringing this important debate here today. He started by talking about people’s incredulity that any bank could act in this way, and we have heard from right hon. and hon. Members from all parts of this House about how these things have impacted on people. As the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) said, families have suffered. That is the background to this; it is not just businesses that have suffered. People have lost businesses, lost incomes and lost homes. We have seen the break-up of marriages and mental health impacts. Grimly, as we heard from the Treasury Committee memo, the view was that customers could just hang themselves, and there is testimony of people attempting suicide. It is shocking stuff Some of those affected feel responsible for losing their family businesses and feel deep shame at that happening. These things have devastated people, many of whom, as we have heard today, had good businesses that were ready to contribute to the economy and to aid productivity. Earlier, the hon. Member for West Bromwich West (Mr Bailey) described GRG as death row, and it was for some When people tried to fight these injustices, they would face enormous financial costs. I understand that it cost £10,000 just to raise an action, which was beyond the capability of many people in those circumstances. Businesses with as few as 10 employees have been affected. This issue has had an enormously wide reach. If people could look to take forward legal action, they would find that the banks had sewn up all the solicitors in the area, making it impossible to get the correct level of representation As we have heard from Members on both sides of the Chamber—and the SNP feels just as strongly about this—we need to see justice for people. Those on the Government Front Bench should have heard loud and clear today the strength of feeling from all parts of this Chamber and beyond. People will be shocked and disappointed that these things have been allowed to happen. It is unacceptable that banks have devastated firms, spreading misery by making people bankrupt and homeless The FCA’s final summary of the Promontory report exposes a set of serious failures by RBS to protect companies it should have been serving. As the evidence mounts, so too does the responsibility to act.
indicated assent.
I am glad to see the Minister nodding and that he seems to be willing to take this forward. I hope that substantial action is taken We in the SNP believe that the current system of dealings with the regulator and the litigation process on mis-selling is inadequate. It must be a priority for the Government to ensure that every victim of mis-selling is given fair and equal access, so that they can see justice done. As the hon. Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr) mentioned, an independent body is required. We call on the Minister to commit to and create a permanent commercial financial dispute resolution platform to serve the victims of mis-selling. He must pick up where the FCA has failed and produce a comprehensive review of banking culture to avoid a repeat of these things In the aftermath of the financial crisis, when all banks were required to rebuild their capital, it was alleged that the main focus of the Global Restructuring Group was to liquidate, rather than support, businesses through further lending. The main charge against GRG is that it prioritised the realisation of assets over other, more business customer-supportive actions. Recently, we have also heard accusations of the mis-selling of rate swaps, and GRG is not alone in drawing criticism. As my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie) mentioned, SMEs have complained about tailored business loans sold by the Clydesdale Bank The Tomlinson report was damning of GRG. Much of the evidence pointed to businesses that were otherwise perfectly viable in the medium to long term, as we have heard in much of the testimony today, being moved into the RBS turnaround division—the GRG—and being trapped there, with no escape. Businesses were sunk by the bank, with the bank taking out all it could, beyond what was reasonable, and to such an extent that it directly contributed to the businesses’ financial deterioration and, in some cases, collapse. Technical breaches were used as excuses. There was evidence in some instances of covenants being used to put businesses in default and to transfer them out of local management Time does not allow me to go further into some of the details of the inequities that have been visited on people who have suffered at the hands of GRG and as a result of the unfair business banking practices we have heard about today. The Government must ensure that there is a firm mechanism that is fair for people, so that they can get justice in this case. I look forward to hearing what the Minister will tell us at the end of this debate.
I hope the Government will listen to the overwhelming case that has been well made on both sides of the House—including by speaker after speaker on the Government Back Benches—for action on behalf of small businesses in our constituencies We started with a powerful speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis), and I commend him and the all-party parliamentary group on fair business banking and finance for bringing this issue forward. I also thank all Members who have taken part in the debate and particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff Central (Jo Stevens), my right hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Mr Campbell) and my hon. Friends the Members for West Bromwich West (Mr Bailey), for Bridgend (Mrs Moon), for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith), for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane), for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Ged Killen), for City of Chester (Christian Matheson), for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), for Ogmore (Chris Elmore), for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) and for East Lothian (Martin Whitfield) When Carillion went bust at the start of the week, it struck me that there were similarities with the way that RBS treated its small business customers. In both cases, smaller businesses—Carillion’s suppliers and RBS customers—have been imperilled by the actions of much larger players. I know of at least one business that, having been put into GRG, is still in the successor division, years later, and as of this week is owed tens of thousands by Carillion that it is never going to receive. It is not good enough. The mistreatment of smaller firms must stop The news that banks are to provide additional support for Carillion’s suppliers is of course welcome, but this must not be just a short-term, headline-grabbing announcement. It must mean longer-term support, of the sort that was sorely lacking in RBS GRG and of the kind that was put in place by the Labour Government to support suppliers with the creation of the taskforce following the collapse of Rover in 2005. That is a good example for Ministers to follow What happened at RBS GRG was nothing short of a scandal and a disaster for the victims. Businesses were ruined, families were torn apart and people took their own lives. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff Central reminded us of the criminal convictions at Lloyds HBOS. There are many—some mentioned it today—who believe criminal investigations to be the appropriate way forward at RBS GRG. Justice is a vital step in the long process of rebuilding trust in business lending, which in 2016 was still so low that only 9% of smaller firms approached their bank to borrow money—and they did not all borrow. It is crucial to the success of our economy that there is a healthy relationship between the banks and smaller firms. We need our smaller firms to play their full part in contributing to the prosperity of this country. Relationships of trust are crucial The next Labour Government will introduce a network of regional development banks to support smaller firms, but those firms also need the help of the traditional banking sector and they need it now. Let us remember that, according to the Promontory report, 83% of businesses that were put into GRG were the subject of inappropriate treatment. Two thirds of businesses were viable, yet depending on which figures we look at, only 5% or 10% survived the process. The figure for inappropriate treatment of those who were potentially viable is higher, at 92% According to the then head of global markets, RBS decided to exit non-core markets. In practice, that meant getting businesses off its books as fast as possible, not by telling its business customers so that they could move to a new bank, but by putting them into intensive care—or rather, a slaughterhouse or mortuary, or on death row, to borrow the phrases used by my hon. Friends—charging exorbitant fees, using their own valuations and using interest rate-hedging products. Then there was the freezing of personal bank accounts, something that happened to my constituent John Pile. Mr Pile had never previously missed a mortgage payment on his commercial properties, yet the result for him and his family was the bank claiming that he had defaulted, despite having substantial sums of money in his personal account, which was frozen. He could have used that money, but was prevented from doing so by the same bank Customers who were making decent profits, whose rental incomes were well in excess of their interest payments, were put into GRG on the spurious grounds that their loan-to-values had suddenly dropped, on the basis of revaluations carried out by the bank’s own valuers. Then there was the overnight demand of repayment of overdrafts that were a key part of the day-to-day operations of many businesses. This was not proper turnaround practice—it was not turnaround practice at all for the customers. It was more like the turnaround of the bank at the expense of its customers. Perhaps the name, Global Restructuring Group, was a clue. It was a division responsible for the restructuring of the bank, not the small businesses that banked there Which brings me to the call for a full independent inquiry. Promontory carried out part one of its investigation for the Financial Conduct Authority. RBS does not want the report published, although much of it is now in the public domain, but nor does RBS want Promontory to carry out part two. Instead of sticking to its guns, the FCA has complied with the demands of the bank that it is supposed to regulate and gone for the in-house option. The suspicion will remain that such an approach means a lack of independence on RBS by its regulator. We know that the FCA is afraid of legal action if it publishes part one of the Promontory report because it told the Treasury Committee that, but it will simply not help to rebuild trust if the regulator is in fear of a bank and feels restricted in its ability to provide full oversight There are still many questions to be answered. Why were viable business customers put into GRG? At Ulster Bank, a substantial part of its business was deemed non-core and its customers were nearly all put into GRG. Meanwhile, there are disturbing parallels at other banks, affecting Dunbar Bank business customers and Acorn Finance, and we also heard about Bibby. They all tell a similar story to the RBS GRG story. Why did RBS not tell its customers when they were no longer core business and give them the chance to move to other banks? Who in management knew? Where was the oversight in the Treasury? Promontory says that management knew, so when will those responsible be held accountable? Why did GRG not follow turnaround procedures? This all needs to be in the public domain and properly acknowledged Until those questions are answered and those responsible held accountable, the victims will be denied justice, we will remain at 9% of smaller businesses asking their banks about borrowing money, and investment, productivity and prosperity will all be undermined. As my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South says in the motion, the call, which has been well evidenced today, is for a robust system of dispute resolution. It is needed to overcome the imbalance of power in the relationship between smaller firms and their banks. That is also why the call for an inquiry into the treatment of SMEs by financial institutions and the protections afforded to them is the right call. And yes, it should look at all banks, not just RBS. No one else can intervene and ensure fair treatment. The regulator has had to restrict its activities under RBS pressure. Unless and until the Government intervene, this injustice and the long-term economic effects will continue to hold back a crucial part of our economy The issue of how RBS GRG treated its smaller business customers will not go away. The victims will not go away. Those of us across the House who want to see justice will not go away. The Government must now ensure that justice is done and seen to be done.
It is a privilege to stand at the Dispatch Box in my new role as Economic Secretary to the Treasury. I think we all feel the privilege of being Members of this House, but listening to today’s debate I also feel a great responsibility—to respond fully to the many serious examples that have been given of how the banking sector, and this group in particular, has failed so many of our constituents. I want to make it clear that in doing this job and in addressing the issues that have been raised today, I will stop at nothing in making improvements I begin by thanking the hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) and the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) for initiating the debate, and the Backbench Business Committee for granting it. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) for his work in the all-party parliamentary group on fair business banking What we all care about—it has been made very clear in today’s debate—is that businesses form the lifeblood of our economy and they need a reliable mechanism to deal with disputes with banks. I am vividly aware of that, because I grew up not in a bank but in a small business. I know the risks, the anxieties, the sleepless nights, the pressures on family life and the lack of assurance over salary, so I understand that the experiences of small businesses and their relationships with banks really matter. The Government have always maintained a commitment to support and engage with businesses both small and large, and that commitment will continue unfettered The Government recognise that access to finance, which is the crux of the debate, is necessary for businesses to grow organically. We have a strong record of supporting businesses large and small, for instance, through measures in the Budget. The competitive tax regime—corporation tax was cut from 28% to 19%, the lowest rate in the G20—is a significant part of that, but what is really important is that businesses have access to money at a reasonable cost, with reasonable assurances on the terms of securing those funds A fantastic range of evidence has been presented to us today. We heard about Mr Smith’s engineering business in Bridgend and Mr Topping’s business in Hazel Grove. We heard vivid personal testimony from my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr Jack). My hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton gave the striking example of a monthly interest rate payment that rose, almost inexplicably, from £6,000 to £17,000 a month, leading to catastrophic losses. The hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Ged Killen) gave examples that went back eight years. There were further examples from the hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) and my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr), the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady), who spoke about Mr Mitchell, the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), and the hon. Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore), who mentioned Mr Richards. In those cases, tortuous processes were necessary to secure redress or a meaningful dialogue leading to an outcome. My hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Mims Davies) has told me about the Sayers family, who have also suffered. We heard further powerful testimony from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who used uncharacteristically strong language—legitimately so. I too have been contacted by constituents and I have been saddened to hear the stories of many former RBS customers. The Financial Conduct Authority is reviewing the situation; it has said that it is considering the matters arising from the report it commissioned and considering whether there is any basis for further action within its powers. It would not be appropriate for me to comment further at this precise time, but I will say that although, on day seven of my job, I have not yet met the head of the FCA, this will be the first topic that I will be raising with him.
Will the Minister give way?
I do not want to give way too many times, but I will give way to my hon. Friend.
First, I congratulate the Prime Minister on having the extremely good sense to appoint such a wonderful new Minister—a great friend, and someone who is really going to sort this problem out. May I ask on behalf of everyone present for the Government to be onside to ensure that the people who have lost so much are recompensed properly? We are not talking just about the future; we are taking about dealing with the past.
I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words. Of course we need to reach a stage where we have some answers. We need to know what went wrong, and we need to secure an outcome that is acceptable to our constituents It is important to recognise the fundamental need for financial providers to act in accordance with the rules of the FCA and the spirit of its principles. When they do not act in accordance with those principles, we need to have confidence in the mechanisms that exist to resolve disputes.
The Minister has not yet mentioned the role of whistleblowers. Does he agree that they are vital to maintaining the integrity of the financial system, that they need proper protection—an office of the whistleblower—and that they should be rewarded for being brave enough to reveal wrongdoing?
I listened very carefully to the right hon. Gentleman’s remarks and he is absolutely right. We need a change to the culture to enable wrongdoing to be exposed and dealt with, and I will look very carefully at this matter and the principles in his suggestions I am very aware of the allegations and the powerful testimony made against RB. I have taken on board the discussions we have had today, and later I will refer to some of the other substantive points raised across the House, but I want to be clear with Members: I saw the front page of City A.M. today, whose headline is “Go Hang”, and I do not condone the language in the GRG letter that RBS itself chose to release yesterday. I assure the House that the Government take these issues and any allegations of malpractice very seriously.
Just for the record, will the Minister be very clear that RBS did not choose to release the letter; it was asked to do so, and like most other information, it has had to be dragged out of it by successive letters and attempts by Members of this House?
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for her intervention and acknowledge the work she is doing on the Select Committee, and it would be much more helpful to this process if RBS were more co-operative with the Committee and the legitimate process of scrutiny that she and her Committee members are seeking to undertake Not only do the Government take these matters seriously, but the FCA is well aware of them and continues to address this issue. As I said, it will be the first thing I raise when I meet Andrew Bailey very shortly. In October, the FCA released a detailed summary of its skilled persons report, which examined RBS’s treatment of SMEs in financial difficulty. The FCA is now investigating the matters arising from the report I am aware of the frustration over the time the process is taking. The outcome of this investigation and the action the FCA proposes to take is critical to small businesses across this country, but I remind Members that the FCA is an independent body. That is vital to its role, credibility, authority and value to consumers, and they would be undermined if it were possible for the Government to intervene in day-to-day decision making. We can set the law, but we then must be bound by it and respect the judgment and independence of the FCA It would not be productive for me to address from the Dispatch Box every specific case and allegation, and I want now to turn to the wider issue of SMEs and how disputes are resolved between them and their banks.
The Minister is making a thoughtful speech. Can he assure the House that the FCA will not be a toothless bulldog and that it will actually have some bite?
I think the FCA understands, in the light of today’s debate, where the pressure is leading to and what action we will need to take if its response is not effective The key issue for the debate today, which I discussed with all-party group members yesterday afternoon, is that we must remember that there are already multiple avenues for resolution. I understand the frustrations Members have expressed about their effectiveness, but our smallest businesses have redress via the Financial Ombudsman Service for quick and informal resolution of disputes, the FCA has the power to take action to address issues that require resolution, and there is also the usual legal recourse available for businesses.
Will the Minister give way?
No, I am going to make some more progress, but I might give way later The motion calls for an independent inquiry into the treatment of SMEs by financial institutions, reflecting the frustration addressed by Members across the House today in respect of the experience of their constituents. A number of contributions have also focused on the proposed new tribunal system to deal with financial disputes between banks and SMEs As the industry, the FCA and the Treasury progress discussions on this issue, all avenues will be considered. The FCA is undertaking a review, and it launched a discussion paper on SMEs in November 2015. I feel that that is a very long time ago, so I am reassured to be able to report to the House that it will be making a statement on Monday 22 January on its 2015 SME paper and on its consultation on widening SME eligibility for the Financial Ombudsman Service. I shall look carefully at what it comes up with. The FCA has promised to consult on widening the remit of the FOS for small businesses—the detail of that will be known—and to take a view on SMEs’ access to redress more broadly. I hope and believe that we will see significant steps forward I have thanked the hon. Member for Norwich South and the right hon. Member for North Norfolk for raising this issue. I also want to mention the hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson), who mentioned Lloyds’ support for SMEs in the Carillion supply chain. I am pleased to report that it has been announced since we have been in the Chamber that Lloyds is taking the required steps to help those facing short-term problems as a result of the Carillion group going into liquidation by providing £50 million to support the SMEs affected. It is essential that the small businesses exposed to the Carillion insolvency should be given the support they need by their lenders. I was with the Business Secretary yesterday when we met representatives of the banks to explain that to them. It is in the UK’s interest that our businesses continue to prosper and thrive. That will mean allowing them ready access to finance at a serviceable cost. This is about getting the balance right, and that is what the Government are helping them to do I thank all hon. Members who have contributed to the debate, and I will try succinctly to summarise the Government’s position. We certainly note the many intensely painful experiences and issues raised in the motion and by hon. Members in the debate. On GRG, it is right that we should wait for the conclusion of the FCA’s investigation of the matters arising from its skilled persons report before determining what further action needs to be taken. On the broader issue of dispute resolution, I remind the House of the existing avenues that are open to businesses, but the FCA is undertaking work to look at the relationship between SMEs and financial services providers. It is also right that we await the next steps in that area. However, I assure the House that this Government will continue to support businesses large and small when addressing these challenges Let my final words be these: small businesses and their continued success are critical to the continued growth and improvements in productivity of our economy, and SMEs’ improved confidence in the mechanisms to achieve redress from banks is crucial. In my role in this Government, I will be doing everything I can to ensure that the injustices that have been discussed today are addressed.
I thank the Minister for his response, and I thank all the hon. Friends and hon. Members across the House who have taken part in this passionate debate today, whether they are self-confessed capitalists, such as the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg), seeking to challenge crony capitalism or those such as my right hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Mr Campbell) who are perhaps seeking more traditional socialist transitional demands. There has been almost unanimous support across the House for the motion. We want justice for our constituents and a banking system fit for the 21st century. In effect, we seek nothing less than the renewal of the broken social contract between banks and the public. Unfortunately, the language used in today’s debate has painted a picture of a social contract that lies in tatters. We have heard references to a web of deceit, a dash for cash, systemic abuse, parasitic relationships and asset stripping. Three words that we have heard repeatedly today are “enough is enough” I want to make a couple of comments about the Minister’s input. He said in his opening remarks that he and his Government would stop at nothing and spoke of the need for a fundamental culture change, but he then offered little except more warm words. I understand that he has been in his job for just seven days, but this situation has been going on for some time now and the issues are out there, a point which has been made clearly by Members across the House. The Government still seem to favour a solution involving the Financial Ombudsman Service, but even with some extension of its role, it is suitable only for low-level disputes. It has no powers of disclosure. It cannot enforce decisions. It has no teeth. It cannot adjudicate. It cannot deal with complex cases.
I fully recognise the frustration that the hon. Gentleman is expressing, but I also said that the Government rule nothing out. We will see what the proposals are and respond accordingly. I think that that is a reasonable position given the relationship between the Government and the FCA.
I acknowledge the Minister’s remarks, but time is not on the side of many people, so many of whom have been affected for so many years. I understand the Government’s reluctance to say anything today, but they must come to a conclusion quickly. From listening to Members from across the House, we understand that if we rebuild justice and confidence in our banking system, that would be good for business and good for banks and would maximise our country’s economic potential. I will conclude with the words of the late, great Errol Brown of Hot Chocolate fame—one of my favourites—because if we get this right, “Everyone’s a winner, baby” Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House is deeply concerned by the treatment of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by the Global Restructuring Group of the Royal Bank of Scotland; notes that there are wider allegations of malpractice in financial services and related industries; believes that this indicates a systemic failure to effectively protect businesses, which has resulted in financial scandals costing tens of billions of pounds; further believes that a solution requires the collective and collaborative effort of regulators, Parliament and Government; and calls for an independent inquiry into the treatment of SMEs by financial institutions and the protections afforded to them, and the rapid establishment of a tribunal system to deal effectively with financial disputes involving SMEs.
Before I call the mover of the motion, I will say the same as I said at the start of the last debate. There is limited time available, and the allocated time for the mover of the motion is approximately 15 minutes. There will then be an immediate limit on Back-Bench speeches of five minutes.
I beg to move, That this House has considered Holocaust Memorial Day 2018 It is an honour and a pleasure to move the motion, and I thank the hon. Members for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes), for Hove (Peter Kyle) and for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd) for accompanying me to the Backbench Business Committee to secure this debate. I also thank all the other Members who are in attendance. It is a particular honour to start this year’s debate having responded to last year’s debate as the Minister, and I welcome the new Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Rishi Sunak), to his position. It was my first time responding to a debate on the Floor of the House of Commons, and I believe that it is his first time doing so this afternoon. I had been in post for a few months, however, and perhaps had an easier time than he will, so we all wish him the best of luck and congratulate him on his appointment. I also congratulate him and his Department on the recent announcement of £144,000 of funding to tackle anti-Semitism on our university campuses, which is unfortunately absolutely necessary When I spoke last year, I talked about my beliefs and religious place at that time. This year, I move the motion as a full member of the Jewish community, but when I responded to the debate last year, I was not quite there yet, although I was on the way. It is therefore a double pleasure to move the motion today Holocaust Memorial Day is well known to all of us in the Chamber, and hopefully to the broader country. It is held annually on 27 January and was established by the Holocaust Educational Trust. All Members are indebted to Karen Pollock, who is in the Gallery today, and to all her team for the fantastic work they do Holocaust Memorial Day commemorates the date on which allied forces liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau and was established by the Bill introduced by former Member Andrew Dismore, following his visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1999. The first Holocaust Memorial Day was commemorated on 27 January 2001 Last year’s theme was how life goes on, and this year’s theme is the power of words, which is a reminder that the holocaust started not with gas chambers, round ups and cattle trucks but with hate-filled words. That is perhaps of great resonance today, as we consider the continuing blight of anti-Semitism, prejudice and intolerance in our society and, sadly, in our politics. I am proud that as a Government, with strong cross-party support, we adopted the international definition of anti-Semitism, which UK police forces are sadly having to use more than they should. Holocaust education became a part of the English national curriculum for key stage 3 in 1991 and has remained ever since—I think there is ongoing support for holocaust education to remain in the curriculum. The holocaust is the only historical event that has remained a compulsory part of the national curriculum The holocaust is a part of history that is taught across the curriculum—it is taught in English, religious studies and citizenship—and I pay tribute to the excellent work of the Holocaust Educational Trust in delivering that curriculum across the UK. Although there are no formal requirements for holocaust education in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, it is of course regularly taught When I was a history teacher, I used to be responsible for teaching the holocaust as part of the curriculum in my school and, as I commented last year from the Dispatch Box, it was always very difficult to deliver, not least because of the content. The enormity of this event is very difficult to convey to young people. It is difficult to explain to young people that within living memory and within the lifetime of people here today—some of whom experienced it, and some of whom may even have participated in it—whole communities were wiped out across Europe. Communities that had been there for centuries and that were integral parts of the history of those European states, and of Europe itself, no longer exist One way in which the scale can be seen—I recommend a visit—is at the Czech Memorial Scrolls Museum at the Westminster synagogue, where there are 1,564 Torah scrolls that come from communities that no long exist, wiped off the face of Europe by the holocaust. Whatever we try to deliver in schools, powerful though it may be, nothing compares to visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau or one of the other camps, where the industrial scale of this inhumanity can be fully understood. Many Members here, along with many students across the country, have benefited from the programme run through the Holocaust Educational Trust. I encourage Members who have not already done so to take part in the programme if they have the opportunity Nothing can compare to the testimony of survivors, and those of us who attended the reception in Speaker’s House a few days ago heard some of those testimonies and saw the sadly dwindling numbers of survivors. As every year passes, fewer and fewer survivors remain. Last year, I told the story of Zigi Shipper, and I ended on his comments. After going back to Auschwitz after a very long time, having been convinced by his family, he stood beneath the world-renowned “Arbeit macht frei” sign, and he said that he felt nothing. It meant nothing to him because he had survived. He had built his life and had been victorious over those who had tried to destroy him. That was very powerful testimony This year, I want to tell the story of another survivor, Miriam Friedman, whom I had the privilege of meeting here at a Board of Deputies Mitzvah Day. It is important to tell these stories, because they can do more justice to this appalling period of history than anything I can think of to say. Miriam was born in Bratislava in 1934 and she told me she remembered a happy family life in an Orthodox religious family. They had a textile business. Her mother was a housewife and also highly educated. Miriam was one of six children. She attended a Jewish kindergarten in a community where Jews were very much a part of the fabric of that society. She lived an active Jewish life. Of course all that changed with the German invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1939, where Slovak fascists copied the anti-Semitic policies of Nazis When that war broke out, Miriam and her family were forced to move. They lived in several different apartments and eventually moved town. When the decree came for all Jews to meet at the railway station, a family friend who was part of the Slovak police saved her. This is the story; it was all by chance and circumstance that they were lucky enough to know this particular person. A Jewish doctor proclaimed that the family had typhus and could not go on the train because they were infectious. So they were lucky on that occasion, but a short time later they were not so lucky. A loudspeaker announced that all Jews had to adhere to a curfew and be off the streets by 6 pm. Her father, sadly, was unable to comply with that and they never saw him again The remainder of Miriam’s family were eventually saved by two other families who agreed to hide them in a basement in a large block of flats. They were there until the end of the war. She told me the story of a day when the guards had heard a rumour that there were Jews living in that building and had come to search the apartment block. She told me that their lives had depended on the kindness of another neighbour in the block, who knew these particular Germans were coming and managed to get them so drunk that they were convinced they did not need to search this particular area of the building. She said that hiding and hearing that noise, her and her family contemplated suicide at that time. I hate to use the word “lucky”, because this was not a lucky existence, but in some respects she was lucky to have survived, because of circumstance. Sadly, Miriam later found out that the Nazis had murdered her father, brother and sister. She moved to the UK and now lives in London, and has shared her story and her testimony through the Holocaust Educational Trust and others Miriam’s story really fits in with this year’s theme of the power of words. Words really do matter, as we know in this place—I am talking not just about the words of those who spout hate, but the words of those whose job it is to call that hate out. I think we would all agree that silence is no excuse, nor are weasel words or bland statements, when words of intolerance and racism, particularly in the form of anti-Semitism, are ever spoken. Miriam’s story shows plainly what happens when a people are demonised and scapegoated and when conspiracy theories are left to run It is very sad that in Britain in 2017-18 anti-Semitism and racism at all should be a problem, but new figures revealed by the Community Security Trust last July showed that anti-Semitic incidents against the Jewish community in the UK have reached unprecedented levels—the highest levels of hate crime against Jews since records began 33 years ago. Let us just think about that for a moment; we are talking about the highest recorded number of incidents against Jewish people since records began more than three decades ago. That is why I welcome the announcement of £144,000 to help fight anti-Semitism on our campuses, and it is why this day is so important and why this debate in Parliament every year is so important In September, a study by the CST and the Institute for Jewish Policy Research found that stronger anti-Israel attitudes are linked to stronger anti-Semitic attitudes among Britons. In last year’s debate, I said from the Dispatch Box that I was becoming increasingly concerned about what I call the Israelification of anti-Semitism. That is not to say that people should not be allowed legitimately to call out the Government of Israel, or any other Government, but criticism of the Israeli Government is being used by some for more sinister purposes. That Israelification needs to be called out I have seen Israelification for myself. As I mentioned after the general election in the Westminster Hall debate on abuse and intimidation of candidates, during the campaign, in June last year, I was approached and screamed at for being “Israeli scum” and “Zionist scum”. I reported the individuals to the police, but they were unable to find them. Those same individuals found me again in a shopping centre in Doncaster on the Thursday before Christmas and again subjected me to a torrent of abuse. They ended up questioning why a Jew would want to be ordering food in KFC, and followed me to the exit asking me why I do not tell people that I am Jewish before elections. It started with anti-Israeli sentiment and descended very quickly into some significant anti-Semitic incidents. I must say that South Yorkshire police and Humberside police have been absolutely fantastic. We need to call out that kind of behaviour wherever it happens, which was why I did so from the Dispatch Box last year We have to be honest that we have a new threat: the new smear that anti-Semitism is being used as a cover for other things or as part of a witch hunt. I do not wish to step into party politics too much, but it is important that in debates like this we call out campaigns such as Labour Against the Witchhunt, which has called for “the immediate lifting of all suspensions and expulsions from Labour Party membership which were…connected to the ‘anti-Semitism’ smear campaign.” This is a minority—the vast majority of Labour party members and people in politics throughout the country have no truck with any of this—but let us remember what some of those suspensions have been for. They have been for people who have claimed that Judaism is not a religion but a crime syndicate; people who have called holocaust education in schools a holocaust indoctrination programme; people who have questioned what good Jews have done; and people who have claimed that the Jews financed the slave trade and who attacked Holocaust Memorial Day—the very day we are debating and respecting today. We have to guard against those who seek to spread this new smear against anti-Semitism, in the strongest way we can The theme of this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day is the power of words, and words really do matter, which is why, regardless of which side of politics we are on, we must all ensure that we and our leaders call out this sort of hatred whenever and wherever it exists. It is a problem not only on the left of politics but on the right. We saw it in Charlottesville, where people on the right marched in Nazi-esque torch-lit parades. It was alleged that some of them were chanting “Jews will not replace us.” So this is a problem on the left and the right and leaders most call it out wherever it happens I am conscious, Madam Deputy Speaker, of your clear instruction at the start of the debate that the mover of the motion should not take more than 15 minutes, so I shall bring my remarks to a close. We have a problem with anti-Semitism in this country at the moment, and we know it, which is why Holocaust Memorial Day is so important. Nevertheless, we should never forget that in many ways we are lucky that the lives of most Jewish people in this country are safe, and they can take part in their daily activities as full members of the community. When I was vice-chair of the all-party group against anti-Semitism, we saw a very different experience just across the channel when we attended a school in Brussels that was guarded by a Belgian military tank and armed guards. I asked the young people there whether they would ever go out wearing their kippah, and they said no There was recently a very sad story from France that did not get a great deal of coverage here, but I think it demonstrates why, more than ever, Holocaust Memorial Day is important. It is the story of a French Jewish teenage girl who was violently assaulted in a heinous anti-Semitic attack. She was wearing a Jewish school uniform when she was set upon in a Paris suburb and slashed across the face. She was left bleeding, shocked and very, very injured. This is one of a number of incidents that have happened. I ask Members to think: this was a 15-year-old girl who was slashed across the face for no other reason than that she happened to be Jewish.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, for raising such an important issue and for speaking so powerfully about this issue. Does the case that he has just highlighted not make the role of the Community Security Trust even more important this year and in the years to come, and should we not be throwing our weight behind it and urging everyone else to do so too?
The hon. Lady knows an awful lot about anti-Semitism, and I could not agree more with what she said about the role of the CST I will end there on that example. We have heard Miriam’s story and the story of a 15-year-old girl, living now, here in modern Europe, who was slashed across the face for no other reason than that she was Jewish. That surely, surely proves to everybody why the Holocaust is such an important element of our curriculum and why this day, and remembering it and having this debate every year, is so important to ensure that this sort of intolerance is consigned to where it should be: the dustbin of history.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) on securing this important debate and on his powerful and inspiring speech. I, too, was privileged to attend Tuesday’s reception in the Speaker’s apartments to mark Holocaust Memorial Day, which was organised by the Holocaust Educational Trust To be in the presence of Holocaust survivors, and to speak to such remarkable people and hear their testimonies, is deeply moving. It must intensify our determination to challenge anti-Semitism, which was described by the late Robert Wistrich as “the longest hatred”. Now, more than 70 years later, the scourge of anti-Semitism still stains our society. Anti-Semitism is not confined to one strand of politics—it is on the right and on the left. It is shocking that anti-Semitism stains the Labour party, too. Much speedier and stronger action must be taken by the party itself to challenge this unacceptable phenomenon. The claims of some members that allegations of anti-Semitism within the Labour party should be dismissed as “slurs against the leadership” are appalling and should be met with the contempt that they deserve We owe a debt of gratitude to the Community Security Trust, which so accurately monitors anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic discourse. Its latest report shows a shocking 30% recorded rise in anti-Semitic incidents in the UK for the first six months of 2017, with 767 such incidents reported The rise of anti-Semitic hate crime on our streets, meeting little or no challenge from the authorities, is a matter of growing concern. For example, it was reported that, on 11 December 2017, Tahra Ahmed, a volunteer running an aid network helping the survivors of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, claimed that the 71 people who perished were “burned in a Jewish sacrifice.” Mark Gardiner of CST rightly condemned this as “a new depth of grotesque anti-Semitic racism.” On 8 December 2017, at the American embassy protests against President Trump’s announcement recognising Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, demonstrators chanted: “Khaybar Khaybar, iya Yahud, Jaish Mohammed, sa Yahud” Translated, that means, “Remember Khaybar, the army of Mohammed is returning.” This refers to the battle of Khaybar in 628, where Jews were massacred and expelled from the town in what is now Saudi Arabia. Swastikas were also displayed at that demonstration. The event was organised by groups including the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Stop the War Coalition and the friends of al-Quds. No action has been taken against this anti-Semitic hate speech on our streets. Why Holocaust Memorial Day is a time for reflection. In the UK, it began in this place when Andrew Dismore, the then Member of Parliament for Hendon, received cross-party backing for his private Member’s Bill. That resulted in the first UK Holocaust Memorial Day in January 2001.
I thank the hon. Lady for allowing me to intervene. May I just say that, for me, Holocaust Memorial Day also includes other genocides such as the one I witnessed in Bosnia, where I buried 104 women and children in a mass grave, the Rohingya, and also Cambodia. I think all of us in this Chamber would recognise that the scourge of holocaust still remains with us.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. I draw his attention to the official statement about what Holocaust Memorial Day constitutes. It states very clearly that in addition to recognising the holocaust, it recognises other atrocities that have taken place since that time, including in Darfur and Cambodia. That has always been written into the official remit of Holocaust Memorial Day.
Further to that intervention, may I also say to the hon. Lady that at this time we ought to be celebrating and commemorating the Christians who gave up their lives to save Jewish families during the second world war? The brother of my grandfather, Jan Kawczynski, hid Jewish families on his estate. When the Germans found out, they shot his daughter and his wife, and then him. I think that this is a very important time to remember those Christians who sacrificed their lives to protect Jewish neighbours.
The hon. Gentleman makes an extremely important point. Indeed, the people he named and others who contributed similar actions are recognised under a special category of the “righteous gentiles”. They are recognised in the Yad Vashem memorial in Jerusalem and also recognised in special British honours. They therefore have a very special place in our history and our minds Today we must reflect on the horrors of the past and the disturbing trends of the present. Together, as we commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day 2018, we must ensure that action is taken to tackle the longest hatred.
It is an honour to take part in the debate on such a serious subject. Later this month, I shall be attending the annual commemoration for Holocaust Memorial Day hosted by Barnet Council in the quadrangle of Middlesex University, as I have been doing for many years now. This is a really important occasion for us in Barnet because we take huge pride in being a diverse, inclusive borough, made up of people from many different faiths, cultures and ethnicities. We are also immensely proud to be the home of one of the largest Jewish populations between New York and Tel Aviv The Jewish community plays a hugely valuable role in the borough of Barnet—in business, in public services, in schools, in civic life and in so many other ways. We are incredibly lucky in north London to be a place where many Jewish people have chosen to make their home. They are a community who have profoundly enriched our culture and quality of life, and I was very much aware of that in my years growing up in St John’s Wood. So for me, one of the reasons why I find the stories of those who perished during the holocaust to be so distressing is that it feels very close to home—so disturbing; so personal—to know that this horror was inflicted on the parents, grandparents and wider family of people who are such a core part of my network of friends, family and colleagues, without whom I would find life to be pretty bleak. Of course, I also have the privilege of representing a number of constituents who are holocaust survivors. I pay particular tribute to Mala Tribich for all that she does with the Holocaust Educational Trust to educate the new generation about what happened In my view, the holocaust was the single greatest act of evil in human history. I know that historians debate that. The numbers dying at the hands of Stalin were as great, and atrocities such as the holodomor in Ukraine were certainly acts of the most unspeakable cruelty, but the attempt by the Nazi regime to wipe out an entire ethnic group and harness 20th-century technology to deliver murder on an industrial scale seems to me to be without parallel in terms of the sheer stomach-turning depravity and evil of what occurred. Last February, I had the privilege of visiting Yad Vashem museum in Jerusalem on a trip hosted by Conservative Friends of Israel. It was my second chance to see that exhibition. I would encourage every hon. Member in the Chamber to visit if they have the opportunity. Towards the very end of a truly emotionally draining experience, as the account of those terrible events unfolds before you, you reach the exhibit on the righteous among nations—the people who risked their lives to save Jewish people from the terrible fate that so many of them suffered at the hands of the Nazis. They include people such as Oscar and Emilie Schindler, whose story was captured so powerfully in Stephen Spielberg’s film; Nicholas Winton, who helped nearly 700 children to escape from persecution in what was then Czechoslovakia and never sought any recognition for his efforts; the people in Denmark who smuggled their Jewish population to safety in Sweden; and the population of Albania who defied the orders of the Nazis and refused to hand over lists of Jewish Albanians and gave sanctuary to Jews fleeing Germany. The remarkable assistance given by Albania was grounded in a concept called besa—a code of honour which literally means “to keep the promise”. One who acts according to besa is someone who keeps their word—someone to whom one can trust one’s life and the lives of one’s family While we are considering the most extreme example of the evil of which humanity is capable, this dark period of history has another side to it. In relation to certain individuals, it demonstrates great acts of courage and compassion. One of the many reasons why we should never, ever forget the events we are reflecting on today is to ensure that if the threat of this kind of atrocity were ever to return to this continent, we would not be found wanting—we would be among those brave enough to speak out and do everything we could to prevent it happening again. Today, once again, we all commit to oppose anti-Semitism and racism in all its forms and wherever it occurs.
It is an honour to follow the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers). We have visited the synagogue in Southgate together. I know how strongly she feels about these matters, as I think everybody does now Holocaust Memorial Day marks the darkest hour in human history. We remember and mourn the 6 million Jews murdered, as well as the Roma, disabled and LGBT victims of Nazi atrocities. We have a moral responsibility to listen to the stories of holocaust survivors. They speak not only for themselves but for those who did not survive to tell their story Earlier this year, I heard one such testimony from Edgar Guest, who spoke to pupils at Oasis Academy, a school in my constituency. Edgar was born in Budapest. In 1941, when Hungary joined the war, he lost his citizenship and was classified as an “alien Jew”. After Germany invaded, many of Edgar’s relatives were deported to Auschwitz and he was sent to the Budapest ghetto. He was marched halfway towards the railway station before being told to turn around and return to the ghetto. There he was forced to sleep in a room of 30, in a ghetto of 70,000 Jews, where he survived by earning an extra cup of soup a day by clearing away the dead bodies in the streets. His story is one small remembrance of the barbarity of the Nazi regime Edgar lives in Britain today, and he is still sharing his story at the age of 87. I would like to pay tribute to his courage and strength. The impact he has on school students is something to behold. We must give serious thought to how we carry forward such a message when we no longer have survivors with us to provide such powerful testimony The holocaust reminds us of where racism and anti-Semitism can lead. We must remember that the holocaust was the end of a process of state-sponsored racism that began on the streets of Munich and Berlin. The twisted road to Auschwitz began with a political party whose racist rhetoric won an election in a democratic society. There must be no complacency in the fight against anti-Semitism. We must tackle racism at its roots, weeding it out wherever we find it I applaud the Government for their adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism. It gives us clarity in this fight, and it is unequivocal in stating that holocaust denial, comparisons of Israel to Nazi Germany and allegations of Jewish conspiracies are modern forms of this ancient hatred. I would also like to voice my support for the proscription of far-right fascist groups Despite the horrors of the holocaust, anti-Semitism has not disappeared. We have even seen its rise in British society recently, including, I am ashamed to say, in my own party. We must condemn unequivocally and combat relentlessly this despicable trend. We must remember that the fight against racism is also one of education. We must fight for our anti-racist values and ensure we instil a respect for tolerance, equality and human rights in future generations. I would like to thank Karen Pollock and the Holocaust Educational Trust for their dedication to this task, and in particular for facilitating talks by survivors, such as that of Edgar Guest in Enfield. We must hear the words of survivors; we must remember the holocaust’s victims; and we must commit ourselves to the fight against racism and anti-Semitism wherever it rears its ugly head.
It is an honour to follow the right hon. Member for Enfield North (Joan Ryan), and I commend her for her bravery in speaking on those particular subjects. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) on introducing the debate, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) on her impassioned speech Madam Deputy Speaker, may we place on the record our thanks to Mr Speaker for allowing the Holocaust Educational Trust to host its reception in Speaker’s House on Tuesday? That enabled us to honour the memory of the victims of the holocaust, but also to celebrate the survivors. Most importantly of all, in my view, it allowed us to congratulate the young ambassadors of the Holocaust Educational Trust, who are now spreading the word among young people about the horrors of the holocaust When I was at school—I was at school with many Jewish children from the area—no one ever spoke about the holocaust: it was forgotten about. When Kitty Hart-Moxon visited this House, following her 90th birthday, I had the honour of having tea with her, and she described her journey of coming to this country and finding that the Jewish population of this country did not wish to talk about the holocaust. However, she was brave enough to speak out about its horrors and to make sure that young people understood what had happened. It is very hard to grasp the concept of human beings attempting to extinguish other human beings on an industrial scale. The fact that 6 million people were murdered systematically is very hard to grasp, but each individual is an individual case.
Just before she died, my mother told me that she went to Belsen as a Special Operations Executive operative in April 1945. I asked why she had never ever told me that before. She said, “Because I was ashamed.” I said, “Why were you ashamed?” She said, “Because this happened when my generation was living, and I felt ashamed that it happened. We were responsible because we did nothing about it in England.”
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. It allows me to join others in congratulating Karen Pollock and her team on their wonderful work. I will never forget my visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau, and the young people who started out brightly at the beginning of the day, but who, as the horrors unfolded, became quieter and quieter. We ended the day on those terrible railway lines, with candles, and that place brings home to everyone what can happen if people stand idly by. We knew, and were instructed, about the systematic approach—this was not a few people who were mad or crazy; it was a systematic approach that involved hundreds, if not thousands, of people who co-operated with the attempt to eliminate the Jewish population We should also remember that there is not just Auschwitz-Birkenau but a whole series of other camps, and we should ensure that everyone is aware of the various different death camps that were set up by the Nazis to achieve their desperate aims.
On that point, the BBC regularly refers to “Polish death camps”, but there was no such thing. These were concentration camps set up by the Germans in occupied Poland, and it is important to remember that.
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, and we must ensure that people are educated on that point I visited the original Yad Vashem museum and saw at first hand the work that was done. I have also visited the new museum that commemorates all the victims of the holocaust and describes it in some detail. The individual accounts of those who survived the holocaust, now recorded on film, are desperately important, and we must ensure that holocaust deniers, and individuals in society who seek to justify it in some way, are called out in the right way and with the appropriate testimony.
rose—
I will not give way to the hon. Lady because I have given way twice already and I do not want to take up too much time. I am glad that we will have our own holocaust museum alongside the Palace of Westminster, and I look forward to that being developed so that we can bring young people here to see the importance of that element of society. There are also actions that we can all take. I was proud to sponsor early-day motion 743 for Holocaust Memorial Day, and I believe that 55 right hon. and hon. Members have signed it so far. The Book of Commitment will be available for Members to sign each day next week between 2pm and 4pm close to the Members’ cloakroom, and I commend that to all Members We also have the challenge of combating anti-Semitism on university campuses. One current challenge is that many Jewish children go to Jewish schools and are not exposed to anti-Semitism until they get to university. In my view, we are not preparing our young people sufficiently for what they may face, and I am delighted that the Government are taking action to combat anti-Semitism on university campuses by sponsoring visits for sabbatical officers to go to Auschwitz-Birkenau and to see at first hand what can happen if matters get out of hand As we have said, the holocaust started with words and other forms of anti-Semitism, and expanded to what we have seen in the death camps. We must commend all those who speak out against anti-Semitism, from whichever political party. I was proud recently to share a platform with hon. Friends on the Opposition Benches at my local synagogue, Stanmore synagogue, for a question and answer session, during which I commended them for their bravery in standing up and calling out anti-Semitism in their own party. I congratulate them on that, but I am sorry they have to do it. If ever we face such challenges in my party, I know that we will take a very robust approach indeed to combating anti-Semitism It is an honour to have participated again in this debate; since my election, I have participated each year in this debate. I trust that we will ensure that nothing like the holocaust ever happens again—certainly not in our lifetimes—on this planet that we all inhabit.
As we know, the Nazis created and peddled myths about Jewish people; they dehumanised them, representing them as an existential threat to ordinary German citizens. Their propaganda was massively and horrifically effective. Hate-filled words enabled their crimes. It is startling how many of the myths they created reflected the Nazis’ own sickening plans and twisted thinking. In March 1942, well after the campaigns of mass murder had begun, Hitler said that the so-called Jewish wire-pullers aimed to “unite democracy and Bolshevism into…a conspiracy…to annihilate all of Europe” They peddled fear: democracy a threat from the west, Bolshevism a threat from the east, and Jewish people threatening Germany and Germans from within. Goebbels said: “The Jew will not exterminate the peoples of Europe. Rather, he will be the victim of his own attack” This web of fiction was channelled into cruel and cynical propaganda, and it enabled the holocaust Ensuring that such fantasies would be believed by ordinary people was not easy. In 1937, teachers were instructed to “plant the knowledge of the true danger of the Jew deep in the hearts of our youth from their childhood”— done using children’s stories. One, “The Poisonous Mushroom”, told children that just as they should not assume they could tell the poisonous mushroom in the forest from the good ones, they could not assume that Jewish people were good and honest just because they seemed that way—truly heart-breaking The state-sponsored propaganda also had effect in the Nazis’ puppet states. In Estonia, many of the mass killings of the holocaust were perpetrated by local collaborators, with very little oversight by the Nazi German occupying force. In 1941, Belgian collaborators launched a pogrom in Antwerp, burning synagogues and targeting the chief rabbi. It was among the first of the events of the holocaust in Belgium. The yellow star law had not even been introduced. The wave of unrestrained violence that night was directly and immediately incited by a screening of the Nazi propaganda film, “The Eternal Jew”, one of the most evil works of propaganda ever produced. It shows the squalor and disease Jewish people were forced to live in but claimed it was something they chose. Brutal, dehumanising scenes of Jewish people crammed in the ghetto were interlaced with scenes of rats swarming from a sewer, while the voiceover says that the rats are “just like the Jews among human beings…a race of parasites” The rhetoric has not gone away, in the UK or elsewhere. We have heard about the Nazi white supremacists marching through Charlottesville, their faces uncovered, some sporting machine guns, chanting, “Jews will not replace us”—a direct repetition of the Nazi lie. In an example from another continent, in October, following the debate last year in this place, the Myanmar embassy sent me a dossier, at the heart of which is a list of historical crimes attributed to the Rohingya Muslims as a group. It painted them as an existential threat to the Buddhist people of Rakhine, enemies manipulating the international community into sympathy with them. Where have we heard that before The language of extermination has power because the ground has been prepared. Nazis used teachers, newspapers, newsreels and the radio to do that; today, sowers of hate are equipped with the internet and social media. The propaganda of hate builds suspicion and prejudice until ordinary people believe a complete and utter lie. The history of the holocaust teaches us that if this kind of propaganda is allowed to breed and infect communities and even states, the lie—the evil myth—that those people create can be turned into murder on an industrial scale, the reality of a genocide, the holocaust: 6 million innocent men, women and children brutally and horrifically murdered.
East Renfrewshire is home to Scotland’s largest Jewish population. As their MP and as co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on British Jews, I take my responsibility to that community very seriously Many Jewish people came to East Renfrewshire to flee the Nazis from the early 1930s onwards, and several holocaust survivors made the area their home, including the much-missed Ernest Levy. Although the number of survivors still with us falls, their stories ring around classrooms to ensure that our children are aware of what can happen when hate is left uncontrolled. We must never forget. The power of survivors’ words has been recorded in interviews that anyone can access via the Gathering the Voices website, of which the words of my constituents Henry and Ingrid Wuga form part Sadly, when we think of the holocaust, it can become simply a number—the number of those killed by the Nazi party: 6 million Jews. However, we must resist the temptation to reduce the barbarity of the holocaust to just a number of deaths. The magnitude of these crimes is often lost in a number that we simply cannot comprehend. That is why the Holocaust Educational Trust’s “Lessons from Auschwitz” remains so important. I pay tribute to Karen Pollock, whose impact on the next generation’s understanding of the holocaust and anti-Semitism should not be underrated. On a personal level, it has been a true joy to speak and work with her since my election. Karen and her team are defenders of the truth Pupils from Williamwood High School, St Ninian’s and myriad other schools in East Renfrewshire have benefited from seeing the reality of what man can do. Next Thursday, I will be attending a holocaust memorial event at Barrhead High School organised by sixth-year pupil Kirsty Robson. Kirsty became one of HET’s holocaust ambassadors after visiting Auschwitz with the trust in 2016, and her event will feature two holocaust survivors, who will discuss their experiences in front of staff and pupils, enabling them to see the contemporary relevance of the holocaust. Young people such as Kirsty are remarkable and vital in ensuring that the memory and lessons of the holocaust live on and are not forgotten when there is no one left to tell their personal story Alongside physical structures such as Auschwitz and Birkenau, we have as this year’s theme the power of words—the idea that words can make a difference for both good and evil. We are all aware of Anne Frank’s work and the impact her diaries have had on millions of children, but the power of words is not limited to the smiling young face that appears on the copies of her diaries. In stark contrast to Anne Frank, this theme can apply to Adolf Hitler’s personal lawyer and governor-general of the central government of the occupied Polish territories, Hans Frank. His evil was shown in his words, and the power of words ultimately condemned him. It was his words that enabled Raphael Lemkin to show the systematic action that was taken to wipe the territory clear of Jews and other so-called undesirables. From Lemkin came the very best of words and ideas: the doctrine of genocide—an idea and a word that has fundamentally changed our world order since 1945 History has shown that words dictate action, and we must continue to challenge the language and views not just of our opponents but our friends, because when we normalise hatred, it leads to a sense that terrible horrors are part of the normal One morning, Hans Frank gave a speech at the University in Lviv. He announced the killing of 100,000 individuals. In the afternoon, he went and played a game of chess with his deputy’s wife, and he lost. He played a second game of chess, and he lost. What agitated him was not the immense mass killing in his name, but his failure against a woman in two games of chess. I will end with the words of Kirsty Robson. I asked her why she felt it was important for her to become an ambassador and to work with the Holocaust Educational Trust to educate her peers. She told me: “I feel a sense of duty to continue sharing the lessons that can be learned from the Holocaust following my visit. The trust does incredible work and I am utterly proud to have been one of the minds that has been shaped by them. I am steadfast in my belief that we must learn from the mistakes and heartaches of our past, take note of the contemporary relevance of such events and ensure that the world we are shaping is one of acceptance and kindness, free of persecution and prejudice.”
I join others in congratulating the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) on securing this important debate. As he reminded us, the theme for Holocaust Memorial Day this year is the power of words. Like him, I will speak about what I think are the most powerful words in this context: the testimony of the survivors of the holocaust Like others, I have experienced hearing survivors speaking, in particular to children at schools they have come to speak at in my constituency in Liverpool and to those who have gone on the visit to Auschwitz arranged through the Holocaust Educational Trust, and also in the work I did between 2005 and 2010 at the National Holocaust Centre and Museum in Laxton, Nottinghamshire. Nothing can compare to the impact that the words of survivors have in shaping the mind and educating children about the horrors of what happened during the holocaust Holocaust Memorial Day has a vital twin importance: remembering the Nazi holocaust—so appallingly denied by some—but also dedicating ourselves to challenging modern-day anti-Semitism, racism, genocide and other mass atrocities. Rudi Oppenheimer was 11 years old and living outside Amsterdam when the Nazis invaded. He and members of his family ended up in Bergen-Belsen, but he survived, as did his brother and sister. His testimony of his experience of the holocaust has educated children around the world. When he was asked in a school why he thinks his testimony is so important, his answer was: “Because we haven’t learned the lessons yet at all” All of us have heard the voices of Tutsi from Rwanda, Muslims from Bosnia and young Yazidi women. These are just three examples; tragically, I could cite many, many others. On Monday, I hosted an event in Speaker’s House organised by War Child focusing on mental health and psychosocial support for children in conflict areas. We heard incredibly powerful first-hand testimony from two fantastic young refugees: Enana, who is originally from Syria, and Oscar, who is originally from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Their testimony about what their countries have been through, and what they personally have been through as refugees from conflict situations, was very powerful and reminds us why Holocaust Memorial Day has such huge contemporary relevance In Liverpool, Holocaust Memorial Day is marked annually. Tonight, the University of Liverpool Jewish Society is hosting an event with holocaust survivor Joanna Millan. Next week, the Lord Mayor of Liverpool will open the Fathers House holocaust exhibition in Liverpool town hall. On memorial day itself, the Mayor of Liverpool will join faith leaders in a special service at the town hall to pay tribute to all those who lost their lives in the holocaust and genocides around the world Let me finish with another quotation from Rudi Oppenheimer, because this was the theme for last year’s Holocaust Memorial Day, about which the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole spoke: “Nobody should stand by”. Nobody should stand by when we see anti-Semitism or any form of persecution or bullying. As my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) rightly reminded us, we should not stand by when we see the awful persecution of the Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar/Burma. We should not stand by when we see the appalling humanitarian crisis in Yemen. And we should not stand by when we see rape used as a weapon of war, as it is in so many places, including against the Rohingya and in South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and elsewhere. Let us, on a cross-party basis, use the opportunity of today’s debate and Holocaust Memorial Day next week to say once again that we will not stand by. We will listen to the voices of the survivors—be they from the holocaust, be they from Syria, be they Yazidi women, or be they from the situations in Myanmar or Yemen—and that we will work together as colleagues to stop all forms of oppression and challenge all forms of racism and persecution wherever they rear their ugly head.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) on securing the debate I remember attending the first Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration in Hendon back in 2001. It was held in a marquee in Hendon Park, on a site that has become a memorial garden. I think that that is a fitting tribute to the millions of people who were killed in the Shoah, particularly as so many relatives and friends of those who were murdered have made their homes in my constituency. I was delighted to see in the new year honours list three names of constituents who had had direct experience of the Nazi atrocities, and I think it appropriate to place on the record their names and experiences Harry Olmer was awarded an OBE. He is a Mill Hill resident who was born in Sosnowiec, near the German border in south-west Poland. In the spring of 1940, his family were sent to another small village, as life in his home town was becoming very difficult. In 1942, Jewish residents were expelled from their homes, and after a selection, Harry found himself in Plasnow concentration camp, near Krakow, then a munitions factory. He was then moved to Buchenwald, and then to another munitions factory in Schlieben. As the war came to an end, he found himself in Theresienstadt concentration camp, whence he was finally liberated by the Red Army on 8 May 1945. Two months later, he came to the UK, and worked as a dental technician and studied at evening classes before being accepted at Glasgow University to study dentistry. He later served in the British Army as a dentist A Hendon resident, Bernd Koschland, was awarded an OBE for services to holocaust education. I have known Bernd for many years, and he is well known to many people who attend the holocaust memorial service in Hendon each year. He came to the United Kingdom with the Kindertransport in 1939, after his father was deported to Dachau on Kristallnacht. On his father’s release, Bernd’s parents made the difficult, but sensible, decision to send him to England on the Kindertransport. In March 1939, he made the journey to England, and was later joined by his sister. In addition to his holocaust education work, Bernd was the chairman of the Barnet Multi-Faith Forum for 14 years, and I had the pleasure of working alongside him I want to mention the name of one other person, my Edgware constituent Lieutenant Colonel Mordaunt Cohen, who is the most senior Jewish officer who served in the British Army during the second world war and who received an MBE for his services to second world war education. Mordaunt joined the British Army after hearing about the horrors of Nazi Germany from children who had arrived on the Kindertransport. He fought in Burma from 1942 to 1945, which was in itself a horrific experience. After the war, he became chairman of the Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women. He celebrated his 100th birthday last year, and it was a huge pleasure and privilege for me to visit him in his home on that occasion To all three constituents, I say “Mazel tov, and thank you for all that you have achieved throughout your lives, particularly here in the United Kingdom.” Last year, I spoke about a constituent of mine called Renee Salt. Since then I have visited Renee on several occasions to talk about certain things and to eat much of her cake, which she bakes at home. During one of our discussions, we spoke about another Hendon constituent, who died in 2008 and whom I had known. That was the Rev. Leslie Hardman. His link with Renee was that she was a captive in Bergen-Belsen, and he was one of the first British Army chaplains who liberated the camp. In his book “The Survivors”, he described how his colonel told him to go to the camp because “you’ll find a lot of your people.” Leslie also wrote that one of his first acts was to officiate over the mass burial of 5,000 bodies, a scene that he described as “bodies interlocked, coagulated, disintegrated” I have a lot more to say, but time will not allow me to do so. Let me leave the House with a quotation from someone relatively unknown, Salmen Gradowski. On 6 September 1944, he wrote: “May the world at least behold a drop, a fraction of this tragic world in which we lived.” We can consider those words from the perspective of history, but knowing that they were found after liberation in a flask buried in the grounds of the Auschwitz-Birkenau crematorium makes them more powerful. I think that they illustrate this year’s theme of Holocaust Memorial Day, the power of words.
Order. I am afraid that I must reduce the speaking time limit to four minutes.
I thank the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) for sponsoring the debate. It is a pleasure for me to co-sponsor it. This is the fifth or sixth time I have co-sponsored a debate on this important day. When I was first a Member of Parliament, I was proud to do so, and now that I am back in the House, I am even more delighted Let me also congratulate the indomitable Karen Pollock, who is in the public Gallery and whom I have known for many years. Without her, I do not believe that this day, and the impact and reach that it has across the country, would be as strong. She really does deserve an enormous amount of credit The theme of Holocaust Memorial Day this year is the power of words. I was reminded of that when I read some words only earlier this morning from Anne Frank, that remarkable young girl who wrote so beautifully in Amsterdam all those years ago. She wrote: “When I write I can shake off all my cares; my sorrow disappears; my spirits are revived.” That is such a powerful set of words for such a dreadful time by a remarkable young woman That comment and the power of words brings me to my own constituent. Eastbourne does not have a large Jewish community; in fact, it is fairly minuscule—probably only 40 or 50. Like everyone else in the Chamber and many across the country, however, I am here because we know that what happened was so wicked—as was what has happened so many times since in the different genocides from Rwanda to Cambodia and the rest—that if we do not emphasise and talk about this day, there is the constant danger that it will happen again. Indeed, it is depressing that when I last spoke on this day in the House the Yazidis were perfectly safe in Iraq and Syria. Two years later, they have almost been destroyed as a people. I therefore profoundly believe that the commemoration and remembrance on this day must never stop I have an extraordinary constituent in the small Jewish community in Eastbourne called Dorit Oliver-Wolff. She is a survivor, and she recently wrote an autobiography called “From Yellow Star to Pop Star.” She was born in Yugoslavia. When the Nazis invaded, she and her mother moved to Budapest when she was only five or six years old, and they somehow survived through the four or five years of the war from hand to mouth, travelling from place to place, creating new identities. It was when she was in Budapest that she first realised she was Jewish: she was only five years old and a woman spat at her in the street and called her “A stinking Jew.” Can anyone imagine anything more utterly incomprehensible than that to a five-year-old Dorit survived and flourished, and moved to Eastbourne 10 or 15 years ago. She is a remarkable woman. I highlight her story because in many ways she emphasises one fundamental strength irrespective of the wickedness of Governments and people: the unfailing goodness and strength of individuals. That was true in the war when so many individuals saved so many Jewish people from Poland to Bulgaria to Albania. They are the reason why I profoundly believe this day is worth remembering and will continually improve human nature.
I rise very briefly to congratulate the ambassador programme and particularly one of my constituents who is part of it. Although we are talking about the power of words, it is often the person delivering those words who makes them more powerful, so it was fantastic to attend the event at Speaker’s House where we heard testimony from survivors, including a 94-year-old lady who said she would pass on the baton to the young ambassadors in that room, and rightly so at 94; it is about time somebody else took that strain Joe Collins is a constituent of mine. He first came to my attention because he is an active Conservative campaigner, but, more importantly, Joe is all the things that I am not: he got a very good set of A-level results and is going to York University, and he is young, bright and charismatic. If he is giving the message to young people, they are much more likely to listen Joe attended the lessons from Auschwitz programme and has subsequently become one of the young ambassadors. He has arranged events at his school; he is arranging a marathon; and he fundraises all sorts of things to publicise this work. He brought Susi Bechhofer to Walsall Academy to speak to the students there. Her story is an interesting one. She was brought over on the Kindertransport when she was three years old to live in Cardiff. My understanding is that the people who acted as foster parents were supposed to undertake not to convert, or attempt to convert, the people they were fostering. Unfortunately, in this case, the foster father was a Baptist reverend and he had the children baptised, changed their names and brought them up as Baptists Susi became Grace Mann, and it was not until she was at school, preparing to take an English literature exam, that she discovered that that was not her original name. She was queueing up in alphabetical order with other children in the M section when the teacher came over to her and said, “You are in the wrong place. You should be with the Bs.” She had a vague recollection of being Susi Bechhofer, and spent the rest of the exam thinking about her new identity As Susi discovered more about her original identity, she decided that, having been raised as a Baptist, she would stick with the religion that she had grown up with, but that she would find out more about her other one. Part of the point of her story is that it is not just those who were killed or who suffered torture in the camps who were the victims of this dreadful abuse. Let us remember that 6 million people—two thirds of the European Jewish population at that time—were wiped out, but the ramifications went far wider. The ripples went on. I am grateful to Joe and to the ambassadors programme, and I am grateful that Susi took the time to visit Walsall Academy in my constituency and continues to share the message with young people.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) on bringing this matter to the House and speaking so well. I know that many Members will have appreciated the way in which he introduced the debate. I want to concentrate my comments on the Holocaust Educational Trust’s Lessons from Auschwitz project and how that has impacted on Northern Ireland. The project was delivered in Northern Ireland in March 2017, following the receipt of a grant of £160,000 from the Departments of Education and for Communities in Northern Ireland. This was the first time such a project had been delivered in Northern Ireland since 2008. I pay tribute to Karen Pollock for her lobbying work to ensure that every component part of the United Kingdom has access to the project We talk about the power of words, but actions also matter. For the past 10 years, various Departments and politicians in Northern Ireland had been saying that the issue of Auschwitz mattered, but when the time came for them to put their hand in their pocket and put departmental money on the table to make the project happen, it became clear that their words were simply lip service. I want to pay tribute to the two Ministers from the devolved Assembly whose actions made a difference: Mr Peter Weir from the Department of Education and Mr Paul Givan from the Department for Communities. They came together and ensured that money was put on the table to allow the project to take place in Northern Ireland. Other Departments, and the other Ministers who previously held those posts, will hope that they can come up to the same mark in the future, if the devolved Assembly continues in place Through the project, 166 students from 76 schools across Northern Ireland, as well as 27 teachers, were able to take part in a unique educational experience laid on by the Holocaust Educational Trust. The four-part course was open to two students from every school and college in Northern Ireland and incorporated a one-day visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau. On the visit, students first visited the town where the Nazi concentration and death camps were located and where, before the war, 58% of the population was Jewish. Students then visited Auschwitz to see the former camp’s barracks and crematoriums and to witness the piles of belongings that were seized by the Nazis. Finally they spent time at the main killing centre in Birkenau, where the day concluded with candle lighting and a period of reflection to remember the 6 million Jews murdered in the holocaust and the other victims of Nazi persecution We say that the term “the power of words” is important, but when we get the chance to speak to those students, we realise that the power of silence is really incredible, as they could not form words due to the tears coursing down their cheeks as they wondered what could have been, after seeing at first hand man’s hatred of man and how we must strive to ensure that such a thing never happens again. I congratulate all those who have taken part in this debate, and I hope that the power of words and actions will speak volumes for us all.
I thank the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) for bringing the debate to the House. I also thank hon. Members for their contributions so far today. As we have heard, the theme for this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day is the power of words, and it is important to remember the context in which Nazism arose after the treaty of Versailles and the 1929 crash. A murderous regime was able to take hold of Germany during terrible economic conditions, and it then drove its ideology through Europe and tried to undertake the genocide of my people—the Jewish people. Last autumn, I met Martin Kapel, who lives in Headingley in my constituency, at a Woodcraft Folk event. He was talking to boys and girls who were the same age as him when he was expelled from Germany by the Nazis. My boys, who are also Woodcraft Folkers, were the age he was when he was taken from his family. The realisation hit me hard when I saw my own boys with Martin and I had to think of him enduring the grim reality of the loss of his family.
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important that holocaust survivors such as Solly Irving are remembered, with their stories living on after they pass, so that we do not repeat the mistakes that have been made and instead create a better world for everyone?
That is one of the most important lessons of Holocaust Memorial Day and of our memories of the holocaust Many people’s only real insight into what the camps or the ghettos were like is through film. I have watched many of these films, including “Jakob the Liar”, “Schindler’s List” and “Sophie’s Choice”, but the most poignant for me is “Life Is Beautiful”, directed by the Italian comedian Roberto Benigni. The first half of the film is a romantic comedy about how Benigni’s character, a Jewish bookkeeper, falls in love with and marries an Italian woman in the 1930s. They then have a son, and Benigni’s character and his son get sent to a concentration camp. To protect his son, he pretends that the camp is a game and that the prize is winning a tank. I am unsure whether my children are quite ready to watch the film, but I would use it to introduce to them what the horror of the holocaust means, because it is the most human and poignant telling of the holocaust that I have seen The holocaust has deeply affected my family. My parents were born in 1946, and I remember sitting in my great-aunt’s kitchen in Tel Aviv as a young child, seeing the numbers tattooed on her arm and asking my father, “Why?” She was in the camps. She did not have her own children or grandchildren. I had no aunts or uncles or cousins to play with, because the Nazis experimented on her and she could not have children. This hollow shell cast a dark spectre over my family—all the relatives I never met or who never survived, and the children they never had That is my living memory of what happened, and it is seared into me when I make my own political judgments or when I make decisions about the genocide happening now to the Rohingya or the Yazidis, or elsewhere around the world. It also happens when I think about decisions more locally. We sit in a place of tolerance and pluralism. We call those on the other side of the House “hon. Members”, and they are our opponents, not our enemies. We should be grateful for our democracy and for how this place operates. We need that same political culture everywhere: in our parties, on the streets, in our schools, and in our workplaces Every day, I try to work with that memory of my family and the dark spectre of the holocaust. I try to take that into all my experiences and all my dealings with people. I try to be tolerant towards them, but when intolerance comes and they have a message of hate, I try to face it down and stand up to it by saying, “I do not accept what you have to say. You are wrong.” I first try to educate, but then I try to use the power of the state and the power we have to ensure that those people do not come forward. We sit beneath the plaque to Jo Cox and remember that she was struck down by these same people on the far right. It is our duty here in this place, and the duty of everyone in this country, to stand up for tolerance and pluralism and to act against intolerance and extremism.
I thank the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) for securing this debate and congratulate everyone who has taken part on their powerful and moving speeches. It is an honour to take part in this debate in remembrance of an event that, in its own way, challenges the power of words adequately to express the horror and sorrow of the holocaust Three years ago, I visited the Yad Vashem memorial in Israel. As I was taken around that remarkable monument, the experience was at times emotional, as well as inspiring and thought-provoking throughout. It is a dark, oppressive space—a tunnel in a hillside—and as we travelled through it, guided as we were by a holocaust survivor, the personal testimonies we heard and the things we saw represented to me one of the bleakest periods in modern history—indeed, human history When our tour focused on the concentration camps, my mind was flooded with thoughts of the survivors I have been privileged to meet as we heard the testimonies of the suffering. I also thought about the young people I know who have visited what remains of the concentration camps across Europe, and about their reactions My daughter, who was born more than half a century after the war ended, visited because she felt she had to but, unlike other places of historical importance she has visited, it is something she rarely talks about. Like many, we took her as a child to Anne Frank’s house in Amsterdam, and she was fascinated. When we came home, she fell in love with the words of that youngster who lived her life hidden because it was the only life she was allowed. Hers were informative, moving words When my daughter has visited other memorials, she has talked about them, but not when she came home from visiting Theresienstadt, which represented something more. She faced up to the fact that it was all real; that this was where so many stories, like that of the little girl living in a loft whose powerful words she had fallen in love with, had ended; and that if that horror were ever to return, many of the people she loved would meet the same fate. Perhaps it was a similar feeling that moved Andrew Dismore on his visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau, and we should thank that visit for enabling us to dedicate a day to holocaust remembrance, but how do we adequately remember an event when its sheer horror challenges everything we want to believe about humanity and ourselves? How Perhaps Yad Vashem points the way. It is a tunnel in a hillside through which visitors proceed. In near darkness, they hear and see the emotionally numbing truth and heartbreak of the holocaust, but then, like all tunnels, the light at the end begins to grow until they emerge into the sunlight—it is a completely apt and quite deliberate metaphor. In remembering the holocaust, we should take that metaphor to our hearts and remember that, unlike the many millions who hid in darkness or died in the bleakest of circumstances, and unlike the many victims of war and genocide in the past and in the current day—like those in Srebrenica and the Rohingya—we live in the sunlight. We should cherish that, and we should think of them every day that we enjoy it.
It is an honour to speak in this debate and to follow the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) and my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel), who spoke so movingly. I do not think anybody in this House can fail to have been moved by his personal testimony, so I thank him for that. I also thank the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) for securing this debate and the Backbench Business Committee for granting it. I also thank the Holocaust Educational Trust for the work it does in ensuring that as many people as possible, from every background in the UK, are aware of the holocaust and particularly of its contemporary relevance The HET has shared some amazing pieces of writing from survivors and victims, which really show the theme of this year: the power of words. One poem that particularly struck me was written by a survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Avram Schaufeld. He wrote: “Do not ask How did you survive Because this is a question that causes me pain and brings back memories… I know that you mean well and are sympathetic and would like me to talk to your youth group or your son who is writing a paper on the Holocaust and I could help him with this subject which is part of his exams You add with a smile, that no amount of reading is the same as talking to a survivor From your eager expression I can guess what you expect me to tell him About our bravery and how our faith in God helped us to survive… I lie and say that I am too busy that I have other commitments and quickly take my leave and turn away so that you cannot see the hurt in my eyes Do not ask me why” Avram Schaufeld was the only member of his family to survive the holocaust. His poem addresses the theme of words from a rather different perspective and articulates his understandable reluctance to talk about the horrors of his past. But each year there are fewer and fewer survivors of the holocaust, and we must be grateful to all those who have gifted us their memories and testimonies—their words live on In my constituency of Heywood and Middleton, we will be gathering together on the evening of Monday 29 January at Heywood civic centre for a commemoration service to remember victims and survivors of the holocaust, Nazi persecutions and other worldwide genocides. This event has been organised by Rochdale Multi-faith Partnership, whose stated aim is to challenge religious prejudice and misconceptions, to promote justice and cohesion, and, recognising the theme of this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day—the power of words—to encourage open and respectful dialogue. In the borough of Rochdale, where there are sadly some who seek to divide our diverse communities, I cannot overstate the fantastic work done by Rochdale Multi-faith Partnership in bringing communities together in a spirit of mutual understanding, including those of no faith. I am hoping to attend the ceremony myself, but I will be subject to the power of the words from the Whips Office on that particular date In conclusion, we must never forget the lessons from this horrific part of recent history. Only today we heard in this Chamber about a report on the Rohingya crisis in Bangladesh and Burma, and we must redouble our efforts to end this humanitarian crisis, which has been described by the UN as a “textbook” case of “ethnic cleansing”. We must all remember the lessons of the holocaust and never forget that evil triumphs when good men and women do nothing.
First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) on bringing this debate to the Floor of this House. As is well known, I am a strong supporter of Israel, as others are. I believe in the nation of Israel and support it. Today, I stand, as others have, in solidarity with those from all over Europe who were culled like the lowest of animals due to their belief and because a regime could not tolerate the ideal of freedom of religious belief for anyone I congratulate the right hon. and hon. Members who have given fantastic speeches and made a terrific contribution to today’s debate. I have spoken every year in this Chamber on this topic and as long as God spares me, I will always take the time to remember and mourn the holocaust I recently watched a snippet of a programme, one that many people are probably aware of as it has been making the rounds on Facebook. It showed when Sir Nicholas Winton, who rescued 669 children from Nazi death camps, was honoured and was in a room with many of the children he had saved—they were now adults with their own children. Those who have seen the programme will know what I am going to say. Those people were alive because of the sacrifices and decisions that Nicholas Winton took. It was hard not to be moved by the 104-year-old Nicholas Winton giving an interview and making a life-changing statement when he was asked what made him think that he could save lives. His answer was simple: “I work on the motto that if something is not impossible, there must be a way of doing it” It was simple for him, but he did a great thing.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for speaking about Nicholas Winton. Last year, we celebrated, and in fact made a film about, the children who survived and were brought to Stoke-on-Trent because of Nicholas Winton. Those children had no connection at all to our city, but have gone on to be huge ambassadors for it and for our country. That should be applauded at every opportunity.
I thank the hon. Lady for her pertinent, honest and personal words. I am fortunate that in my constituency we have Kindertransport children, who were saved by those who took the time to bring them across. There is a farm in Millisle known as McGill’s farm, which is where the young children who came over during the second world war stayed. Some of them stayed and never went home: they came from Germany to Millisle in my constituency, where there were people who loved them and looked after them I long to see a generation of Nicholas Wintons reaching out from the UK again, making a difference to the world and leaving a legacy of hard work and moral character for later generations. As I watched that short snippet, it was hard not to get emotional because the next generation of children, including my own granddaughters, will not get to see these kinds of stories at first hand. Others have referred to how important it is that we record these stories and have this event every year, so that we can commemorate the holocaust, remember those who were murdered and think of those who survived. It is also important to remember that many of those who survived are now no longer here The sight of an actual lady in that programme thanking Sir Nicholas is something that is now imprinted in my memory, and in the memories of many others. It is sometimes easy to watch a film and see the Hollywood slant. It makes it very real but also slightly deadens us to the emotional fact. Seeing the faces of those who managed to survive the camps but knowing that 6 million did not makes it very real. As that realisation sank in, so did the realisation that now more than ever we must make a concerted effort to teach our children not just the figures—it is not only about the 6 million figure, which is horrific and shocking enough—but that these were lives lost, that an entire nation was slaughtered, that a people were forever wounded and that this was an atrocity that can never be allowed to happen again. We need to reaffirm our desire never to see that atrocity repeated by ensuring that all schools throughout the nation do not simply pay lip service to the holocaust by teaching numbers and that children see real-life stories and understand the human cost, as I believe they have. The stories of how humanity sank so low must be clear to ensure that we never sink so low again I wish to use again the phrase used by the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes)— just because it is oft repeated, that does not mean it is of any less value. I am a firm believer that evil triumphs when good people do nothing. That belief comes from the holocaust and is emphasised by the poem by Niemöller: “First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.” Quite simply, we have to speak out for those who cannot.
It is a true privilege to speak in this debate. I send my compliments to the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) for securing it and to the Backbench Business Committee for facilitating it. It was a true privilege to listen to my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel). In listening to his speech, we were privileged to experience the power of words. That power is hugely important I had a marvellously prepared speech, but I am going to cast it to one side. As a primary school teacher, it was a privilege to talk to children and to be there when they discovered new things and new facts. It has been a huge privilege this week to send out to the schools in East Lothian the Holocaust Memorial Day packs provided by the trust I wish to share my experience of coming to understand about the holocaust. I had the luck and, again, the privilege of listening to a survivor when I was at school. I remember us all sitting around in the hall when this lovely lady came in. She seemed terribly old and terribly far away, but her opening words were, “I was at school.” Suddenly, she had us all—there may have been 70 of us in the hall—in the palm of her hand. She shared with us an experience that she wished we would never have, and she shared with us an experience that has stayed with me ever since. The word “privilege” gets used a lot, but it was a great privilege to listen to a survivor I wish to extend my compliments to the ambassadors as they take over from those who are living now and who have experienced what happened. They will take the experience forward and spread it out Social media is a great, great tool in the hands of the right people, but, unfortunately, it is used sometimes for truly horrendous things. I would like to take this opportunity, in thinking of the power of words, to say that we who have the power of words must point out what happened to those people who are still to learn about the holocaust and to those people who are learning empathy through listening and understanding about what happened. We must also hold out against those people who want to misrepresent what happened, those people who have forgotten the important lessons of history and those individuals who just deny what history so clearly tells us. We must not forget. The importance of this day and the importance of this debate rests with us and in doing that.
My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel), in his absolutely powerful and moving speech, made reference to films. There is another—Steven Spielberg’s fantastic work “Shoah” in which survivors living at the time all gave their testimony, speaking in their own words for the record. Hopefully, those words will be there for generations to come Twenty-one years ago, I introduced a private Member’s Bill on holocaust denial. It was a precursor to a private Member’s Bill on Holocaust Memorial Day promoted by my former hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, who came in in 1997. We did not get the Bill on denial, but we did get the Bill on memorial. I received an incredible amount of anti-Semitic abuse. For two years after, I received specially printed Christmas cards with the most vile images. The assumption was that I was Jewish. Actually, I am not; I grew up in Ilford and the mum of one of my best friends at school always thought that I was Jewish because I was always round there, but I am not. Interestingly, after the election in 1997, I decided that I was going to do more about these issues. Then a group was established locally that campaigned against me because I supported a two-state position in the middle east. The group, which called itself the Association of Ilford Muslims—I do not have the time now, but I refer Members to my Westminster Hall debate that I held in June 2001—put out leaflets saying that I was no friend of the Muslims, I was a true friend of Israel, and I represented Tel Aviv South, not Ilford South. Subsequently, the Muslim Political Action Committee UK was set up. It has peddled on the internet and through social media anti-Semitic material, which it dresses up as anti-Zionism. It has targeted people in election campaigns, including in Rochdale, Oldham, Birmingham, Blackburn, in my constituency and elsewhere to try to get rid of people it regards as pro-Zionist MPs—mainly Labour MPs, but Conservatives as well. That has been the power of their message. It is insidious, and it is in our politics I am very pleased to say that next Friday in Ilford we are going to have all communities, as we always do—Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Jews—
May I just ask my hon. Friend for the venue?
Valentines Park in Ilford, at the holocaust memorial garden, which was established on the initiative of the former council leader—still a Conservative councillor—Alan Weinberg. We will have our annual service there, and there will be young people from many different schools, including, as in recent years, young people from a Muslim school—the Al-Noor school. We have many different people from different faiths speaking, because that is Ilford today. A century ago, Ilford had a very large Jewish community, but now we have all the different faiths, and they come together It is important to recognise that the poison that was put out against me all those years ago did not succeed. I am still here. More importantly, the community has rejected extremists of that kind, but they are still there. They are out on Twitter. They are out on Facebook.
My hon. Friend makes a powerful case for how much has changed locally. This debate is all about the power of education, and that has a huge impact in my constituency and across the country, which is why the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust is so important.
I absolutely agree. I had not been to Auschwitz before 2013, when I went with a group of young people from schools in the south of England—there were not people from my constituency on the day that I was available. Every year, young people from many of my local schools go there, and those young people come back and talk about their experience, and spread the message in our community In our modern, pluralistic, democratic society, we must never forget the events of the holocaust. We must also remember the more recent genocides in Rwanda and Cambodia and what happened to the Yazidis. As the Foreign Affairs Committee and the International Development Committee pointed out in their recent reports, we also need to highlight the plight of the Rohingya today. We must stand together as a community and fight these evils.
It is an honour to have the opportunity to speak in this important debate. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this time and the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) for securing the debate. It is also an honour and a privilege to follow all the brilliant speeches we have heard today, especially that of the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) I join others in paying tribute to Karen Pollock, the chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, and its Lessons from Auschwitz project, which since 1999 has enabled over 30,000 students and teachers to see at first hand the horror and brutality and “to clearly highlight what can happen if prejudice and racism become acceptable.” The theme of this year’s memorial day is the power of words, to remind us that “The Holocaust did not start in the gas chambers but with hate filled words.” Those words did not suddenly spring into being at the inaugural Nuremberg rally or from the venomous pages of “Mein Kampf”. It must be acknowledged that words and discrimination directed against Jewish people have been around for centuries, if not millennia, across the entire European continent and beyond, affecting all sections of society, all religions and all forms of state. Indeed, George Orwell noted in his essay on anti-Semitism: “There has been a perceptible antisemitic strain in English literature from Chaucer onwards, and without even getting up from this table to consult a book I can think of passages which if written now would be stigmatised as antisemitism, in the works of Shakespeare, Smollett, Thackeray, Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, T. S. Eliot, Aldous Huxley and various others.” While there can be no doubt that it is the Nazi leaders and those who carried out their orders who bear sole responsibility for the holocaust, their actions and beliefs were made easier to implement and for to others to subscribe to as a result of the norms and values that had been constructed over a long period, and eventually found fertile ground in 1920s Germany, in the toxic world of the Nazi party and those who carried out the work on their behalf. In the words of the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), who delivered an excellent speech during the debate in 2016, “we should never avert our eyes from the most uncomfortable truth of all—that its perpetrators were not unique. They were ordinary men and women carrying out acts of extraordinary evil”—[Official Report, 21 January 2016; Vol. 604, c. 1635.] The actions that the Nazis carried out may be beyond comprehension, but we can never be complacent or try to pretend that such actions took place in a vacuum and had no precedent. As the Jewish Italian writer and chemist Primo Levi, himself a survivor of Auschwitz, put it: “We cannot understand” fascism, “but we can and must understand from where it springs, and we must be on our guard...because what happened can happen again... For this reason, it is everyone’s duty to reflect on what happened.” When Barack Obama visited Yad Vashem in 2008, a few months before the presidential election, his note in the guestbook read: “At a time of great peril and promise, war and strife, we are blessed to have such a powerful reminder of man's potential for great evil, but also our capacity to rise up from tragedy and remake our world. Let our children come here, and know this history, so that they can add their voices to proclaim ‘never again.’ And may we remember those who perished, not only as victims, but also as individuals who hoped and loved and dreamed like us, and who have become symbols of the human spirit.” Former President Obama chose his words carefully, as must we all in politics around the world, so as not to allow this extremism to permeate again We must acknowledge the sad reality that a few decades hence there will be no one left who is able to offer a first-hand account of their experience of the holocaust. That is why the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust is so important—for example, in organising the event in Speaker’s House on Tuesday, or the football match between MPs and family members of survivors that took place last week. In that match, MPs, including me, played against—and lost to—Darren and Robert Richman, grandsons of Zigi Shipper, who when he was just 14 was taken from the Łódź ghetto to Auschwitz. Many who travelled with Zigi were murdered within an hour of arriving. He survived Auschwitz and was liberated by the British Army after a death march to Neustadt Also playing was Justin Spiro, the grandson of Harry Spiro. Like Zigi, Harry was just a boy when he was forced to work in a glass factory in the Piotrków ghetto. In 1942, the Nazis announced that all those working in the factory should attend work and everyone else should stay in their homes. Harry’s family and 22,000 other people in the ghetto were taken to Treblinka extermination camp, where they were murdered. Harry was eventually liberated by the Soviets and came to Britain as part of the group of youngsters who were later known as “The Boys”. I wish I could say more about some of the other survivors’ stories that were shared with us at the football match I quoted George Orwell’s comment on the history of anti-Semitism in fiction, but literature and art in general can play a more positive role in the world by portraying and expressing the personal experience, emotion and impact of real-world events in a way that is not always fully revealed by statistics alone, regardless of how extreme those events may be. I will finish with a quotation from novelist Vladimir Nabokov, who escaped to America with his Russian Jewish wife in May 1940, just prior to the Wehrmacht’s arrival in Paris, where they had been living at the time, and whose own brother would later perish in a Nazi concentration camp. In one of his novels, written just over a decade later, the central character reflects on his former lover, whose death in the holocaust he has just been reminded of when he is asked by another character if he had heard about her “terrible end”. The central character reflects that he had not thought about her until that moment “because one could not live with the thought that this graceful, fragile, tender young woman with those eyes, that smile, those gardens and snows in the background, had been brought in a cattle car and killed by an injection of phenol into the heart, into the gentle heart one had heard beating under one’s lips in the dusk of the past.”
It is indeed a privilege to speak in this debate, because I believe it shows the best of this House when we come together in a common cause. I thank the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) for securing the debate and for his powerful speech, and hon. Members on both sides of the House for their powerful contributions. I am sorry that I do not have the time to pay tribute to all those who have spoken, but I must mention my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel), who did indeed demonstrate the power of words, however difficult it must have been for him to share that story. I am so pleased that, with all-party support, this debate is a fixture in the calendar. It is not, however, just a fixture or something we do by rote; it is there to remind us of the horrors of the past and for us to look forward to the future. Sadly, this year, it is needed more than ever The power of words in this place is well recognised—sometimes, too many words—so it is an appropriate theme for Holocaust Memorial Day. I thank the Holocaust Educational Trust for all its work and for deciding on this as its theme. I have visited Dachau and I have visited the Washington Holocaust museum, and it is ironic that words could not describe the experience we had going round them. I have never been to a place where there was complete silence as people viewed and experienced everything there. That was particularly the case in Washington, where visitors are given a card with a name on, and when they come out at the end they are told whether they have survived—and, sadly, nearly everyone does not survive the experience. It took a good 10 minutes for us even to speak after that experience We are grateful to the survivors because they speak about their experiences and, however hard it is for them to do so, they tell us what it was like for them and their families. They are not just nameless and faceless victims, and they are not just 6 million; they are people with families—they were brothers, sisters, mums, dads. In a time with fewer survivors, we have to ensure that their words and their experiences live on and are communicated to future generations. As Anne Frank wrote, the words in her diary were a way of living on; she did not know that they would be her only way of living on We have to remember that words can be a force for good as well as a force for evil. Sadly, on this Holocaust Memorial Day, we are reminded that anti-Semitism and hate speech are no longer just in the past. As a child, I was told, as I am sure many people were told, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me,” but words do hurt: they are the start of hurting people. They are the start of stereotyping, name calling and vilification, which dehumanises people. Sadly, this is still happening today, possibly facilitated by social media, which allows people to say things anonymously that they would never say to somebody’s face I am very sorry that colleagues and others on both sides of the House have suffered some of this vilification. They should report it, and it the duty of all of us to support them if they are suffering from this vilification. It is our duty to call out, and to support others in calling out, anti-Semitism and hate speech wherever it is found. As my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) said, we cannot stand idly by. To stand idly by is to give tacit support to those who hate. Holocaust Memorial Day is not just to look back on a period of history; it is to reflect on how this happened. It is to reflect on how ordinary people were divided against each other and could commit dreadful atrocities on another human being, because words had told them that those others were not human beings, that they were a different race and culture and that that was bad. Such things are not bad: differences should be celebrated, not vilified. It is our duty to show that we can reflect and look forward and to demonstrate by our actions and our words that we will not stand idly and silently by.
I thank the Backbench Business Committee, and I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) for securing this vital debate. I am honoured that this will be my first speech from the Dispatch Box. I thank my hon. Friend for his warm words, and I hope that I am able to offer the House even half the eloquence with which he spoke this time last year and earlier this afternoon. I agree entirely with the hon. Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue): it has been a privilege to hear hon. Members from across the House make powerful and—especially in the case of the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel)—very personal contributions to this debate This year the theme for Holocaust Memorial Day is the power of words, and that has been demonstrated perfectly in the Chamber today. Like many others, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) and my hon. Friends the Members for Hendon (Dr Offord) and for East Renfrewshire (Paul Masterton) shared moving stories from their constituents. As the last of those who survived the holocaust are lost to us, the weight of those words, stories and memories only becomes greater. My young daughters’ generation will not have the privilege of hearing about the horrors of the holocaust from those who lived through it, and the task falls to us, and to the young ambassadors mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes), to keep alive the terrible lessons that the holocaust teaches. We must remind a new generation of where the road of prejudice, hatred and dictatorship ultimately leads In truth, the words so often associated with the holocaust —“never again”—have too often proved false. Whether in the tragedies of Srebrenica or Rwanda, the violence that stems from prejudice has never truly left us. Sadly, as we heard today, that prejudice is still prevalent. A comprehensive survey by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research concluded that 30% of the UK population hold one or more anti-Semitic attitudes—30%. Anti-Semitic incidents recorded by the Community Security Trust rose by 30% in the first half of last year, to their highest level since the trust began collecting records in 1984 The truth that the holocaust teaches us is that the fight against anti-Semitism, racism and religious intolerance never truly ends. Every generation must fight it again, and every generation must choose between a common humanity, which is the shared inheritance of all, and the narrow bigotry that sees some as more human than others.
Does the Minister consider that it would be beneficial to reach out to those young ambassadors and lay on a special reception for them, either at Downing Street or here in Parliament, so that they can be inspired and know that they can go out and advocate with courage, strength, humility and power the words that are necessary to convey this important memory to the next generation? I am talking about people such as Keri Bickerstaff of Bloomfield Collegiate School, and other young women and men who have decided to become ambassadors for this cause.
The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point which I will consider and take up with the right people in my Department and others The holocaust did not begin in the gas chambers; it began in the minds of ordinary people—people who, spurred on by Nazi propaganda, allowed spoken words slowly to erode the value of Jewish lives. The story is always the same. From so-called “class enemies” in Cambodia, to the so-called “cockroaches” in Rwanda, the terrible power of words is all too clear Education is crucial to fighting prejudice, and I note that many Members of the House have powerful memories of their visits to Auschwitz-Birkenau. For that we must of course thank Karen Pollock, the CEO of the Holocaust Educational Trust, who along with her team is an inspiration to us all. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) correctly highlighted the trust’s new initiative to use the Lessons from Auschwitz programme to challenge anti-Semitism on university campuses, and the Government are proud to support that We must also pay tribute to the work of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and its chief executive officer, Olivia Marks-Woldman, who along with her team delivered the most successful Holocaust Memorial Day to date last year, with almost 8,000 local events. The Government are proud to support and work along these and many other commendable organisations It would be remiss of me not to mention a notable absence today, the Prime Minister’s post-Holocaust issues envoy, Sir Eric Pickles, whose passionate speeches those who have attended previous debates will no doubt recall fondly. Sir Eric was the driving force behind the Government’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of anti-Semitism, making the UK the first country in the world to formally adopt the definition. As we have heard, the Government are also planning to build a new national Holocaust memorial and learning centre, a project that was kick-started with £50 million of funding I would like to end by paying tribute to those survivors honoured in the Queen’s new year’s honours list: men and women of enormous courage who have relived again and again their lives’ most painful memories so that we might all learn from them. It is both a great privilege and a responsibility to call such remarkable people our fellow citizens. Having listened to so many outstanding contributions here today, I believe that we remain a nation worthy of that honour and that we remain a Chamber that through our own words will never forget and will play our part in honouring these heroes’ stories.
I thank the three Front-Bench spokespersons, whose speeches were all excellent in their content, and pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the new Minister on his first outing at the Dispatch Box. He made a much better fist of it than I did last year, and will clearly last longer than I did in the job. I also thank other colleagues who have taken part in this debate. This has been an incredible debate. It was great to hear the many testimonies of survivors themselves. We heard about Rudi Oppenheimer from the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), and about his constituent Oscar, a refugee from the Democratic Republic of the Congo; and we heard Edgar Guest’s story from the right hon. Member for Enfield North (Joan Ryan), Ernest’s story from my hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Paul Masterton), and those of other survivors. We heard a lot about the role of young ambassadors, including from the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley), while my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes) mentioned his constituent Joe Collins, who will shortly be attending York University, which I also attended—I hope he makes better career choices than I have made since graduating We also heard about the dangers of social media from the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) and others and about how it was being used to spread hate and anti-Semitism. We heard from the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) about how people do not need to be Jewish to be on the receiving end of anti-Semitism. My first experience of anti-Semitism came in about 2010, after a trip to Israel. The contributions have been excellent this afternoon. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) gave a rallying cry for us all to go out and fight anti-Semitism once again I will end where I started. Words are important. Anti-Semitism is a stain on humanity, society and our politics at the moment. We must all match our words with action, and that applies to all of us in this House, including those at the very highest levels of our political parties Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered Holocaust Memorial Day 2018.
I am delighted to have secured this debate, which gives me the opportunity to bring Musgrove Park Hospital—located in Taunton and serving the whole county of Somerset—under the microscope. More particularly, I am focusing on the need to replace some of the oldest buildings, which are providing care to some of the most critically ill patients, with a brand-new £79.5 million surgical centre At the outset, I want to be clear that Musgrove Park Hospital is rated by the Care Quality Commission as good overall and as outstanding for care. That rating was announced following inspections in January 2016, and in August and September 2017. I particularly want to place on record my thanks and appreciation to all the hard-working and dedicated staff across the board at Musgrove and all those who link into it, because without them it would not be the place it is today. The hospital is very much respected locally I want to thank those who have inputted into and informed this speech, including the chief executive, Peter Lewis, and Dr Sam Barrel before him; Dr Stuart Walker, the chief medical officer; and Dr James Sidney. I also thank my London team, but particularly my parliamentary assistant, Katherine Toone, who is moving to pastures new, so this is very much her swansong. I also thank my Taunton team So why am I calling for a new theatre complex at Musgrove and supporting the bid that has recently been submitted to the NHS transformation body? Well, first, like so many people in my constituency, I have a personal link to the hospital. I have lived locally for almost 30 years, and Musgrove has seen my family through a lot. For example, all my three children were born there. The dramatic emergency operation I went through during the birth of my first child will remain in my mind forever but, thanks to the quick reactions of the staff and the professional team, all went well. In all the years that have followed, we, like so many other local families, have been in and out of that hospital for one reason or another, and that is still the case. There is always a personal link that people feel with their local hospital That first experience of the Musgrove Hospital’s operating theatre was 25 years ago. Today, the self-same operating theatres are being used, but even more poignant is the fact that five of the 14 theatres in the hospital have been in use not for 25 years, but for 70 years. They were built in the 1940s by the American forces based in Taunton as a temporary evacuation hospital for the D-day landings. They are still in constant use. They could almost qualify as a museum, but they are still functioning Members might therefore understand why a new complex that will house more up-to-date theatres and associated facilities is urgently needed. Basically, the current theatres are not fit for the demands now being placed on them, and that has been brought home to me following a number of tours of the premises. I have seen staff in the critical care unit having to work in the most cramped conditions imaginable—tiny, narrow corridors where it is tricky to manoeuvre equipment and move beds round. There is also an extreme lack of storage space—I could hardly get in, with all the stuff packed in there. The storage systems seem to have come out of the Ark—there are dank cupboards. It is also a constant juggling act to fit patients in, because there simply is not enough space, and there are not enough isolation rooms Now, Madam Deputy Speaker, let me take you on to the roof, where I have literally been with the estates manager. Up here is located the unbelievably antiquated air conditioning unit, which is housed in what I can only describe as a deteriorating shack. It is so old that there are still notes from electricians on the walls about what they did last time. We do these things digitally now, but there are little scribbled pencil notes—it is historic. The sky is also showing through the crumbling wall at one end, and the hospital has difficulties with the insulation. This system alone is well past its sell-by date The report produced by the CQC following its recent inspection made reference to the environment in the surgery department. The report stated that the premises were not always suitable and noted that some operations were cancelled due to the air conditioning failing in the theatre environment Just clambering across the roof was quite a precarious process, criss-crossed as it is with a complex network of pipes. Members can imagine the wear and tear involved and the maintenance issues, especially when it is cold and snowy. In most modern hospitals, of course, such pipes would be enclosed The 1940s flat roof housing the five theatres at the heart of this debate is key to some of the problems. The roof is in constant need of repair to keep it watertight, which is costly and time consuming. I kid you not, Madam Deputy Speaker: rain water comes through the roof and into the ceilings below, and is often collected in buckets. A couple of years ago, I found myself witness to that as a patient, when I had to go in for an op. It was a dark and stormy day, and as I was wheeled along on the trolley, there were literally buckets collecting water in the corridors. I was a little alarmed. The next thing I knew, as I lay in the operating theatre waiting to go under, I was surrounded by masked figures, who were obviously quite well aware of who I was. In the nicest but firmest possible way, they drew my attention to the dire state of the fabric of the building and urged me to do something about it when I got out. And who could blame them for not taking advantage of that opportunity, pinned as I was to the slab, as they say Those people need not have worried—I thank them, by the way, for the great care I got—because it was already in my mind to try to help, because I had been made aware of the issue before my election and had determined that if I ever got to this place, I would try to do something about it. I raised it with the then—and thankfully current—Secretary of State when he came to Taunton Deane before my election in 2015. I have broached the subject with him many times since arriving here, so I know it is on his radar, and I hope it will also be on the radar of the Minister, whom I thank for his interest so far I reiterate that, despite the challenges presented by the fabric of the buildings, Musgrove continues to deliver the best possible care. Recent figures from the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre show that mortality rates in Musgrove’s intensive treatment unit are the lowest among 20 similar units throughout the UK, so we do not want to worry people on that score. However, I stress that the buildings I am highlighting today were never intended to provide modern and complex hospital care, and they certainly were not intended to cope with the throughput that the hospital faces. Moreover, the critical care section is where the most seriously ill patients are treated, and it includes the operating theatres, where patients undergo a range of operations—general surgery for the local population, as well as more specialist surgery for a much wider population The current facilities simply cannot provide the support required for the provision of 21st-century healthcare, and demands are ever-increasing, as I am sure the Minister knows, especially in a county such as Somerset, given our elderly population. The baby boomers are hitting their 70s and, with Somerset being such a glorious county, people choose to retire there. Although they are welcome, the influx puts even more pressure on our health services. It is a tribute to our health service that on average people can look forward to a longer life, but that brings with it more complex medical issues, and that puts more pressure on our theatres Musgrove, by the way, does not draw its clientele, if I can call them that, just from the county. Owing to the high level of expertise it has developed—this is a great accolade to the hospital—Musgrove has acquired strategic importance to healthcare in the wider south-west. People come from much further afield for its specialist services. For example, vascular surgery patients regularly travel quite long distances for treatment at Musgrove I want to give a few numbers. The trust undertakes approximately 4,000 operations a year, and that figure is growing by 5% each year. As demand escalates, the trust is struggling to keep up. That is already having the unfortunate consequence that many residents of Taunton Deane and further afield are inevitably experiencing longer waiting times, with patients having to be transferred to other providers where possible. Having spoken to many people who have used Musgrove, I know how inconvenient and upsetting it is when people cannot go to their local hospital and suddenly have to transfer much further afield, away from friends and relatives, who find it hard to visit. That adds a lot more stress to the whole situation Let me turn to the practicalities. The call for a new theatre complex is not just based on demand. There are real practical limitations to the current system that need to be addressed. Unfortunately, that can result in the patient experience being compromised—which, I must continue to add, in no way reflects on the staff Musgrove currently has the highest bed occupancy in the south-west. Most of the time the rate is 90%, and best practice is generally recognised as about 70%. In the critical care unit there are 12 beds: six in the high-dependency unit, which is close to the intensive care unit; and six in intensive care. What is needed, and what is in the bid, is capacity for 22 beds: 18 at levels 2 and 3 —level 3 being for those who require the most care—and four at level 1. The idea is to make them flexible, so that they can be swapped from one level to the other when necessary, which cannot be done at present and which would really help. That is almost double the current capacity, which illustrates just what the hospital has been up against At present, bed numbers and space are the limiting factor when it comes to the number of people who can be treated, which I would suggest is pretty unacceptable. As demand for critical care capacity grows, more patients are inevitably in the undesirable position of having major surgery cancelled because the trust cannot guarantee access to a critical care bed following their procedure. For the staff, trying to sort out the bed space is a constant juggling act that must put unnecessary strain on their already pressurised daily lives. I have talked to them, and while they are awfully nice about it, I know that they are under a lot of pressure The new plan also encompasses new facilities for the endoscopy unit. The current premises are outdated and unacceptable. This is a very hard-working department, of which I have had a great deal of experience when family members have had to use it. The unit does not comply with current regulatory healthcare environmental standards, and it does not have the capacity to cope with the existing demands of the diagnostic screening programme, let alone the future growth that we are likely to see. It is great that more people are being called for screening—we are always talking about such things in Parliament—as early diagnosis tends to lead to better outcomes, but that is of no use if the system cannot cope. The crux of the matter is that the long-term sustainability of the complex, providing emergency surgical care, diagnostic screening services and critical care in Somerset, now depends entirely on the replacement of an outdated estate that is no longer fit for purpose—so no pressure there for the Minister Bearing in mind the stark reality of the pressing situation which I hope I have made clear, Musgrove Park has submitted its outline business case for a new £79.5 million phase 2 surgical centre to the NHS transformation body for consideration. I believe that the timing is right. It coincides with the welcome announcement in the autumn budget of £3.5 billion of capital funding for just such projects, which will enable NHS organisations to deliver on their transformation schemes, helping to meet demands for local services, to deliver more integrated care for patients and to reduce waiting times. Other sites have already been redeveloped across the Musgrove estate and are working well The proposed new complex would go a long way towards bringing the entire site up to date. The new surgical centre would be placed in a more central location on the hospital site and would optimise proximity to other clinical services. It would consist of six endoscopy rooms, patient recovery and clinical support areas, eight operating theatres—including two interventional radiology theatres—clinical support and the 22 critical care beds that I mentioned earlier, all specified for the various levels of care. Those new facilities would allow a better patient experience and more efficient working, and would provide sufficient capacity to sustain services. That would have a positive impact on the health and care system in Somerset and beyond There is another reason why the redevelopment is so important, which has been mentioned to me a number of times in the hospital. A spanking, brand-new, state-of-the-art facility would boost morale. It would also help to improve recruitment prospects. I know it is hard to believe, but it is quite tricky to attract bright young talent to Taunton—that beautiful glorious rural area. If we had this wonderful new facility, I think talented young people would be rushing to take up our jobs, and they would be welcomed. I have spoken to the Secretary of State about this issue and the issue of attracting GPs as well, and he thoroughly understands it, so I hope that that will also be considered in assessing the bid I hope I have outlined a clear case for the need for a new surgical centre at Musgrove. In allocating funds, value for money to the taxpayer is also extremely important. Extensive studies have illustrated this. The Minister might say, “Why don’t you just improve the outdated facilities that are there?” But that simply does cut the mustard. Those facilities would not provide a long-term sustainable solution, and they would present very poor value for money. Money spent on basic refurbishment of the existing life-expired facilities cannot address the capacity constraints and would not enable compliance with current standards of healthcare provision or improve the patient experience. Consideration of the Somerset sustainable transformation plan relating to a range of options for sustaining these services for the long term has concluded that the best option is to re-provide the services in a new, modern, high-quality, adaptable building that can meet the needs of patients as medicine and healthcare make further advances So, not to put too stark a point on it, Minister, if these facilities are not updated, there is a risk of critical infrastructure failing. Those are strong words and they are not mine: they come from Musgrove Park. The risk of this occurring would be all but eliminated, together with the threat it might pose to the continuity of services to the patients of Somerset, if the new centre were built. Modern facilities will also provide a better patient experience, enable more efficient working and provide sufficient capacity to sustain services, with a positive impact for the Somerset care system Minister, the good people of Somerset have waited for far too long for this facility and the staff have soldiered on in less than desirable conditions for far too long. This is the only hospital in the south-west not to have such an upgrade. Should the bid be successful—which I sincerely hope it will be for the myriad reasons I have outlined—this project must be started with some urgency because it could take five to six years and that would mean it would not be ready for use until 2023 at the earliest. Therefore, speed is of the essence and that would be most appreciated I am sure that the Minister, and Madam Deputy Speaker, will agree that this is a most deserving case for the £80 million—just £80 million—of the £3.5 billion that this Government have earmarked, which we so welcome, for such projects. The money could not be better spent and the impact could not be greater. The sooner the new surgical centre is started, the sooner it will be finished and the sooner the deserving people of Taunton, and indeed the whole of Somerset and the wider south-west, will be able to start benefiting from it.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) on securing this debate, and I am pleased to be able to join her in discussing a matter of great importance to both her constituency and her family. She powerfully set out her personal links with Musgrove Park and its importance to the community as a whole. The Government recognise the real concerns—which the House got a full flavour of—about Musgrove Park and we are working to address the concerns that my hon. Friend set out. The hospital’s theatres and critical care facilities are housed in pre-war buildings that are at risk of critical infrastructure failure because of their age and condition, and she gave us a clear sense of the urgency of the need to respond to that It is clearly crucial that NHS facilities are as well maintained and up to date as possible. In this case, I am sure my hon. Friend will agree that decisions should be driven by what is best clinically, what is best for the health service in the area, and what is of most benefit to the greatest number of people in the area. It is right that we address these matters at a level where the local healthcare needs are best assessed, rather than doing so solely in Whitehall The Government recognise that Musgrove Park Hospital’s theatres and critical care facilities need to be improved significantly, but that due to the foundation trust’s financial position it is unable to fund the improvements itself. The trust has therefore proposed to invest £79.6 million in the development of modern, fit-for-purpose operating theatres, a critical care unit and an endoscopy unit. The trust is bidding for funds made available through the sustainability and transformation plan capital bidding process As my hon. Friend is aware, the Taunton and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust was informed that it was unsuccessful in its application under the wave 2 capital bidding process, but perhaps it will be encouraged by the fact that it was asked to develop a case with a view to submitting another bid under the wave 3 process, which is now under way. The latest bid submission process was announced in late December 2017 and closes on 31 January. The trust is being supported by the regional NHS Improvement team to ensure that it submits a comprehensive bid The Somerset clinical commissioning group has given its highest priority to the redevelopment of the surgical block at Taunton’s Musgrove Park Hospital. Running in parallel to the process for securing funding, the NHS Improvement regional team is supporting the trust to develop the business cases required for the development of the surgical facilities. I am pleased to learn that Musgrove Park Hospital’s surgical block capital bid has now been submitted and has received support, in principle, from NHS England and NHS Improvement, and will be considered for the next round of announcements for capital. Should its bid be successful, money will then be made available to start work on a new surgical centre at Musgrove Park Hospital. I join my hon. Friend in recognising that lead times for construction work are often very long. That is an area that I am keen for the Department to focus its attention on. On the long-term plans for Somerset hospitals, the Somerset CCG is developing a clinical services review that will consider the views of patients before developing a series of service proposals with the aim of ensuring that family doctors and community hospital and district hospital services are joined up with social care services to provide financially sustainable and high-quality care. I know that my hon. Friend shares the Government’s desire to ensure that we take a more integrated approach to commissioning our services The Taunton and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust was rated as good by the Care Quality Commission in its December 2017 report. That is a tribute to the staff working there. It was rated as outstanding for caring, and rated as good for being effective, responsive and well-led. Surgical services are rated as good overall, having been rated as requiring improvement in the previous report. This followed action being taken to address and resolve issues with theatre safety and surgical site infections. NHS Improvement has no significant clinical quality concerns, and there have been no recent theatre or estate-related significant incidents. However, the latest CQC report mentioned that inspectors had heard of operations being cancelled due to the theatre environment and the air conditioning issues that my hon. Friend mentioned. This highlights the need for improved surgical facilities In closing, I recognise that Musgrove Park Hospital’s theatres and critical care facilities require significant improvement, and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the manner in which she set out such a powerful case for that improvement. Somerset clinical commissioning group has given its highest priority to the redevelopment of the surgical block at Taunton’s Musgrove Park Hospital. I am pleased to learn that the hospital’s surgical block capital bid has been submitted and has received support, in principle, from both NHS England and NHS Improvement. Should the bid be successful, money will then be made available to start work on a new surgical centre at Musgrove Park Hospital. I am sure that my hon. Friend will agree that decisions should be driven locally, and I know that she is particularly focused on that In securing this Adjournment debate, my hon. Friend, as she so often does, has put the case for Taunton Deane. As the Minister responsible, I recognise the importance of the issue both to her and to the community, and I look forward to continued discussions with her as we seek to progress the situation and ensure the best possible care for Taunton Deane and the surrounding area Question put and agreed to.