argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2018-01-18
Topic: Other
Questions: 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?; 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?; 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?; 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?; 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?; 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?; 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?; 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?
Nusrat Munir Ul-Ghani (Conservative, Centre-right): 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.
Select Committee on International Development — House of Commons, 2018-01-18
Topic: Immigration
Thomas Georg John Tugendhat (Conservative, Centre-right): 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.
Select Committee on International Development — House of Commons, 2018-01-18
Topic: Immigration
Philip Thomas Hollobone (Conservative, Centre-right): 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?
RBS Global Restructuring Group and SMEs — House of Commons, 2018-01-18
Topic: Other
Eleanor Fulton Laing (Conservative, Centre-right): 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.
RBS Global Restructuring Group and SMEs — House of Commons, 2018-01-18
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Philip Martin Dunne (Conservative, Centre-right): 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?
RBS Global Restructuring Group and SMEs — House of Commons, 2018-01-18
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Nicky Morgan (Conservative, Centre-right): 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.
RBS Global Restructuring Group and SMEs — House of Commons, 2018-01-18
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Nicky Morgan (Conservative, Centre-right): 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.
RBS Global Restructuring Group and SMEs — House of Commons, 2018-01-18
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Jeremy Mark Quin (Conservative, Centre-right): 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.
RBS Global Restructuring Group and SMEs — House of Commons, 2018-01-18
Topic: Domestic Commerce
William Peter Wragg (Conservative, Centre-right): 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?
RBS Global Restructuring Group and SMEs — House of Commons, 2018-01-18
Topic: Other
Eleanor Fulton Laing (Conservative, Centre-right): 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.
RBS Global Restructuring Group and SMEs — House of Commons, 2018-01-18
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Alister William Jack (Conservative, Centre-right): 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.
RBS Global Restructuring Group and SMEs — House of Commons, 2018-01-18
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Kevin Paul Hollinrake (Conservative, Centre-right): 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?
RBS Global Restructuring Group and SMEs — House of Commons, 2018-01-18
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Robert Alexander Stewart (Conservative, Centre-right): 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.
RBS Global Restructuring Group and SMEs — House of Commons, 2018-01-18
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Stephen Charles Kerr (Conservative, Centre-right): 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.
RBS Global Restructuring Group and SMEs — House of Commons, 2018-01-18
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Edmund Francis Hughes (Conservative, Centre-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?
RBS Global Restructuring Group and SMEs — House of Commons, 2018-01-18
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Stephen Charles Kerr (Conservative, Centre-right): 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.
RBS Global Restructuring Group and SMEs — House of Commons, 2018-01-18
Topic: Domestic Commerce
John Philip Glen (Conservative, Centre-right): 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.
RBS Global Restructuring Group and SMEs — House of Commons, 2018-01-18
Topic: Domestic Commerce
John Philip Glen (Conservative, Centre-right): 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.
RBS Global Restructuring Group and SMEs — House of Commons, 2018-01-18
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Nicky Morgan (Conservative, Centre-right): 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?
RBS Global Restructuring Group and SMEs — House of Commons, 2018-01-18
Topic: Domestic Commerce
John Philip Glen (Conservative, Centre-right): 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.