Post Office: Executive Remuneration

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Tuesday 27th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

Do forgive me, my Lords. Perhaps it relates to the chairman or the independent director, and it is a good point in terms of the governance of these arms-length bodies and non-commercial government companies. It is right that we review how governance functions. We all want to hear the results of the review and then work out ways to ensure that these organisations can operate with the independence they need, but with the right level of ministerial scrutiny and oversight. Ultimately, we are accountable to everyone in this House and the other place. Noble Lords and all parliamentarians need to know that we are doing our job without a high degree of interference but are accountable. That is very important, and more will be said in the future.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, is it not encouraging that my noble friend Lord McNicol has already started answering questions from the Dispatch Box? Does that not bode well for the future?

Post Office Horizon: Compensation and Legislation

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Tuesday 27th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

I thank my noble friend. Absolutely, we can compensate only people who come forward. In the different pools, a large number of people who have been identified have not submitted claims for compensation yet. That makes some of the data look as though we have not been responding, when that is not in fact the case. We are here to respond, we are keen to respond, money has been allocated to respond, and we want to make sure that we do the right thing and redress those cases.

My ask to all Members of this House, if they have former constituents, neighbours or people of their association whom they believe should be entitled to compensation, is to ask them to come forward. There is no final date. The closing date has been removed— I think there was supposed to be a closing date in August this year. Clearly, we do not want this to go on for ever; we want people to come forward and get the compensation that is right. I press people to spread the word.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, notwithstanding what I said at Question Time, the Minister has been really helpful in all his replies. I wonder whether he can help me with another. When I was a lot younger, the Post Office and the railways used to run extremely well and they were run by people who had been in the industries all their lives; they knew everything about the Post Office, how it worked, the problems and so on, or about the railways or others as well.

These people were paid reasonable salaries but not hugely differently from the people who worked on the ground. What we have now is chief executives or chairmen who move from industry to industry and then to something else—if you look at Nick Read, he has been at Tesco, Vodafone, HBOS, Lloyds and Thomas Cook. They are supposed to bring the experience from one into the other but they are entirely different kinds of organisations. Then they get paid a salary of £415,000 and a bonus of £455,000. Something has gone wrong. I heard Nick Read give some evidence today and it was not very impressive. We have these people—mostly men, by the way—who move from company to company, getting bigger and bigger salaries and bonuses. Should something not be done about that?

UK-Canada Trade Deal: Suspension of Negotiations

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Tuesday 30th January 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the effect of the suspension of negotiations for a trade deal with Canada.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business and Trade and Scotland Office (Lord Offord of Garvel) (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his Question. The pause in negotiations does not impact our existing trade agreement with Canada, which underpins £26 billion- worth of trade per annum. The UK has decided to pause negotiations towards a new UK-Canada FTA in response to actions taken by Canada that reduce our current market access. Negotiations were launched with public commitments to increase and improve trade. Recent additions by Canada do the opposite. It is right, therefore, to pause the negotiations.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, post-Brexit trade negotiations are in total chaos. George Eustice, who was Environment Secretary in the Cabinet at the time, described the deal with Australia as a “failure”. Now we have pulled out unilaterally from the Canadian deal. Is that because the Secretary of State is too busy plotting, or perhaps because we do not have enough qualified people to negotiate with Canada? On what basis and terms do we crawl back in to ask Canada to restart negotiations?

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

I fundamentally disagree that we are in chaos; quite the opposite. We are making great progress. The first thing that we did when we left the EU was do a trade deal with Europe that involved rolling over trade deals with 65 countries. We have now improved that with a further seven deals. When I was in Canberra two months before Christmas, the Australia deal was held up as one of the best deals it had ever signed. As we move through, because our economy is 80% services and 20% goods, we have now got trade deals that encompass services, digital and innovation.

We wanted to do the same deal with Canada, but Canada crossed one of our red lines. The negotiations have not failed. The noble Lord and I have done many negotiations together—we sometimes have moments of pause. The Canadians have crossed a red line where they know we would never accept the hormone beef trade deal that they want to do with us. We have said no to that, which is why we have stopped.

Post Office Ltd

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Tuesday 30th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

The chairman who is just leaving was not the chairman pre-2015 and he is not receiving any compensation.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I am perplexed: the Statement said that the chairman left by mutual agreement, the Minister spoke earlier about his resignation, but the Secretary of State made it clear that she sacked him. Which was it? Henry Staunton was appointed by a Conservative Secretary of State, so presumably that was a mistake, for which the Minister is apologising. How can the Government make sure that, when they appoint a new chairman, they will not make the same mistake again?

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for that. A key part of making these appointments is to make sure that we have the right people, in the right place, and the right leadership. In this case, we agreed to part company by mutual consent. The point is that there are issues with the governance of the Post Office beyond Horizon. There needs to be further reform of the Post Office and we have to start with the chairman to move that forward.

Employers: Fire and Rehire Tactics

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

This is exactly why flexibility is required, because certain changes of circumstances require the workers and managers of a company to get together with the trade unions and the directors to solve the problem through consultation and consensus, and that is generally what happens in the UK. Indeed, as my noble friend will know, we have a number of measures to help employees back into work.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, is there a code of fire and rehire for Ministers in the Government?

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

I welcome the noble Lord back to Questions. I think that is a very good proposal; we can put it forward to the relevant department.

Scottish Government: Expenditure

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Tuesday 6th June 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they intend to take further action on expenditure by the Scottish Government in relation to reserved matters.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business and Trade and Scotland Office (Lord Offord of Garvel) (Con)]

My Lords, as the Prime Minister has made clear, we will continue to work constructively with the Scottish Government in tackling all the shared challenges that we face. However, in light of the recent Supreme Court ruling, I am concerned at the decision to appoint a Minister for Independence. The Secretary of State for Scotland’s view is that taxpayers’ money could be spent more wisely on delivery for the people of Scotland and on devolved services.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, since it is absolutely clear that the Minister agrees with me, and I think with this whole House, that the Scottish Government should not be spending UK taxpayers’ money on reserved areas, is it not quite outrageous that they are spending £100,000 on a so-called Minister for Independence to go around the country in a party-political campaign to break up Britain? Even worse, there are 20 United Kingdom civil servants supporting him. Since there is only one body that can do anything about it—that is the UK Government, the Minister and his Secretary of State—when is he going to take some action?

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his tenacity on this subject, because I have now been in post for 18 months and this is the sixth Question I have answered for the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, on pretty much the same theme. It is a good theme: what do the UK Government do when they believe that the Scottish Government stray from devolved into reserved matters? We made some progress the last time we spoke in this Chamber; the previous Deputy First Minister, John Swinney, confirmed that he had taken away the £20 million that was going to be spent on the referendum on independence. But then, last week, we had the new head of the Scottish Civil Service, JP Marks, defending the appointment of the Minister for Independence, so we have sort of gone up a ladder and down a snake.

The issue here is that devolution, as devised by the noble Lord’s party, was conceived to be a construct in which the UK and Scottish Governments would work together in unity. It was not envisaged that we would have a situation in which the Scottish Government would seek every opportunity to find division and diversion away from Westminster, and therefore there are no practical levers or mechanics built into the devolution architecture for the UK Government to directly intervene in devolved matters, except through the courts. We already had the ruling in the Supreme Court. The UK Government’s position is to continue to ask the Scottish Government to focus on the real priorities of the people of Scotland and stop this obsession with independence.