Greensill Capital

Emma Lewell-Buck Excerpts

Tuesday 13th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

I am not aware of any communication between Ministers and the British Business Bank about the accreditation of Greensill, which was made independently of Government. There is an ongoing investigation into Greensill, so it would be inappropriate for me to comment at this time.

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)]

Five years ago this week, the former Member for Bolsover was asked to leave the Chamber for using unparliamentary language towards David Cameron regarding his personal finances. Does the Minister now agree that he was, and indeed remains, dodgy?

[Paul Scully]

No.

Building Safety

Emma Lewell-Buck Excerpts

Wednesday 10th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

We do not want any leaseholders to be paying for fire safety defects; we want that to be paid for by the building owners, the developers and the builders—the people who did this in the first place. As I said, there are circumstances where that is not possible, because there are building owners who no longer exist, who have gone bankrupt or who are shell companies overseas. That is the world we are dealing with. This is complex and multifaceted; it is not simple. In those situations where that is not possible, buildings above 18 metres, where the greatest risk lies, will take advantage of the new scheme and no leaseholder in that situation will have to pay for the remediation of unsafe cladding. Below 18 metres, where the risk is significantly lower, guided by our expert opinion, the financing arrangements will be in place. This is a comprehensive plan to provide comfort, reassurance, certainty and confidence to as many leaseholders as possible.

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab) [V]]

Yesterday, it was revealed that the company that made the Grenfell Tower cladding shamefully and knowingly sold flammable materials to construction projects because it was about £4 cheaper than fire-retardant cladding. It has taken the Government all these years to propose measures that will stop companies prioritising savings over life, yet they still have not bothered to identify all the buildings, including care homes and hospitals, that may have unsafe cladding. Why is that?

[Robert Jenrick]

The hon. Lady is wrong; as a matter of fact, we moved swiftly. We set up the Grenfell inquiry, which has heard those shocking allegations. We brought forward the Judith Hackitt review of building safety, which concluded that the regulatory regime needed to change. We have drafted and are now bringing forward the legislation to do that. I hope that the hon. Lady and Opposition Members will vote for the Fire Safety Bill and the Building Safety Bill when they come before this House soon, because that is the best way of creating the new regime, holding developers to account and making sure that local fire and rescue services and councils have the powers they need to take action against unsafe buildings.

I, too have been shocked by the allegations I have heard at the inquiry, which is why, as an interim step, before we hear the judge’s recommendations, I have announced that we are going to create a new national regulator of construction products and that I am going to review the testing procedures for construction products, which seem to be woefully inadequate.

CCRC Decision on 44 Post Office Prosecutions

Emma Lewell-Buck Excerpts

Monday 5th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

Yes, the Honours Committee and any future employers need to look at the background of any person involved in this. However, as I said, the inquiry is independent, and I do not want to stamp my authority on it. It is now for Sir Wyn Williams to question people and get answers. I want everyone, including people at the Post Office who were involved and are now no longer employed there, to engage in the process.

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)]

For years, pleas from MPs to address this scandal have been ignored because of the Government’s cosy relationship with the Post Office. My constituents Kevin and Julie Carter and Dionne Andrew, like hundreds of others, have had to fight for justice every step of the way as they try to clear their names. They have lost more than the Minister can ever comprehend. What protections will the Government put in place so that never again can powerful organisations behave in this way and use the criminal courts with such unaccountability?

[Paul Scully]

I am glad to report that the Post Office is not using private prosecutions any more—the Justice Committee met last week to talk about private prosecutions—but the hon. Member is absolutely right to talk about her constituents and the losses they have suffered. I am glad that the independent inquiry will be able to get to the bottom of that to make sure that it can never happen again.

Post Office and Horizon Software

Emma Lewell-Buck Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2020 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. I thank the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker), whose personal experience is welcome in today’s debate. I thank the hon. Member for Telford (Lucy Allan) for securing the debate. She outlined the background and history to this long, complex and shameful episode, presided over by the Post Office and a Government who I believe have so far sidestepped responsibility for the hundreds of lives ruined by this scandal.

From the outset of the Post Office introducing the Horizon computer system, sub-postmasters were reporting problems. Instead of the Post Office listening to them, it took the draconian approach of terminating contracts, hounding sub-postmasters out of their businesses and pursuing prosecutions. As we have heard this afternoon, the results were charges of theft and fraud, reputational damage, loss of homes, bankruptcy, loss of life savings and, for some, the loss of their freedom. It took until December last year, when there was a judgment, for the Post Office to admit that it “made mistakes” and “got things wrong”. This was more than mistakes and getting things wrong; it ruined people’s lives.

It is an utter insult to tell my constituents who have suffered this injustice that it was simply a mistake. The Post Office’s mistakes cost Kevin Carter, who ran one of our local post offices with his wife, absolutely everything. His wife Julie noticed discrepancies in Horizon from the outset. She frequently reported concerns, but they fell on deaf ears. Being decent people, they began to use their own money to balance the books.

After continually raising concerns over several years, and with shortfalls increasing, Julie was invited to an informal disciplinary meeting. The Post Office demanded she pay back the unaccounted moneys and accused her of fraud. After remortgaging their home, Kevin and Julie were forced to pay the Post Office a total of £75,000. Julie suffers from multiple sclerosis, and the situation exacerbated her condition. She and Kevin had worked hard. They had a lovely home and employed 14 staff. Their lives have now completely changed for the worse. Kevin and Julie, like many others, never gave up. They joined the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance, and an exhausted Kevin recently told me, “Quite simply, we’ve lost our family home. We’ve lost everything.” It literally cannot get worse than that.

Another constituent, Dionne Andre, bought two post offices in South Shields. After noticing discrepancies, and being a decent, honest person, she too started using her own money to try to put things right. Accused of fraud after the Post Office lost a recording of a disciplinary meeting with her, she was told, “Pay up, or we’re sending you to prison.” Dionne paid £70,000, but she was never told by the Post Office whether it had dropped the fraud case against her, so she continued to live in constant fear of being arrested. She was then told by the Post Office that she had to resign. She was forced to sell her business at a £50,000 loss and the Post Office prevented her from selling her second business, for which she had paid a quarter of a million pounds. She lost absolutely everything. Dionne is now in her 40s, but she had a promising future back in her early 30s. She told me that her working life has now gone, and it has taken years for her to try to build it back up.

Anyone who has ever had to fight for justice over a number of years, in order to clear their name when they are losing everything, will know that it can take its toll, physically and mentally. The reputational damage and utter shame, for something that they know they were not responsible for, will stay with them forever. I think we can all agree that mud always sticks, yet the people responsible are doing just fine. That is why nothing less than an independent, judge-led inquiry into this miscarriage of justice will do.

After legal costs, the damages payouts awarded will amount to only about £10 million for 550 people. In short, they are never going to get back the money they lost. For those wrongly convicted, their criminal record remains. Although some of these cases are being reviewed, they should all be reviewed. It is not good enough for successive Ministers to wash their hands and repeat the mantra that the Post Office operates as a commercial independent business and they have no day-to-day control over it. Given that it is a state-owned private company, the Government have a statutory duty to be involved in the Post Office—a duty that they have abdicated.

In the other place, the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, Lord Callanan, recently admitted that the Government were passive in their duties on the board of the Post Office. Why did they allow the Post Office to spend phenomenal sums of money on persecuting innocent people in the courts? Why did they not speak up for sub-postmasters? More importantly, who is the Government’s representative? Surely the Government should pay up for the legal costs incurred, or at least put pressure on the Post Office to do so.

The Post Office’s sheer obstinance and obfuscation has been left unchallenged by the Government. It has been left to former sub-postmasters in the depths of despair to organise and fight for justice, but justice is still being denied. Their financial recompense is pitiful, and the lack of accountability and action against those responsible is completely woeful. The Government need to take culpability and stop abdicating their responsibility for those who are being denied justice. Given that this is not a new issue, I sincerely hope that the Minister has come prepared and can furnish us with some hope and positivity—for a change.

Oral Answers to Questions

Emma Lewell-Buck Excerpts

Monday 22nd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I will look into the matter and come back to my hon. Friend.

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)]

Representatives of nearly 50% of children’s services have said that they no longer feel able to keep children safe. Recent research has shown that private fostering, children’s homes and social worker agencies have amassed an estimated annual profit of £220 million, while simultaneously costing local authorities £20 million. At what point will the Government put the needs of vulnerable children before private profit?

[Rishi Sunak]

It is for local authorities to decide how best to conduct children’s services in their areas, and it would not be right for me to stand at the Dispatch Box and tell them exactly how to contract. I will say this, however. When it comes to protecting the most vulnerable children in our society, the Government have ensured, through the troubled families programme, that hundreds of thousands of the most vulnerable families are receiving the targeted, intensive support they need so that their children can be kept out of care and they can stay strong together.

Oral Answers to Questions

Emma Lewell-Buck Excerpts

Monday 8th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Lady identifies a significant intention of ours on planning policy, which is to put local communities of all types and in all parts of the country in control of planning. It is the case, unfortunately, that over the past 30 or 40 years many neighbourhoods have felt that they are victims of the planning system rather than its masters. We are keen to promote the use of neighbourhood plans in all sorts of areas—urban, rural or wherever it might be—so that local people are in control of the disposition, size, place and type of housing they want, subject to their joining us in the general mission to satisfy what is undoubtedly a huge desire in the next generation for new homes.

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)]

8. What steps his Department is taking to reduce the death rate among homeless people.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Mrs Heather Wheeler)]

Every death of someone who is homeless is one too many, and we have a moral duty to act. We are committed to ending rough sleeping for good and aim to halve it by 2022. Our strategy, which commits us to £100 million to tackle rough sleeping, is funding more than 1,750 bed spaces and 500 new staff through the rough sleeping initiative.

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

I thank the Minister for that response. An estimated 120 homeless people in the north-east have died since 2013—a staggering increase of 71%. Those 120 lives mattered and they deserve some recognition. The Government have said that local authorities need to investigate fully the circumstances of such deaths, yet have failed to provide any funding or support to ensure that those investigations happen. Is that because people dying on our streets are not really a priority for this Government?

[Mrs Wheeler]

Obviously, the figures that the hon. Lady reads out are desperate and sad news. We are working with the Department of Health and Social Care to ensure that when a homeless person dies, a safeguarding adult review takes place, where appropriate. The safeguarding adult review process was set up not to review every death of an adult considered to require safeguarding but as a process for learning lessons where the safeguarding adults board is of the view that local partners could have done more to prevent a death resulting from abuse or neglect.

Oral Answers to Questions

Emma Lewell-Buck Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

None.

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)]

14. What progress the Government have made on the delivery of the northern powerhouse.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Jake Berry)]

Growing the whole north is crucial to the delivery of our northern powerhouse. Since the northern powerhouse strategy was launched, direct foreign investment in the north has increased at a rate double that of the national average, and unemployment throughout the north is now lower than the national average.

[Mrs Lewell-Buck]

I thank the Minister for his response and extend to the new Secretary of State an invitation to come to Shields and explain to my constituents why, when the Government launched the northern powerhouse four years ago, they promised increased growth and increased employment, yet in the time since, growth in Shields has been painfully slow and unemployment stubbornly remains higher than in the rest of the north-east.

[Jake Berry]

I am a bit more optimistic for the north-east than the hon. Lady, because we are now entering a new golden era for the north-east, which can be seen in the Government’s commitment of more than £300 million—[Interruption.] Does the hon. Lady want to hear about what we are doing for the north-east? That new golden era can be seen in the Government’s commitment of more than £300 million to the Tyne and Wear metro, which the hon. Lady campaigned for, and in the historic devolution deal north of the Tyne. On top of that, this summer the first great exhibition in this country for 160 years will take place in Newcastle-Gateshead, showing that the north-east is at the heart of our northern powerhouse.