Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Justin Tomlinson and Philip Davies

Monday 27th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson]

I thank the hon. Lady for that question; she has been a long-standing campaigner against Labour’s work capability assessment, introduced in 2008. We agree: that is why we commissioned five independent reviews and implemented more than 100 recommendations. Working with the Royal College of Psychiatrists, we are making sure that our frontline staff are fully trained to be in the best place to identify people at risk of suicide.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I thank the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince), for his ministerial visit to Macmillan call centre, which is based in my constituency. During his visit, he discussed the idea of people from the jobcentre and others having a dedicated helpline to the call centre so that they could discuss cases urgently. Will the Minister and his team make that a priority?

[Justin Tomlinson]

Macmillan do fantastic work and engage regularly with both me and the Minister with responsibility for welfare delivery. I am delighted that there was such a productive visit to the call centre, which is making a real difference to people in need of support.

Personal Independence Payment Applications

Debate between Justin Tomlinson and Philip Davies

Wednesday 17th June 2015 Westminster Hall

[Justin Tomlinson]

I am afraid I will not because I have only a very short amount of time.

We have made sure that legacy cases are a priority, but they are unique and complex. Often, the cases brought to me are not black and white. We have to recognise that everyone’s application is unique and the medical evidence is complicated. Sometimes, people choose to reschedule their appointments themselves. Sometimes, people chose to fail to attend; are in hospital, which makes face-to-face assessments difficult; or are in prison. Nevertheless, we are making it a priority to clear any legacy cases.

My hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness is a strong voice for his constituents and he rightly highlighted the need to tackle delays. We have demonstrated that we are making good progress, but I will continue to keep a close eye on that. We are looking at rural coverage and have increased the number of assessments. Currently, the rule is that people should be within 60 minutes’ travel in a car, which most people are, or within 90 minutes by public transport. I know that there are challenges in rural constituencies, particularly in Hull. I think my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Peter Heaton-Jones) would have raised that point, and an excellent one it would have been too. People can get face-to-face assessments, they can ask for a taxi, and all travel costs are refunded, so there should be no reason not to come out.

I am conscious of the time, but I want to pick up on some of the points that Members made. I will correspond on any that I miss. My hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) has a very proactive approach. I have visited the centre in Swindon that we share, and I am encouraged. The hon. Member for Workington (Sue Hayman) made a good point about language, and I would be happy to discuss further any areas we can improve, but it is important to remember that carer’s allowance is backdated.

In answer to the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), yes, we have strictly applied service credits, and rightly so. Appointments can be rescheduled, and, if 9 o’clock in the morning is not appropriate, some centres are looking into changing their opening hours if that is what claimants want. We have done some of what was recommended in the full PIP review, and will continue to look at that. I will update Members further in due course.

In response to the hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds), assessments are evidence-based and sensitive to conditions. We will continue to learn because quality is vital. The personal experience of the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) is also vital. I attended the Motor Neurone Disease Association event yesterday, and I would be delighted to meet both it and Parkinson’s UK. I extend that invitation to the hon. Lady.

There are many points that I do not have time to address, but I will quickly say that the roll-out will match capacity and will be done in a calm and cautious manner. I welcome all feedback. The debate has been very proactive, and PIP is a real priority for me so I will keep a close eye on it.

[Philip Davies (in the Chair)]

Mr Stuart, you have 40 seconds or so in which to sum up.

Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill [Lords]

Debate between Justin Tomlinson and Philip Davies

Tuesday 26th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

On the evidence of what has happened so far, has the current groceries code been well utilised since its introduction?

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend asks a good question and strikes at the heart of why the Bill is a nonsense. There is no evidence that the groceries code is being abused. Nobody has yet been able to come forward with any such case. They all give reasons why they cannot do so, but the fact remains that there are none. There is no evidence that the code is not being applied properly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies]

So my hon. Friend does not think that Procter & Gamble is big enough to look after itself. He thinks poor little Procter & Gamble—that poor mite—needs a state adjudicator to intervene on its behalf because it might find itself at the wrong end of an unfair negotiation with a supermarket.

[Justin Tomlinson]

We are on the side of David, not Goliath. It seems eminently sensible that my hon. Friend’s new clauses would focus attention on the genuine David, not on supporting the real Goliath.

[Philip Davies]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. We were told that that was exactly the purpose of the Bill in the first place. When it was being sold to us, nobody said it would benefit Procter & Gamble. As has been rightly said, if we want the adjudicator’s time freed up to look after the small suppliers, we do not want its time being taken up by these big multinational corporations.

As it happens, I am going to say something that might seem controversial, but to be perfectly honest I do not particularly care. If supermarkets are going around screwing Procter & Gamble into the ground to get the cheapest possible price to pass on to their customers, I say, “Good on them!” Procter & Gamble’s profits will not be massively impacted on by the supermarkets. I want supermarkets to negotiate robustly with big companies in order to get prices down for my constituents. The Labour party is supposed to support the working person—the people on fixed incomes—but the early indications are that its Members will vote to protect Procter & Gamble’s interests over the interests of their constituents. What on earth has the Labour party come to, when it sides with Procter & Gamble?

It is not just Procter & Gamble, however. We have Harvest Energy, Green Energy Fuels, Imperial Tobacco, Arla Foods and Gallaher—the top suppliers to supermarkets. The naive people who think that the adjudicator will not empire build are living in cloud cuckoo land. If they think that the adjudicator will not look into all sorts of things, they obviously have no experience of these matters.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies]

I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker.

The hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) misreads the Bill, but I will come to the point about the recovery of investigation costs when we debate the other groups of amendments. The Bill does not say that those costs have to be recovered in that way; it says that they “may” be recovered. He seems to have huge faith in allowing the adjudicator to do just as it pleases, but I do not want it to do just as it pleases. I want it to follow strict rules that will prevent it from empire building, and that is part of the purpose of my new clauses.

[Justin Tomlinson]

The adjudicator will clearly have finite amounts of time and resources. Surely it would be better for it to focus on the smaller suppliers who do not have the confidence or the resources to take on the supermarkets.

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right; that is the purpose of the Bill. The big multinational companies that I have mentioned are the biggest suppliers to the supermarkets, in that they supply the biggest volume of the 40,000 or so products on sale in supermarkets at any given time, and they therefore have the most scope to benefit from the Bill. Why on earth should we wish to enable them to do that? I do not know the answer, and no one has yet argued that Heinz or Nestlé cannot afford to take their contractual disputes to court or explained why we need an adjudicator to act on their behalf. They do not need an adjudicator; they are perfectly big enough and bad enough to look after their own interests without needing an adjudicator to step in, and so are the supermarkets.

When there is an agreement between a huge multinational supermarket such as Asda, which is owned by Wal-Mart, and a huge multinational supplier such as Heinz or Walkers or Nestlé, let them get on with it. If there is then a row about who has broken a particular rule, let them get on and sort it out themselves. Believe you me, Asda needs Heinz products in its stores just as much as Heinz needs Asda to sell its products. It is a perfectly even arrangement between the two; the one could not manage without the other. Let them sort the disputes out between themselves. Why on earth are we legislating to get involved in those disputes? That is completely ridiculous. Members are arguing that the introduction of a groceries code adjudicator will help small suppliers, and supporting new clauses 1 or 2 will give them an opportunity to make it abundantly clear to the House that the Bill is designed to help the smaller suppliers to supermarkets.

I want to explain why I have used the figure of £500 million in new clause 1 and £1 billion in new clause 2, and why—with your permission, Mr Speaker—I shall put new clause 2 to a vote. I have listed some of the suppliers that would be covered by the £1 billion figure in new clause 2. The adjudicator will deal with retailers with a turnover of more than £1 billion. The Bill is effectively saying that other people need protecting from such huge organisations, and that they are too big not to have an unfair advantage in any contract negotiation. The Bill therefore puts in place a kind of backstop. My point is that if a supermarket with a turnover of £1 billion a year is deemed big enough to look after itself without any extra help or support, surely suppliers with a similar turnover are in exactly the same situation. If a supermarket with such a turnover is deemed too big to be trusted to negotiate properly, why would a supplier with a similar turnover need the protection of the adjudicator? Where on earth is the logic in that?