Post Office Horizon Scandal

Marion Fellows Excerpts

Wednesday 10th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Scottish National party spokesperson.

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

I thank the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Sir David Davis) for securing this very important urgent question. I am sorry that it was not a statement, because then I would have had prior sight of what the Minister was going to say.

When we stood here on Tuesday, I asked how long “some time” would be, and I am glad that things are progressing quickly, although with a note of caution—I totally understand the hesitation to introduce any kind of blanket Bill or whatever. We need to move things forward and keep up the momentum from the ITV series in the press, here and everywhere.

We also still need to listen to the victims. Only this morning, some of the postmasters said that we should all stop referring to compensation, but refer instead to financial redress. This is not compensation but money due to them, and we need to get it to them as quickly as possible. The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully) said that some people do not want to go anywhere near justice or the Post Office. We must encourage people to come forward. I am meeting constituents who were involved who have not officially approached me yet, and I am sure that many others across the House will be in exactly the same position.

Scottish law is different, as the Minister is well aware. The Cabinet Secretary for Justice made a statement yesterday, and said that the Scottish Government were looking at Fujitsu contracts, which is really important. I cannot speak for the Scottish Government, but I know there will be no hesitation in moving things forward. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on post offices, I will write to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service in Scotland.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question and, once again, for her work in the all-party parliamentary group for post offices. I am sorry that I was not able to share a statement with her, and I appreciate her welcoming what we have done today.

I am very happy to term this “redress”; it is only about putting people back where they would have been, and trying to make good what has happened to them. I understand what she says about compensation, but this is there to compensate people financially for losses and impacts on their lives.

I could not agree more that, as well as delivering compensation more quickly and fairly, the No. 1 thing we would like to happen is for more people to come forward. A simplified process that does not require postmasters themselves to file an appeal will mean that this is done more quickly. The routes to compensation have been simplified, and we very much hope that people will come forward. That seems to be our experience right now. We will continue to engage with the devolved Administrations to ensure that they have everything they need, as they may want to adopt similar measures.

Horizon: Compensation and Convictions

Marion Fellows Excerpts

Monday 8th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

Mr Deputy Speaker, you were in the Chair when we last discussed the Post Office (Horizon System) Compensation Bill on 19 December. I do not think any of us who knew about the TV drama would have believed the impact it has had. It is bittersweet that it is had such an effect. It is really telling that MPs, peers, the media and many others tried to bring this issue into the public consciousness, but none of us managed to do so as effectively as a TV drama.

I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement. Today I have been contacted by local sub-postmasters who want to meet me. They were never prosecuted, but they had shortfalls and paid money back to the Post Office. Many of them just walked away and retired, and they now have no evidence of what happened. When a sub-postmaster walks away from a post office, all the financial documentation goes back to Post Office Ltd. Can we have a thought on that, Minister?

Will the Minister confirm that all the money that went back to Post Office Ltd enhanced the profits on which, over the years, many bonuses were paid to Post Office executives? Will pressure be put on those people to repay those bonuses? I disagree with very little of the Minister’s statement, and I think there is consensus across the Chamber on this, but some words sprang out at me: “very shortly” and “in due course”. Can we please have fixed timelines for the reports?

I commend Sir Wyn Williams, whom I first met when he took on the inquiry before it became statutory. It sounds ridiculous for me to say that I was impressed by him, but I really understood that he was going to get to the bottom of what happened. He has done that in spite of grievous failures on behalf of Post Office Ltd.

There must be accountability for everyone in Post Office Ltd and Fujitsu who prosecuted and persecuted sub-postmasters over the years. I pledge that SNP Members will continue to put pressure on Governments of any colour to keep the momentum going to ensure that real justice is served, even if that involves more pressure on the former CEO and on the people who received honours because of their work for Post Office Ltd. [Interruption.] I see the Minister nodding and know he agrees with me.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I thank the hon. Lady for her questions and, indeed, for her work on the all-party group on post offices. In terms of the case she raises of the postmasters who have suffered financially and in which there will be difficulty in providing information because of lack of evidence, the benefit of the doubt should clearly be with the postmasters in this situation. The Horizon shortfall scheme is there to compensate people in that situation. If she needs any help with any of those cases I am very happy to assist.

On whether people repay bonuses or whatever else people might be held accountable for, in order to be fair we should wait for the results of the inquiry. We believe in process in this House and it is right that people have a right to reply and give their own evidence. I agree with the hon. Lady’s confidence in Sir Wyn Williams, who is doing a tremendous job.

I am sorry that I cannot be more precise on the timescales, but I will be very disappointed if we go past the end of this week without giving more information to the House. I entirely agree with the hon. Lady about the accountability of individuals both for all reasons of justice and to act as a deterrent to anybody else who is ever tempted to do the wrong thing in such circumstances. These corporate failures and corporate abuses cannot continue and we need to make sure people realise that if it happens, they will be held to account.

Post Office (Horizon System) Compensation Bill

Marion Fellows Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 19th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully). In no way do I want the speech I am about to give to seem mean-spirited, but things have to be said, so I will say them, and I hope in a justifiable way. While the Bill is welcome, to ensure that no Horizon victims who were part of the group litigation order miss out on compensation, we must ensure that despite the extension, all efforts are made to compensate victims fairly as soon as possible. I thank the Minister for his remarks on that in his opening speech.

It is hard to see why such a Bill, which does nothing more than empower the Secretary of State to pay compensation, has taken so long to get here. Concerns were first published in the media in 2009. In 2015, the Post Office scrapped its independent investigation into the system by Second Sight the day before the report was due to be published. Post Office Ltd conceded a court case admitting Horizon faults more than four years ago, on the day of the last general election—a move that seems to have been timed to avoid scrutiny.

Calls for compensation have been clear and long. This Bill could have been passed in the first months of this Parliament, but it was not. It is now coming to the fag end of this Parliament, and we need to move on. I know that everyone is committed to that, but facts are facts. We still have no idea, three and a half years after settling, why the situation was allowed to go on for so long.

Many victims, as we are all well aware, have sadly passed away, and some by their own hand. They never saw proper justice and proper compensation for the years of trauma they endured at the hands of Post Office Ltd. Their families still suffer. The ongoing inquiry has been blighted by further delay and disclosure issues by Post Office Ltd. Each inquiry delay disgracefully delays justice and the payment of compensation. There must be no further setbacks obstructing the delivery of justice. The inquiry has uncovered further scandal upon scandal, and the pervasive culture throughout Post Office Ltd between 1999 and today has been one of dishonesty, incompetence and deceit, raising further questions over all Post Office convictions in this period, not just those linked to Horizon.

The actions of Post Office Ltd employees at various levels and in various departments, including those responsible for auditing and investigations and in the legal departments, have been brought to light in the most recent stage of the inquiry. At every level, there was clear culpability. The boastful manner in which some of those responsible celebrated the convictions of innocent sub-postmasters, while knowing of Horizon bugs, adds insult to injury for victims.

The Bill is too narrow in its scope, and in the interests of justice, it should be broadened to ensure that everyone who has been investigated and convicted by Post Office Ltd has their case investigated to ensure that no other miscarriages of justice have happened. There are still questions to be answered about the Post Office’s co-operation with the inquiry and its relationship with Fujitsu, past and present. In April 2023, Post Office Ltd renewed the contract with Fujitsu, which created and provided the Horizon software, for another year. So far, Fujitsu has avoided any financial penalties as a result of the faulty software, with the burden falling on the Government and Post Office, but in January 2022 Members of the other place said that Fujitsu should dig into its pockets for doing nothing while the scandal unfolded in front of its eyes. The inquiry is investigating how much Fujitsu was aware of the problems with its software, the risk of false reporting and what could have been done to prevent the tragedy.

Gareth Jenkins, the former chief architect at Fujitsu, was due to give evidence at the statutory public inquiry on 6 and 7 July this year. So far, he has not been able to do so. Some 4,767 documents, including some that are significant to Jenkins’s evidence, were only received from Post Office at 10.32 pm on 5 July, allowing no time for lawyers to analyse them. He was scheduled to give evidence after the summer break, and he subsequently asked for a guarantee that his testimony could not be given as evidence against him, which was denied. We are still waiting to hear from him. I therefore support amendment 1, tabled by the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), which would ensure that we know the whole truth about the alleged errors carried out by Post Office Ltd, beyond Horizon. All potential victims of the practices of Post Office Ltd must get the justice they deserve.

Beyond that, real questions need to be asked of successive UK Governments—whether Labour or Tory—who allowed the scandal to fester under their watch. As the sole shareholder in Post Office Ltd, successive UK Governments have utterly failed in their oversight of the company, allowing the most widespread miscarriage of justice to continue for two decades.

Even in more recent times, the current UK Government have allowed repeated scandals to occur, with bonusgate being one of the many despicable recent episodes that have brought yet more shame to a once trusted national institution. The Secretary of State for Business and Trade described the debacle as

“news to us as Ministers.”

However, documents obtained through a freedom of information request by campaigner Eleanor Shaikh show that Ministers and officials endorsed the Post Office inquiry metric as part of their approval of its chief executive officer and chief financial officer in the transformation scheme. A letter requesting approval was sent to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy’s permanent secretary and accounting officer in July 2021, outlining details comprehensively. The document was then sent to the Secretary of State for Energy and Industrial Strategy, and Ministers gave their endorsement five months after the inquiry became statutory. Likewise, the UK Government Investments representative on the board was well aware of the inquiry’s sub-metric.

It is absolutely clear that Post Office Ltd’s current system of governance needs to be addressed immediately to ensure a greater level of oversight and transparency in decision making by the Government and the UKGI representative on the Post Office Ltd board. There are questions to be answered about Post Office’s co-operation with the inquiry and its past and present relationship with Fujitsu. The management of Post Office Ltd has been exposed, and questions remain over its continued stewardship of our post office network. Indeed, I became interested in post offices because of the decline in the network, knowing nothing of Horizon at the time.

Earlier this year, London Economics produced a report showing that the social value delivered by Post Office is 16 and a half times greater than the financial input it receives from the Government. Closures have picked away at the post office network, as the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam mentioned. The Department for Business and Trade must do more to protect communities.

I extend my sympathies to the victims of this scandal, who still endure the trauma inflicted by Post Office Ltd. The Minister is right: we are all here today to make sure that people get the compensation they deserve. However, some of the figures are sobering. I understand that some of the problems may be due to the difficulty of making a claim in the first place, and I thank Dan Neidle for his exposure of that.

I pay tribute to all the campaigners. I will also make a special apology—to Alan Bates—because at one point, when I did not realise the significance of what had happened, I said that I did not believe in witch hunts. I still do not believe in them, but evidence is building against those who have made serious mistakes and errors, and who, in some cases, have hidden facts.

I was pleased to hear the Minister talk about corporate and individual responsibility, which is really important. I thank him for saying that compensation claims will still be pursued vigorously. This is really a technical Bill to allow payments to carry on, and they must do so as speedily and efficiently as possible. Nothing can make up for the trauma that so many people have gone through, but we need to compensate those who have suffered, and we need to compensate them properly, well and timeously.

Auditory Verbal Therapy

Marion Fellows Excerpts

Tuesday 12th December 2023 Westminster Hall

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship, Dame Maria. I will give the view from Scotland, which is probably what most people in the room expect me to do, because the NHS in Scotland is different. However, before I start, I thank the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart) for securing this important debate, and the charity AV UK for its briefing.

The Scottish Government want to make Scotland the best place to grow up for deaf children and those who have hearing loss, based on their “Getting it right for every child”—GIRFEC—approach. The Scottish Government fund the Scottish Sensory Centre and CALL Scotland to provide advice and training to school staff on support, including the use of assistive technology, for children and young people with specific communication and sensory needs. In fact, there is a unit attached to a primary school in my constituency.

As we know, auditory verbal therapy supports deaf children to learn how to make sense of the sound they receive through their hearing technology, such as hearing aids or cochlear implants, so that they can learn to talk like their hearing friends and family. It is an intensive programme of therapy that focuses on the development of active listening, or auditory, skills and speaking, or verbal, skills. This highly specialist early-intervention family-centred coaching programme equips parents and care-givers with the tools needed to support the development of a deaf child’s spoken language.

The charity Auditory Verbal UK has done good work in Shetland. There are only two AV specialists in Scotland, and I welcome the fact that the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye talked about the dearth of specialists across the UK and about how little it would cost to improve the numbers and the training in particular specialisms. One would hope that Scotland would get the Barnett consequentials for that.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

On the point about the lack of individuals who are skilled up to deal with this issue, which the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart) also made, does the hon. Lady agree that today’s debate might play a small part in ensuring that various Departments, wherever they are in the UK, will skill up the necessary personnel so that we do not face this problem in five or 10 years’ time?

[Marion Fellows]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman, because the issue is really important. We are discovering new ways of helping deaf children. We need not just to have the technology but to train the people to help deaf children.

In general, concerns have been raised that young children’s language development has been affected by the public health measures implemented to prevent and control the spread of covid-19. Again, we have a backlog of things that need to be done.

Developing channels for better communication is vital for a child or young person’s development and wellbeing. Speech and language therapy generally supports children and young people with communication needs, as those needs may interfere with everyday life. Treatment approaches aim to enable children, young people and their carers to maximise their skills. In Scotland, NHS health boards and local authorities are responsible for the provision of, and funding for, services for deaf children. That includes the provision of specific therapeutic approaches.

The Scottish Government are, as ever, committed to improving the services, support and care available to people with any kind of sensory deprivation. Their long-term strategy, See Hear, commits to ensuring that children, young people and adults have the same access as everyone else to opportunities and public services, including health, social care, education and leisure.

In 2019, the first UK-wide allied health professions public health strategic framework, which went from 2019 to 2024, was published by all four nations. It was intended to help AHPs and partners further develop their role in public health. As the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye said, we need money to make things better, and we need more investment by all Governments, including the UK Government, to make this approach work.

In the Scottish Government’s Scottish allied health professions public health strategic framework implementation plan for 2022 to 2027, several examples show AHPs in action and provide examples of good practice in Scotland. One case study highlights the speech and language therapy at NHS Forth Valley as

“a transformational approach for children and young people”.

The Scottish Government’s shared vision is that children and young people in Forth Valley will demonstrate improved outcomes through access to a speech and language therapy service

“that is based on relationships”—

again, we are talking about people—and that

“is accessible, person centred, outcome focused, integrated and delivers quality universal, targeted and individualised support.”

Again, it is important that we up the number of specialists so that those with cochlear implants, for example, learn to hear and speak very early on.

There is also the Scottish Sensory Centre, which is for

“everyone who is involved in the education of deaf children, deafblind children and visually impaired children and young people, the young people themselves”

and importantly, their families. Its mission is

“to foster educational, research and development activities relating to children and young people with a sensory impairment in Scotland.”

It also aims to support the Scottish Government

“by embracing the values and principles of ‘Getting it Right for Every Child’ and by promoting a positive ethos that reflects the components of a Curriculum for Excellence.”

That is a different way of giving cross-subject education to young people, and it works extremely well in primary schools in Scotland.

CALL Scotland is a support service to help children and young people across Scotland

“to overcome disability and barriers to learning”,

and it is funded primarily by the Scottish Government. CALL Scotland’s service includes pupil assessment support, professional learning, specialist information and expert advice, assistive technology loans and technical support, and strategic leadership. It is intended for managers, teachers and everyone who works with, in this case, deaf children.

“Getting it right for every child” is the national approach in Scotland, and it is about supporting all children. However, it would be especially useful if we could encourage more auditory and verbal specialists to come to Scotland and promote the good work that society already does there.

It is important that there is additional support not only within but outwith education, so that there is a whole-child approach and not just action in schools. Education authorities can speak to other agencies, and they work closely with NHS boards and social work services in Scotland to help deaf children. That multi-agency support is an excellent model.

I fully support the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye in her appeal, and I hope that the debate focuses minds in Governments across the UK on this problem.

Rural Postal Services: Sustainability

Marion Fellows Excerpts

Wednesday 25th October 2023 Westminster Hall

[Jamie Stone]

Perhaps I asked for that one.

As I said, there are ways of keeping the post offices open. Getting rid of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency services is absolutely not one of them.

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

On that note, the withdrawal of DVLA services, due to take place in March next year, is abominable, and will further cut the amount that sub-postmasters can earn. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Government should invest in the future of the rural network, pay sub-postmasters enough to allow them to continue providing their vital services to local communities, and get more business into these vital outlets for rural communities?

[Jamie Stone]

The hon. Lady makes an extremely good intervention.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Kevin Hollinrake)]

It is a pleasure, Mr Hosie, to speak with you in the Chair. I congratulate the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) on securing this important debate on a subject close to my heart, as a rural MP.

The post office network plays a unique and vital role as part of the UK postal system. Although consumers have more choice than ever when it comes to purchasing postal products, many still turn to bricks-and-mortar post offices. As the hon. Member rightly said, post offices are part of the social fabric of our communities.

There are currently over 6,000 rural branches, which constitute 54% of the total post office network. Over 3,000 of those rural branches are described as the last shop in the village. Recent research highlights how vital these branches are. They enable people to access vital services without needing to drive or use public transport. They are particularly cherished by older people and those who might struggle to travel far to access services. In my constituency we have lots of bus passes but not many buses, so it is very important that those rural post offices exist, as they are also integral to businesses operating in rural areas because of their important role in providing access to cash.

Cash being the word, the Government have provided significant financial support to sustain the network nationally, adding up to more than £2.5 billion over the last 10 years. The Government are providing a further £335 million for the Post Office for the period between 2022 and 2025. As part of that support, the Government have committed to maintaining the annual £50 million subsidy to safeguard services in the uncommercial parts of the network until 2025.

The Government protect the sustainability of the branch network, and the rural network in particular, by providing funding on the basis that the Post Office meets its minimum access criteria, to ensure that across the country 99% of the population live within 3 miles of their nearest post office, as the hon. Member referred to. The Post Office meets its access criteria obligations nationally, making it the largest retail network in the UK with an unrivalled reach, especially in rural areas. Indeed, in 2022 98% of the rural population lived within 3 miles of their nearest branch.

The Government remain committed to the long-term sustainability of the Post Office, but we have to recognise that there is not a bottomless pit of money. Of course, with a network of this size, we are likely to see a fluctuation in the number of branches that are open at any one time. However, the network is certainly not in decline at a national level. As its chief executive officer recently confirmed, the network is as large today as it has been for five years, with around 11,700 branches open.

[Marion Fellows]

The count of the number of post offices includes drop and go facilities. Those are not in any sense post offices, as all Members here would recognise them. Does the Minister think that is fair?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Drop and go branches perform an important service, as do mobile post offices, of course. However, there is no doubt that there are challenges in maintaining the size of the network, which I will come to shortly. Of course this is public money that we are spending, so we must ensure that it is spent well, while being appropriate to the need locally, particularly in rural areas.

The percentage of the network serving rural communities has remained steady at 53% since 2016. We appreciate that it is very challenging for communities that lose their post office service and the Post Office endeavours to restore services as quickly as possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Hollinrake]

As I said earlier, I am bound to stand up for rural areas, just like the hon. Lady and others in this debate, but there is a limit to taxpayers’ money, and we are talking about £2.5 billion over 10 years and significant funding requirements now, in terms of the needs of both the network and the compensation schemes, which I will refer to in a second. We do not have a bottomless pit of money. However, there are other measures we can take, which I will mention, to make the Post Office sustainable and make individual branches profitable, which is the key to this conversation.

Returning to specific branches, I am glad that the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross referenced the Balintore post office, which reopened at the Seaboard Memorial Hall last year, thanks to the efforts of the post office and the hall’s committee, and indeed Maureen, the postmaster. However, we are in no way trying to pretend that the rural network is not facing challenges—not at all. As I have said before, the Post Office works with communities to ensure that services are maintained, and the Government’s access criteria ensure that however the network changes, services remain within local reach of all citizens.

My hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Alan Mak) rightly references post boxes, which are another key part of this matter. Royal Mail is there to ensure that there is a post box within half a mile of the premises of at least 98% of users of postal services. If that is not the case, I am very happy to engage with my hon. Friend to get answers for him and change in his local area.

My hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Dr Hudson) challenges the Government on what more we can do to ensure the sustainability of post offices. It is important we take into account that many of the challenges facing post offices are because of the changes in consumer habits—just like the rest of the high street, which is seeing those changes too. That is also related to Government services such as driving licences, passports and other similar services, mentioned by the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows), who does a fantastic job as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on post offices. Many consumers now want to access such services online, which can be done very efficiently. I do not think it is for us to dictate to those citizens how they access those kinds of services if they can do so more quickly and efficiently online. That would be the wrong thing to do.

[Marion Fellows]

The Government will be dictating to our constituents how they access those services if they are withdrawn from post offices, because digitally excluded people will not be able to use them online.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

If that was what the Government were doing, that would be something the hon. Lady could hold us to account for, but that is not the case. There is a clear negotiation between different Government Departments over the cost of providing those services, with negotiations between the passport service, the DVLA and the post office network itself. I very much hope there is a good commercial relationship that properly remunerates postmasters for the work they do, which is key.

As I say, there has been a diminution of hundreds of millions of pounds in revenue into the post office network because of the change in consumer habits, so we need to find ways to make the network sustainable in its own right. We do not have a bottomless pit of money. We are talking about £2.5 billion over 10 years. This year, the UK economy deficit in terms of public spending, expenditure and income will be about £140 billion.

The hon. Member for Selby and Ainsty (Keir Mather), whom I welcome—this is the first time I have responded to him in a debate—challenges us to do more and provide more funding. There are challenges with that. To govern is to choose, so we have to be careful how we spend taxpayers’ money. Nevertheless, we want to make sure that the post office network is sustainable in its own right, wherever possible, to ease the burden on the taxpayer. We are, of course, determined to retain the network wherever possible and to find ways to do that.

The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) rightly raises the issue of the banking framework. This is a relationship between banks and post offices, in terms of how post offices are renumerated for providing many of the services banks used to provide when they had branch networks across the country. Since 2015, there have been 5,500 bank closures—at the last count—across the network and collectively across the different high street brands. That saves those banks somewhere in the region of £2.5 billion to £3 billion a year.

We are very keen for the Post Office, in its negotiations with the banks via UK Finance or other means of negotiation, to get a better deal and better remuneration from that relationship. Increases in remuneration should go, wherever possible, into the branch network or into automation to make those branches work more efficiently, so that they can be more profitable. A key thing that we would like to see is a fairer relationship, which shares some of the savings banks are making from the closing of their branches with the network that is providing those services since their closure. While we want to see access to post office services retained for our communities, we also want things like access to cash, both in terms of dispensing cash and cash deposits. That is vital, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises, and for the 2 million people in this country that do not have a bank account and the 8 million people who use cash every single week.

PANS and PANDAS

Marion Fellows Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2023 Westminster Hall

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting, and the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) for securing, this really important debate. I also thank PANS PANDAS UK for its briefing and for the work that it is doing to make more people aware of this terrible condition.

The hon. Member, in her very interesting speech, covered all the various things that families suffer when their children have PANS or PANDAS. It is terrifying for me, as a mother and grandmother, to listen to the horrifying stories from across the Chamber. I am a frequent visitor to Westminster Hall, but I have scarcely ever heard things more profoundly distressing or more echoed across the Chamber. There is a united presence here, and we really need to hear something from the Minister today.

I will not rehearse everything that the hon. Member for North East Fife and other Members said, but the fact that families are having to turn to private healthcare is really upsetting. I know from personal experience how difficult it can be to raise awareness of lesser known conditions and illnesses; I work closely with Sarcoma UK. Let me say this to the folk in the Public Gallery: “Keep at it—keep raising awareness. You have people on board here, in Parliament, and you just need to keep plugging away.”

Anything and everything that we say here today is important, and I know the importance of cross-party support. As the hon. Member for North East Fife knows, I am not in government, but my hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes) has been in touch with Scottish Ministers. I will also speak to our health spokesperson and I too can write to the Scottish Health Minister on this issue.

I understand how difficult it is for GPs to know everything. I am well aware that, with regard to sarcoma, I was very lucky that my husband’s condition was picked up by our GP. He has had only two cases of that in the last 40 years he has been in practice. For PANS and PANDAS, we need to get the message out there through training and by taking up the very good suggestion by the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) that we should all send leaflets to our local GPs. As we say in Scotland, many a mickle makes a muckle. Even if we do only small things, we need to push forward with this.

I urge clinicians to recognise the condition, as that will help to ensure that NHS boards and trusts, and the equivalent in England, provide the necessary support. I also urge all parties—I can only do this in relation to Holyrood, for Members outwith the UK Parliament—to gain a better knowledge and understanding and really push the Scottish Government from that angle as well. I am sure that the hon. Member for North East Fife would agree that if folk, and MSPs especially, know about this condition, that will empower them to challenge the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network to ensure that people move this issue forward.

I think it is really important that the Minister responds to the points that have been raised. There are many people in this room—especially behind me in the Gallery—who want to hear what she has to say. Families across the UK need NHS help in their distress and for their children. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.

Post Office Horizon IT Scandal: Compensation

Marion Fellows Excerpts

Tuesday 18th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

I do not know where to start—there is so much—but here I go. The SNP welcomes Sir Wyn Williams’s interim report on compensation. His recommendations would go a huge way to ensuring that victims are fully and fairly compensated, and it is about time. The enhanced role for the Horizon compensation advisory board is welcome as well. But the question, as one hon. Member has already said, is: when is this all going to happen? I know the Minister cannot give us an answer to that today, but he updated something I had in my notes: it is now 62 claimants who have died without receiving full and fair compensation. We need to move this on.

Funnily enough, we had a meeting of the all-party parliamentary group on post offices this morning, at which the chief executive officer of Post Office Ltd appeared and answered some questions. The culture at Post Office Ltd has not changed since the new CEO took on his role in 2019. He promised to change the culture; he has not yet done so. We are mired in obfuscation still, and we cannot get to the truth of stuff because of the delay in providing evidence to Sir Wyn’s inquiry. Will the Minister agree to put pressure on the CEO to get this done?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

The hon. Lady is one of the Members of Parliament I engage with more often than not in this place and she does a fantastic job, not least in chairing the all-party parliamentary group on post offices, so I thank her for her work. I agree with everything she said about the pace of delivery, the quality of delivery from the Post Office and making sure it meets its obligations. We have this constantly under review and we are driving this issue. We are determined to look at creative ways to accelerate compensation for all those affected by this, so we can finally draw a line under the matter. I accept we will not draw a line under it until we have held people to account for what has gone wrong, so that is something we are extremely keen to do.

Post Office Ltd: Management Culture

Marion Fellows Excerpts

Thursday 13th July 2023 Westminster Hall

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the management culture at Post Office Ltd.

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir George.

Many right hon. and hon. Members past and present continue to work on Post Office issues, especially the Horizon IT scandal—the greatest miscarriage of justice in UK history. Others outside this place who brought that scandal to public notice, including Alan Bates, Nick Wallis, Eleanor Shaikh and the many sub-postmasters past and present who suffered and, in some cases, died because of the management culture of Post Office Ltd, deserve our gratitude.

We should all remember that the statutory inquiry into the Horizon scandal is still ongoing; it has not even reached the stage at which it will forensically examine the management culture of Post Office Ltd past and present. For me, Post Office issues have never been party political. I have focused on the viability of the network. Post offices fulfil a vital role in local communities, and sub-postmasters worked right through the pandemic—that is the kind of people they are.

A local sub-postmaster and his wife came to see me in 2015, just after I was elected. Their sub-post office was being closed down and they were fighting for decent compensation. I was totally unaware that this was going on across the UK as part of the network transformation. A new sub-postmaster took on the post office in his local shop half a mile away. He was assured that that would boost his business’s revenue, although how that was going to happen I do not know—it was the same folk from the old post office that were going to withdraw their benefits at the new shop. A few years later, he told me he made more from his new coffee machine than from the post office.

Many long-serving sub-postmasters have been forced to stay on to try to recoup their investments in their post offices. Post Office Ltd confirmed recently that it will reduce the compensation for sub-postmasters of hard-to-place post offices from 26 months to 12 months. During my time as an MP, there has been a constant battle to ensure that sub-postmasters receive decent compensation when they retire and decent remuneration while they continue to serve their communities. Government funding increases have gone to Post Office management; under former and current management, SPMs have been last in the queue for pay increases. Does the Minister think that is fair? Does he agree that the Government promise that post offices would be the “front office of Government” has never been kept? That would have given much more revenue to sub-postmasters.

The Horizon IT scandal is the result of the culture of Post Office management, and I will show that that culture still exists. In his March 2019 judgment in Bates and Others v. Post Office Ltd, Mr Justice Fraser stated:

“There seems to be a culture of secrecy and excessive confidentiality generally within the Post Office, but particularly focused on Horizon.”

Eventually, in September 2020, a non-statutory inquiry was announced. It was led by Sir Wyn Williams and subsequently became a statutory inquiry. It was to gather information, to consider whether Post Office Ltd had learned the lessons and embedded the cultural change deemed necessary in Mr Justice Fraser’s judgment, and to consider the impact on affected sub-postmasters.

That commitment was echoed by Post Office Ltd chief executive officer Nick Read, who was appointed in September 2019. In a letter to the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee in June 2021, he stated that he was

“undertaking to drive a culture of genuine commercial partnership between Post Office and postmasters with openness and transparency at its core.”

He said that

“a major programme of improvement has been underway. The goal is to overhaul the culture of”

Post Office Ltd.

There is no doubt from the evidence submitted to Sir Wyn Williams’s inquiry that there is a long history of obfuscation, secrecy, cover-ups and incompetence, for which no one has yet been called to account. We are now at the halfway point of the inquiry, and almost daily revelations have cast doubt on the claim that a cultural change has taken place. I do not intend to go into the details of the historical management culture, as Sir Wyn Williams is yet to cover that, but there is sufficient evidence that the hope of a cultural change at POL has not been realised.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

I was shocked that the inquiry was suspended again last week because the Post Office had failed to disclose documentation to it. Does that not show that the secrecy, incompetence or cover-up is continuing?

[Marion Fellows]

I could not agree more with the right hon. Gentleman. I will come on to that point.

Openness, honesty and integrity are guiding principles of public life, but it seems that for decades the management of Post Office Ltd has not adhered to them. Shamefully, the compensation schemes set up to right the wrongs of the deplorable chapter of Horizon have not been immune to Post Office Ltd’s unjust approach. In recent months, tax expert Dan Neidle has written of the unfairness baked into them. He initially wrote about the unfair tax burden imposed on the compensation awards. Thankfully, that opened up an additional £26 million from the Government to “top up” compensation for historical shortfall scheme claimants, but he soon realised that the schemes are designed to ensure that the lowest amount of compensation is paid out. That goes against the assertion of the chair of the inquiry that “normal negotiating tactics” used in “hard-fought litigation” are not appropriate for Horizon compensation.

The application forms for the compensation schemes are so legally complex that Mr Neidle, a legal expert, said that even he would require legal advice when filling them out. However, the provision of legal and tax advice from POL-appointed lawyers has been totally insufficient and, as Mr Neidle says, “token”. Everything that follows the initial application is framed by the lack of legal assistance. The Post Office guidance, and the lack of clarity on the forms from Post Office Ltd that applicants can claim for damage to their reputation, leads many applicants to claim much less compensation than they are entitled to. Furthermore, there is no option to claim punitive damages. Mr Neidle says that a lawyer would spot that, but a layperson would not. Once again, that means that applicants, who are often elderly and in a weak financial position, are likely to miss out on a large portion of their compensation.

Shockingly, the Post Office continued to attempt to suppress the truth by warning sub-postmasters who received an offer under the HSS that they could not mention the compensation terms to anyone, including other applicants, the press, and their family and friends. That is inaccurate, misleading and, most of all, shameful. One applicant described the process of trying to get fair compensation as “soul destroying”. Have these people not suffered enough?

The recent scandal in which Post Office Ltd executives paid themselves tens of thousands of pounds in bonuses for taking part in the ongoing Horizon inquiry, which they were legally obliged to do, has been referred to as “bonusgate”. To make matters worse, one sub-metric that the Post Office remuneration committee deemed to have been fulfilled was required to be signed off by the inquiry chair, Sir Wyn Williams, but he had not done so.

In June, Nick Read, the Post Office Ltd CEO; Henry Staunton, its chair; Amanda Burton, the chair of the remuneration committee; Lisa Harrington, the former chair of that committee, and Tom Cooper, a former director from UK Government Investments, were brought before the Business and Trade Committee. Once again, there was a total lack of openness and clarity. It was claimed that the metric had been changed to require approval from Sir Wyn’s team rather than from Sir Wyn himself. Post Office Ltd still had not received such approval, but it exercised “discretion” to go ahead pay out the bonuses.

The Chair of the Business and Trade Committee, the hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones), outlined the statutory definition of “false accounting”—ironically, a charge on which many sub-postmasters were wrongly convicted. He said that

“it seems to me that in the annual accounts that Post Office reported to Parliament there was false or misleading information presented that did lead to the financial gain”

of Mr Read and some of his senior colleagues. As the single shareholder in Post Office Ltd, what steps are the Government taking to ensure that this situation never recurs?

The messaging is simply terrible. While sub-postmasters often earn less than the national minimum wage and others fight tooth and nail for compensation, executives pay themselves hundreds of thousands of pounds in bonuses for doing “a reasonable job”, even though the bonus sub-metrics they set themselves have not been properly achieved. That is the management culture of POL: bonuses for doing “a reasonable job”. Mr Read is on the record refusing to pay more than the token amount he has repaid. Compare that with the management bonus culture for sub-postmasters, whose area managers periodically offer them the chance to enter into a draw for a luxury hamper of tea products. It is teabags for sub-postmasters, and tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds in bonuses for executives and managers.

Shockingly, in recent weeks, following a freedom of information request by Eleanor Shaikh, it was revealed that Post Office Ltd had racially categorised the sub-postmasters it was investigating, using what have been described as Victorian-era racist terms. I will not repeat them. Post Office Ltd has since confirmed that the relevant document was in use until 2011. It is incomprehensible that no one in the POL management questioned the language in that document.

The chance discovery of that document raised further concerns about Post Office Ltd’s disclosure of documents at the inquiry. Sir Wyn Williams outlined that the late disclosure of documents

“has the potential to jeopardise the smooth running of the Inquiry”.

He said:

“It wastes public funds, it delays the provision of answers to those who were affected and delays the learning of lessons through the recommendations that I will in due course make.”

Subsequently, the Post Office informed the inquiry that it would not be able even to identify relevant documents by the date set by the chair, which Sir Wyn described as “grossly unsatisfactory”. At disclosure hearings, it was stated that the Post Office had been

“unable to identify the scale of the disclosure, and cannot give a timescale.”

However, Jason Beer KC, representing the inquiry, said that the number of documents that needed to be reviewed could be significant.

Representatives of the core participants lambasted the disclosure issues and their impact on victims—people who have already suffered immeasurably are being retraumatised—and called for an adjournment of the inquiry. Reflecting the views of victims, Mr Henry from Hodge Jones & Allen said in his oral submission:

“If a man deceives me once, shame on him. If a man deceives me twice, shame on me.”

He added that Post Office Ltd had taken for granted the chances that it had been afforded early in the inquiry, noting that there had been previous disclosure issues yet Post Office Ltd had acted vexatiously and done the same again. He said that those he represents will not say, “I told you so,” and that

“they knew the future…for the past they knew.”

Mr Henry spoke of the “mental scars” that victims had suffered for two decades because of the Post Office’s cruelty, culture of deceit, secrecy, cover-ups and lies.

Another representative of victims said:

“Post Office always throws a spanner in the works…They have total disregard for any of us. They’re making fools of everyone”.

Another victim said that having to relive the Post Office’s tactics had made them relive the way they were investigated and treated during Horizon, which had a significant impact on their mental health. The representative of Howe & Co. brought up compensation delays. He quoted a victim who spoke of seeing no light at the end of the tunnel and said that victims have no faith that all claims will be settled by August 2024.

The inquiry has been derailed, having been being suspended until the end of July, but that is under review and it is entirely plausible that it will not sit again until September. This latest in a very long list of Post Office-manufactured scandals is a kick in the teeth for victims, who are once again losing faith, for the inquiry and for the general public. The significant non-disclosure of documents by Post Office Ltd makes it feel like nothing in the toxic management culture has changed and, sadly, raises serious concerns about its future.

Sean Hudson of the Communication Workers Union described the management culture perfectly, saying:

“Every serious management failure results in a culture of offering that failure up for external investigation at significant expense to POL and the taxpayer, without learning from those mistakes.”

When were the Government made aware of disclosure issues, and what discussions have they had about them with POL?

The UK Government are the single shareholder in Post Office Ltd. Traditionally, the small business Minister, whatever title they have or Department they are in—at the moment, it is the Department for Business and Trade —has oversight of POL. UK Government Investments has a director on the board of POL, presumably to protect the Government’s interest in the company. The Post Office Ltd board has responsibility for the operation of the Post Office. Is that tenable, given the cultural issues of the past and present?

UKGI is the Government’s centre of expertise in corporate finance and governance. Until recently, its representative on the POL board was Tom Cooper, a senior civil servant, but he has now resigned as a director. Mr Cooper was heavily criticised for failing to tell Ministers about the error regarding bonuses for five weeks after it was revealed, leaving officials to read about it in a statement on the Post Office’s corporate website. That is not a great look for the Government and it raises real questions about the governance of Post Office Ltd.

Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom, a Government adviser on a compensation scheme for Horizon victims, said that Cooper’s failure to tell Ministers and Parliament about the mistake was

“of a piece with the UK government’s representation on the board throughout this sorry saga.”

While I understand that the Department for Business and Trade has said that Tom Cooper’s resignation was planned before bonusgate, does the Minister accept that Horizon victims may find that hard to believe given the culture of deceit within Post Office Ltd?

The Minister has said that the salaries of the leaders of the Post Office reflect the need to have people with the right experience and expertise. Does he still think that the Government have got value for money from the current leaders of Post Office Ltd? Do the Government think it right that its CEO received £455,000 in bonuses and its chief financial officer received £310,000 while Post Office Ltd oversees scandal after scandal, drags its heels on compensation and offers substandard remuneration packages to hard-working sub-postmasters?

In the same way that the Post Office apologises for each scandal or crisis as it arises, the Government criticise Post Office Ltd and commission a report, yet there does not seem to be much action—I put that more kindly than what I wrote, which was: “and then they do nothing”. Government oversight has not solved any of the issues of the past, including Horizon. It is the hard work and tireless campaigning of SPMs themselves, journalists such as Nick Wallis, and campaigners such as Alan Bates, the Justice For Subpostmasters Alliance, Eleanor Shaikh, Dan Neidle, Tim McCormack, the CWU, the National Federation of SubPostmasters, and many Members in this place, past and present, that has continued to push the Government on the issue. I exclude myself from that, because I just take everybody else’s work and talk about it.

It is about time that the Government offered a different approach, because with the current arrangement they are presiding over disaster after disaster. Sub-postmasters are essentially left to subsidise a Government-owned network at great personal cost, and when things go wrong, they are left to fight for justice themselves. It is about time that we started to see proper support for those at the coalface. Will the Minister outline the Government’s plan for the post office network, and provide assurances that the constant barrage of scandals will come to an end and that the management culture at Post Office Ltd will change forever?

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I certainly will. This is all context to the issues that many people have raised around compensation, but I will certainly come on to those points.

Through the shareholder’s representative on the board, the Government oversee the Post Office’s corporate governance, strategy, performance and stewardship of its financial and other resources. The Post Office reports to the Government on key issues at the regular shareholder meeting. The hon. Members for Motherwell and Wishaw and for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) asked about the future of the Post Office and our plan for it. We all recognise that post offices are a valuable social and economic asset for communities. They deliver essential services and play a key role on our high streets.

The hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw spoke about post offices being the front office of Government. We very much see them as the front office of Government, but we do not dictate to consumers how they access vital services. Many consumers look to acquire services in different ways. Many people renew their passports and driving licences online these days rather than at the post office, and we want to give them the convenience of doing that. That creates challenges for the sustainability of the Post Office and of individual branches. We have to acknowledge that. The Post Office is putting together its future plan, and we are working with it on things such as banking services and access to cash, which we have now legislated for. We are looking at whether the Post Office network is getting a fair share of the savings that the banks are making by closing branches and making the Post Office the first point of call for access to cash, for example.

[Marion Fellows]

I recognise what the Minister has done, and I acknowledge that more and more people are going digital, but post offices serve their communities. In communities with high levels of deprivation such as mine and others represented by hon. Members in this Chamber, we need post offices. The Government have to stop withdrawing contracts from them, as that prevents people from accessing those services.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I am not aware of any withdrawal of services. There is a Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency issue, and there is a negotiation between the Post Office and DVLA. It is absolutely right that postmasters get fair remuneration for those kinds of services; we agree on that.

On senior pay and bonuses, what happened with the setting of the metric, and the awarding of the bonus around it, was unacceptable. The Post Office’s internal investigation has reported, and the Government have commissioned a separate review of the governance around Post Office decisions. We have not sat on that; it has not reported back yet. One thing we all agree on is that we need to follow due process in our oversight of the Post Office. Our review is being led by Simmons & Simmons, and we expect it to report to me by the end of the month, and of course I will wait for that before taking action.

My hon. Friend the Member for Telford talked about the inquiry and disclosure. The Post Office apologised and has taken urgent steps to put things right. Its disclosure to the inquiry was clearly unacceptable. I am not aware of any breach of the Companies Act, but we will certainly look into that.

My hon. Friend and the hon. Members for Rutherglen and Hamilton West and for Paisley and Renfrewshire North all asked about matters pertaining to the inquiry— what happened, why it happened and who is responsible. When the inquiry reports and assigns blame, we should be able to take action against those responsible.

The Government are very supportive of the Post Office’s efforts to improve its culture and its relationship with postmasters, and to right the wrongdoings of the past. Despite the positive progress since 2019, there clearly are still many improvements to be made, and the Government will be watching closely to ensure they are properly implemented.

[Marion Fellows]

I thank all right hon. and hon. Members who are here. This was the most difficult debate to prepare for in my time in this place, because I had so much information and so many facts that I wanted to get over, and I had to put aside a large amount. It is really important to many communities—in fact, it is important to everyone—that sub-postmasters receive proper justice and recompense for what they and their families have gone through. It is really important to communities such as mine in Motherwell and Wishaw that the Post Office network continues.

I pay tribute to the Minister and his predecessor, the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully). In the eight years that I have been here, we have had a variety of small business Ministers and Ministers with responsibility for post offices, and none of them got it until the last two. However, that does not excuse the failures, and it will not stop us pushing and keeping at the Minister and the chief executive of Post Office Ltd. Post offices are important and need to continue. People who work in them need to be properly remunerated, and people who need them have to be able to go to them and get what they need.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the management culture at Post Office Ltd.

Charity Lottery Fundraising Caps

Marion Fellows Excerpts

Wednesday 5th July 2023 Westminster Hall

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I sincerely congratulate the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), not only on securing this important debate but on her fantastic speech, in which she sought to persuade the Minister by various means. Indeed, the Minister has been persuaded by a number of women today, though I must not forget the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon).

Like many other speakers today, I want to put on record my support for removing the charity lottery sales limits, and for the fundraising work done by charity lotteries, which is hugely beneficial in loads of ways. There has been a lot of discussion in Parliament over the last couple of years about problem gambling, and I share many of the concerns raised, but charity lotteries have a product that could not be more different from online betting and casinos, both in terms of problem gambling risk and the purpose of the activity, which is to raise funds for good causes as opposed to private profit. However, charity lotteries are not just about raising funds for good causes; the players, who ultimately raise the funds, get to have a little fun, and perhaps win a prize, while doing good for charities. It is a great model.

In February last year, over 600 of my constituents shared a £7.9 million cash pot when the People’s Postcode Lottery’s monthly millions draw landed in Wishaw. Players won between £8,000 and £368,000, and I can truly testify that there was a great deal of excitement in Wishaw. Of course, many local businesses will have benefited too. Charity lotteries can provide a bit of fun and excitement, as well as supporting good causes.

Charities in my constituency have also benefited. Over £100,000 has been provided to community charities, including Basics Food Bank, Wishaw YMCA and the North Lanarkshire Disability Forum. I am a great supporter of all those local charities. Larger charities that have received funding include the Scottish Wildlife Trust, which runs the Garrion Gill nature reserve, and Street League, which does fantastic work using sport as a pathway to get young people into employment.

I have supported the campaign to remove the charity lottery sales limit for some time, and at the SNP conference last year I joined the Deputy First Minister of Scotland, Shona Robison MSP, at a panel debate to discuss this very issue. It is shocking that many excellent charities stand to lose funding because of this piece of Government red tape. I draw Members’ attention to the words of Dame Laura Lee, the chief executive of Maggie’s cancer centres, which is a fantastic charity. She said:

“If limits aren’t lifted it is estimated that charities across the UK could lose out on nearly £200 million over the next five years – for Maggie’s alone that’s over £4 million that could fund vital free psychological, emotional and practical support for thousands of people living with cancer.”

She also said:

“We could reach even more people living with cancer – people who are experiencing possibly the hardest time of their lives – if charity lottery limits were abolished.”

There we have it: current Government policy will cost Maggie’s £4 million. That alone should be enough, I hope, to convince the Minister to take action. We are really good at having a go, us ladies.

Looked at another way, here is a great opportunity for the Minister to make a real difference, with lots of support across the political spectrum, to ensure that charities get the funding they deserve from charity lotteries and that charity lottery operators do not spend time dealing with needless bureaucracy. I hope that he will take it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Marion Fellows Excerpts

Thursday 29th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Industry and Economic Security (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I hope that my hon. Friend will allow me to use my brain to help unlock this with the Department for Transport. We have the automotive transformation fund and the Advanced Propulsion Centre, so we are doing a huge amount of work in this space to ensure that we are not only on the cutting edge of electric zero-emission vehicles, but looking at what the opportunities are for hydrogen. We do not want to be left behind anywhere in this space, but we do need to align ourselves with the rest of our Departments, and I will do so.

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

T2. The Fresh Produce Consortium, which represents 70% of the UK’s fresh produce supply chain, recently warned that post-Brexit import charges will hit small and medium-sized enterprises the hardest. Does the Minister accept that the post-Brexit trade deals are driving up already soaring food prices, as well as hitting small food producers at a time when they are facing real difficulties as a result of increased operating costs?

[Nigel Huddleston]

It should be transparently clear that the UK is conducting trade deals that are in the UK’s economic interests. That is the criterion: we would not do them if they were not in the UK’s interests. We are therefore working really hard, with a particular focus on opportunities for SMEs to trade not only with the EU but right around the world, where there are immense opportunities for further trade. We will continue to pursue opportunities in south Asia, Africa and South America—all over the world—where we have not taken full advantage of those opportunities. This will benefit many SMEs, including food and beverage producers, in the long term.