Finance Bill

Debate between Stephen Timms and Charlie Elphicke

Monday 5th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Charlie Elphicke]

I stand corrected by my right hon. Friend. It is not a question of Apple; it is a question of general US outbound tax planning. That is why country-by-country reporting matters.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I agree with the points that the hon. Gentleman makes, but can he confirm my understanding that if the amendment tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) had applied in Ireland in the case of Apple, we would have known that very, very large profits were being made by the company, which seems to have existed only on paper, and we would also have known that it was paying a tiny amount of tax? Would not that have been a valuable step forward in understanding what was going on?

[Charlie Elphicke]

The key issue is that we did know. As I recall, Apple had to report the situation in some investigation by the Senate in the United States. The Senate was wondering why very little tax had been paid by Apple in the United States. If my recollection is not correct, I am sure a fellow Member of this House will correct me. The issue is one of transparency. These things come to light because the US Senate holds an investigation, or some other enterprise or organisation, such as the Public Accounts Committee, carries out an investigation and starts asking questions.

In the previous Parliament, I myself went through the accounts of Google, Amazon and Starbucks and looked at what they were paying as a proportion of profits. That is why I think country-by-country reporting ought to be considered, and on an international basis. It is important that countries act together to make sure that the international tax system is suitably robust for the internet age.

The reason that that matters is that when large enterprises, big businesses and the elites do not pay tax, it affects small businesses. It is the small business rooted in our soil which employs our neighbours and pays its dues that suffers when the competitive advantage, the level playing field and the rule of law are warped in that way. That is my prime concern. Small businesses in my constituency in Dover and Deal are the lifeblood of my local economy and I want them to have a fair crack. I want the towns and regions of this great nation, England, that I represent, and Wales and Scotland to have a fair crack and to be able to come to the fore. Particularly in Brexit Britain, it is important that they are able to come to the fore, to be galvanised and to be part of the leadership of this nation. That is why we need a Britain that works for the 90%, which is the towns and regions of our nations, rather than for big business and the elite 10%. That is important and it is why we need a tax system that works for everyone.

I have been deeply concerned recently when looking at accounts in the car rental industry. Colleagues may recall that Avis was accused of imposing a Brexit tax on people renting its cars. I looked at its accounts and saw that Avis had paid no tax itself. It taxed its British customers but did not seem to pay any British corporation tax on its profits.

Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill

Debate between Stephen Timms and Charlie Elphicke

Monday 21st January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Timms]

We certainly want it to be more worth while for people to be in work, but forcing down the incomes of those who are out of work is not the way to do it.

Clause 1 affects mainly out-of-work benefits, but people struggling to make ends meet in work are hit as well. Schedule 1(b) means that the personal allowance used in the calculation of housing benefit for people in work will go up by only 1%, irrespective of what happens to rent levels.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

Is it therefore the right hon. Gentleman’s and the Opposition’s policy that uprating should be not by 1%, but by inflation? Is that a commitment?

[Stephen Timms]

Uprating should indeed be in line with inflation, as it always was in the past.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Timms]

Of course, the background to this policy is the failure of the Government’s policy. If we look at the unemployment forecast set out at last year’s Budget and compare it with the forecast set out at the autumn statement, we will see that it will cost an extra £3 billion in additional benefits. What the Minister and the Chancellor should be doing is putting in place policies that will reduce unemployment, not see it continue to rise.

At a time when the coalition Government are handing the richest people a tax cut of £2,000 a week each, they have decided that people on jobseeker’s allowance can have only 71p each, 72p the year after, and 73p the year after that. To quote the Minister’s 2009 speech, it is “appalling”. I urge the Committee to support our amendment and vote against clause stand part.

[Charlie Elphicke]

I will speak briefly. I think that it is important that all of us who represent communities with a lot of deprivation, such as my constituency of Dover and Deal, make sure that the Government, or any Government, have policies that make work pay. About 5 million people in this country could work but do not. We need more of an incentive for people to realise their potential and do well in life. Part of that needs to be an economic incentive. Let me pray in aid the words of the Chancellor of the Exchequer:

“We have to acknowledge that over the last five years, those on out-of-work benefits have seen their incomes rise twice as fast as those in work. With pay restraint in businesses and Government, average earnings have risen by about 10% since 2007. Out-of-work benefits have gone up by about 20%. That is not fair to working people who pay the taxes that fund them.”—[Official Report, 5 December 2012; Vol. 554, c. 879.]

Universal Credit and Welfare Reform

Debate between Stephen Timms and Charlie Elphicke

Tuesday 11th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Charlie Elphicke]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that important point. That is, indeed, the kernel of what universal credit is about: it gives a clear message that it pays to work and it is good to work. The Opposition call themselves the Labour party, yet too often when in office they gave the impression of being the non-labour party. This coalition is on the side of the working person—those who are working in a job in order to earn money and bring cash back to their families, and thereby to lift their children out of poverty.

It was often said in past times that the best cure for deprivation is a job. Many people in my constituency live in deprivation. It is important to get people back into work, to incentivise and encourage people to be in work and to make work pay; that is an important message to send. That is why I see universal credit as a message of optimism saying that we want everyone to play their role, and that everyone is expected to play their role and to be active in the workplace.

I support universal credit because it is a simpler system. It makes the situation easier to understand. There are not five different types of payments; there is just one simple payment. It is a fairer system, too. Rather than people losing 90p in the pound—thereby entirely disincentivising them from working harder to get a pay rise or from working longer hours—only 65p in the pound will be withdrawn, which incentivises them to work harder and for longer, and to bring more prosperity back to their families.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

Is the hon. Gentleman worried, as I am, about the proposals of some local authorities to add a 40p in the pound taper on council tax benefit on top of the 65p taper he has just talked about? Under that approach, people who earn more would get less because they would lose more benefit than they would gain in income.

[Charlie Elphicke]

The right hon. Gentleman knows, as I do, that the fine tuning of council tax is still under discussion and still under way, and I hope that that will come out in the wash. I represent a coastal constituency, so I watch that situation carefully, as I know my coastal MP colleagues have been doing. They, too, want to ensure that the low paid in our constituencies are not adversely hit. That is an important point, but it is a fine part of the detailing of the implementation of the policy rather than the overall purpose of the policy, which is to encourage work and to give people more money if they work harder, do better, skill up and get a better job. That is a really important thing.

Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Stephen Timms and Charlie Elphicke

Tuesday 21st February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Timms]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, and that is why the Lords propose in their amendment an exemption for people in receipt of disability living allowance, thereby addressing exactly that point.

Our original amendment would have penalised under-occupation in a workable way. If a tenant refused a suitable offer of a smaller home, they would suffer the penalty. If, however, no smaller home were available, they would not suffer that penalty. Unfortunately, that amendment was defeated in our previous debate, but I pay tribute to the 12 Liberal Democrat Members and two Conservative Members who supported it. I am glad to see some of them in their places this afternoon.

Legal challenge to the Government’s policy seems inevitable, because it penalises people for a situation that it is impossible for them to change. The amendment could not be reintroduced in the other place because the Government claimed financial privilege, so this afternoon we have in amendments 3B and 26B a much weaker proposal. It does, however, at least protect those, like the people to whom my right hon. Friend has just drawn attention, who will be hardest hit if the Government’s policy goes through.

The proposal would safeguard four tightly defined groups: first, people in the employment and support allowance support group—those who are too ill to be expected to return to work in the near future; secondly, adults and children who receive disability living allowance or its successor, the personal independence payment; thirdly, war widows; and fourthly, foster carers, because for the purposes of housing benefit calculations foster children do not count towards a bedroom need.

Let me underline how modest the proposal now is. Many Members will take the view, for example, that war widows should not be penalised for having a spare bedroom. The proposal, however, would not protect war widows in that way. It simply says that no war widow should be fined for under-occupying her home unless she has been offered appropriate smaller accommodation. If such an offer has been made to her and she has refused it, under the Lords amendments she would be penalised. The amendments would protect her position until such an offer was made. Only tenants in one of the four specific groups would have even that safeguard. Everybody else who was under-occupying their social tenancy would, under the amendments, be penalised even if it was impossible for them to move to somewhere smaller.

The Child Poverty Action Group has highlighted an example of how similar rules currently apply in the private rented sector, which highlights the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr Clarke). Let us consider a claimant who has two daughters, one of whom has severe and uncontrollable epilepsy with frequent fits during the night. Her social worker and occupational therapist agree that the two girls need separate bedrooms. The claimant currently rents a three-bedroom house, but housing benefit covers the cost of only a two-bedroom house. The Lords amendments would fix that situation for social housing because the daughter is in receipt of disability living allowance.

I will now consider the hypothetical example of a couple in which one person has terminal cancer, which puts them in the employment and support allowance support group for people who are not expected to work again. That is one of the four specific groups that the Lords amendments would protect. The couple have a spare bedroom in their two-bedroom council house because their child moved out recently. They would be happy to move to a one-bedroom council or housing association flat but none is available. Under the Minister’s policy, that couple will be penalised, on average by £12 a week. Under the amendments, because of the exceptional circumstances, they would not be penalised. That would be the modest and reasonable effect of the amendments that the Lords agreed.

The National Housing Federation tells us that 180,000 social tenants in England are under-occupying two-bedroom homes, but that only 68,000 one-bedroom social homes became available to let in the year 2009-10. The impact assessment from the Department for Work and Pensions, which is well worth reading, states:

“According to estimates from DCLG there is a surplus of 3 bedroom properties, based on the profile of existing working-age tenants in receipt of Housing Benefit, and a lack of 1 bedroom accommodation in the social sector. In many areas this mismatch”—

I am quoting the Department here—

“could mean that there are insufficient properties to enable tenants to move to accommodation of an appropriate size even if tenants wished to move and landlords were able to facilitate this movement.”

That is the reality in many places. There simply will not be a one-bedroom home to move to. That will be the case in the constituency of the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes), who intervened earlier, and in my constituency. Of course, the policy will not release a single one-bedroom home, because one cannot under-occupy a home with one bedroom.

The couple in the example, in which one person has terminal cancer, would see a cut of £12 a week or nearly £60 a month in their income. That is the average across the country. They would somehow have to make that up to their landlord from other income. The Department, no doubt trying to be helpful, gives some suggestions in the impact assessment of how they might do that:

“In these circumstances individuals may have to look further afield for appropriately sized accommodation or move to the private sector, otherwise they shall need to meet the shortfall through other means such as employment, using savings or by taking in a lodger or sub-tenant.”

I ask the House to reflect on each of those three suggestions in the case of somebody with terminal cancer. People in the ESA support group are, by definition, not in a position to work. That is why the Government have placed them in the support group. That suggestion therefore does not help. The DWP suggests instead that our terminally ill tenant in a two-bedroom flat should take in a lodger to help pay the rent. One has to ask whether the people promoting these policies have ever met anyone who will be affected by them. Of course, in many cases, the social landlord would not permit somebody to take in a lodger under the terms of their tenancy. The Department’s other suggestion is that they can use their savings. People in receipt of income-related ESA do not have very much saved—if they did, they would not receive income-related ESA.

Another alternative, as the impact assessment suggests, is that the tenant will have to move out of their council home into the private sector. In that case, their housing benefit will rise sharply. Where is the gain in forcing that to happen? The National Housing Federation, whose members are very worried about the change that the Government insist on making, makes the point that

“a couple with one child moving into the private sector from a three bed social flat in Crawley would be entitled to around £66 per week more in benefit to cover their additional housing costs.”

The key point is that it will be impossible for many of those affected to avoid the penalty. If suitable alternative accommodation can be offered to them, then fine, they can move and will no longer be under-occupying, and their benefit will continue to cover their full rent. The Lords amendments specifically allow for that. However, if there is no smaller flat available, our cancer patient will just have to take the £60 a month hit. How can that be justified?

The Minister will tell us, as he has before, that £30 million has been made available to councils in discretionary housing payments to avoid penalising a limited number of households. However, the Minister in the other place made it clear that, as the Minister of State hinted today, that money is to help foster carers and disabled people with adapted homes—so no help there for our terminally ill tenant.

Even for foster carers and disabled people in adapted homes, contrary to the impression that the Minister of State gave to the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson) and the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark, there will be no certainty. People wanting help will have to go to their local council and ask for it, because it will be discretionary—that is what the word means. It will up to each local council to decide what it does with the money. It could use it for that purpose, or it could use it for a different one. If other people have already taken all the discretionary funding that has been provided, that will be it. No further help will be available.

[Charlie Elphicke]

I understand that the policy in the Lords amendments would cost the Exchequer £150 million. How would it be funded?

[Stephen Timms]

The hon. Gentleman should reflect on the fact that, as I have described, the costs will be greater in a number of ways with the Government’s provisions in place than they would be if the Lords amendments were retained.

Before I leave the topic of discretionary housing payments, it is worth my noting how the extra £30 million has been found. Initially, the average penalty for under-occupying by one bedroom was going to be £11 a week, and now the Government have increased it to £12 a week. They have increased the penalty for everybody affected in order to scrape together the extra cash to increase discretionary payments.

The last time this policy was debated, we offered an effective alternative whereby a tenant would have their benefit cut as a penalty if they refused a suitable move. Unfortunately, Government Members threw it out. The Lords amendments would limit that safeguard to the four groups that I have mentioned—the sick, the disabled, war widows and foster carers.

Ministers have said that their policy will be a work incentive, but the support group comprises people who are not in a position to work. A work incentive will do them no good at all. Let us call a spade a spade: this is a spiteful cut in people’s income. Foster carers provide a service that saves the Exchequer billions. The Fostering Network has warned that people will be forced by the penalty to give up fostering, which will increase costs to the Exchequer. War widows and widowers have seen their loved ones die for their country. Their grieving barely over, they will be fined under the Government’s policy because they have one bedroom too many. I ask whether that is really what Government Members came into the House to do to their constituents. The Government’s policy, without the Lords amendments, will penalise everybody regardless of whether they could move.

Fourteen Government Members joined us in voting for the relevant Lords amendment last time. I thank them for that, and their constituents will do so as well, even if their Whips will not. As we were not successful, social landlords will have to take on extra staff to chase the resulting arrears that will start to accrue in every social landlord’s stock across the country. The current Lords amendments are much more modest than the previous ones, but they would at least protect those who stand to lose the most from what the Government want to do. I hope that hon. Members will support the Lords amendments and oppose the Minister’s motion.

Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Stephen Timms and Charlie Elphicke

Monday 13th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Timms]

As far as I can see, the arrangements for pension credit have worked perfectly well up to now, presumably with the feature that the Minister is now deprecating. My case is that if the Government want to change the rules for pension credit to discriminate against people who have a spouse under pensionable age, they should do so openly. They should announce the change: it should have been in the Budget, the welfare reform announcement or the Pensions Bill. We have a Pensions Bill going through Parliament at the moment—why was it not included there? Instead, the change was slipped into a schedule to this Bill and no Minister, until asked, said anything about it.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

I am a little unclear about whether the right hon. Gentleman’s position is that this measure is wrong in principle and he disagrees with it, or he agrees with it but thinks it should have been announced with a fanfare. Will he explain which it is?

[Stephen Timms]

I certainly think that the arrangement should have been announced, and our amendment proposes that it be removed. I shall be interested to hear the Government’s response.

[Charlie Elphicke]

Let me understand fully what the right hon. Gentleman is saying. If a retired man, say, of 66 is married to a spouse who is 45, she should be able not to have to work and they should be able to double-claim pension credit—is that correct?

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Timms]

I do not recognise the policy that the Minister describes. We have had a long-standing arrangement for pension credit which appears to work perfectly well. If he has found abuses of pension credit, I shall be eager to hear those examples from him when he responds to the debate. I notice that when asked recently about this by my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), the Pensions Minister stated:

“We recognise that it is important not to undermine the stability and outcomes for existing pension credit customers, so there will be no change for couples already in receipt of pension credit at the point of change.—[Official Report, 9 June 2011; Vol. 529, c. 422W.]

That is welcome and helpful. I do not know whether the Minister of State, the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) has satisfied himself that the abuse that he has just described is not a problem at present. But even that reassurance from the Pensions Minister is not on the face of the Bill. For many couples who have planned around receiving pension credit and been reasonably able to do so, and who are now approaching retirement, the change will come as a severe shock.

We will support the principle of universal credit, despite the holes in the policy about how it will work and despite the perverse incentives that the Government have added for savers and the self-employed, but this is not, as Ministers have frequently claimed, a panacea for all the problems in the system. It is therefore vital that sufficient welfare advice is available at the point of transition. People will find any transition difficult, even one which, unlike this, is to a simple system. Yet at precisely the moment when the Government are embarking on this massive upheaval to the system, funding for welfare advice is being cut.

A large part of the funding—for example, to Citizens Advice—comes at present through legal aid, and the Government have announced that there will be no legal aid funding for welfare advice at all in future. About a quarter of the current funding for Citizens Advice comes from that source and it is being taken away. Most of the rest of the funding comes from local authorities, and that is also being cut. Demand for welfare advice will rocket and funding will plummet. This is a perfect storm for advice services. Our amendment 26, therefore, requires the Secretary of State to report, before universal credit is introduced, on the availability of welfare advice, and to satisfy himself that it is adequate to support people through the transition that the Government envisage.

New clause 5 aims for clarity about how claimants will be informed about their universal credit. It stipulates that every claimant should be provided with a record of the amount of their award, including details of the separate elements that make it up. I understand that the Government intend to provide each claimant with the equivalent of a payslip. I hope the Minister will be able to confirm that when responding to the debate. Will that payslip be provided on payment, as with payslips for those in work? Will it be provided directly by the Department or through the employer, and will it set out the various elements of the award—child care, housing support, support in respect of children and so on? A full statement would ensure transparency between the Government and claimants and would be a welcome feature.

Amendment 30 addresses support for families with disabled children under universal credit. It amends clause 10 to ensure that the amount that those families receive is not less than under the current tax credit and benefits system. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (Margaret Curran) raised this important point in Work and Pensions questions earlier this afternoon. Under universal credit, a family receiving the higher rate care element of DLA for a disabled child will receive £74.50 through the severe disability addition. At first glance, that seems broadly in line with the current position, but there are worries, because we are told that the higher level of the disability addition will be uprated in future only as resources allow, so it is very likely that families with severely disabled children will lose out over time.

For families with disabled children not receiving the higher rate care element of DLA the situation looks a great deal worse. The amount available under the universal credit disability addition will be £26.75 a week, compared with the £53.62 available under child tax credit, so support will be halved. The Minister has justified that in terms of aligning the support given to children and adults and easing the transition, but we know that children helped under the disability addition will not automatically be helped under adult universal credit.

Amendment 61 proposes that the elements of universal credit paid in respect of children must be paid to the designated carer of the children, except in prescribed circumstances. That is crucial for safeguarding the interests of children. Let me simply quote from the briefing that Oxfam has sent every Member: “We know from our work on the ground that money in households is often unevenly distributed and that women in poor households can have little or no access to money. As mothers usually take the main responsibility for feeding and clothing children, this affects both women and their children. This sometimes means that women themselves go without eating in order to pay the bills or put a meal on the table for their children. This lack of access to income in their own right leaves women open to the risk of financial abuse and can also reduce their chances of escaping domestic violence. As a crucial first step, the Bill must be amended to allow payments intended for children to be labelled as such and paid to the main carer, who is usually female. This change will make it more likely that this money is spent on children.” That would be the effect of the amendment.

Amendment 68 would provide for a minimum amount to be paid to any claimant who has caring responsibilities. It is vital that people who give up their time and energy to look after the most vulnerable in society, saving the taxpayer considerable sums in the process, are properly supported when they move on to universal credit, in line with the help currently available through carers allowance. I hope that the Minister will make it clear how he will ensure that that happens.

In rehearsing these concerns, I remind the House that the whole project of universal credit will depend on an enormous new IT system, which the Government claim will be ready in an implausibly short period of time. In truth, it will not be ready by October 2013, as claimed, which will give rise to serious problems as that deadline approaches.

[Charlie Elphicke]

I put it to the right hon. Gentleman, as I did in Committee when he made that point, that this Government’s approach to IT is far more thought through and better planned than the approach taken by the previous Government, who spent vast amounts of money without any consideration for the end, route or purpose of the policy. This Government are being far more direct and should get the IT ready on time and on budget.

[Stephen Timms]

I look forward to reminding the hon. Gentleman of that comment in September 2013.

The intention of universal credit is that work should always pay. Without decisions and policies on child care or passported benefits, we cannot know whether work will always pay, and all the indications are that the Government will in due course, when they finally put a policy together, introduce one that will mean that for many work will no longer pay.

On savings, I am afraid that the Government are heading to crush the hopes of many people in work. On the self-employed, the Government will crush the hopes of many who want to set up their own businesses. As Policy Exchange recently argued in its report, universal credit has been oversold by Ministers. I very much hope that the House will support our amendments so that universal credit can support the aspirations of families across the country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Timms]

We have had an interesting debate, and I welcome the Minister’s concession on the affirmative procedure for the initial version of some of the key regulations that will be introduced under the Bill. I would have liked him to go further, but I welcome the extent to which he has changed the Government’s position and welcome the amendments he has tabled to effect that change.

Unfortunately, the Minister gave us nothing else that I can welcome. It is an extraordinary failure on the part of Ministers that we do not yet have Government proposals on child care, free school meals or concessions on prescriptions. The Minister said that it did not matter, because there were still two and a half years to go before universal credit was introduced, but actually it is only two and a quarter years now—it was two and a half years three months ago, but they failed to come up with their policy proposals and three months have passed. It is not simply an academic issue, because even if all the policies had been clear two and a half years in advance, it would have been a stretch to get the IT in place by October 2013. As it is, the Government have not decided on those key parts of the policy, and I suggest that there is now no chance that it will be ready. However, that is a discussion for another day.

The hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) accused the children’s charities of throwing rocks at the Government. It is out of order to make that criticism of Barnardo’s, Citizens Advice and the Children’s Society. Let me quote their letter:

“We welcome the removal of the hours rule”—

they welcome the provision that the hon. Gentleman supports—

“but the evidence shows it is not possible to do this. . . within the current budget without a significant negative impact on work incentives for those working longer hours.”

That is not throwing rocks but simply setting out obvious home truths, of which the Government need to take account.

[Charlie Elphicke]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Stephen Timms]

No, I will not. Our position is that the Government need to listen to what people are saying to them and that new clause 2 provides protection. We do not want the work incentives worsened in the way in which charities point out.

It sounds as though the Government have abandoned the idea of a payslip for every universal credit instalment. I am disappointed—that was a good idea. Sadly, the Minister reaffirmed the Bill’s extraordinary penalties on saving. He gave no firm assurances on self-employment income, even though the hon. Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb) recognised the importance of that. The Minister appeared to acknowledge that there was a problem, which, I suppose is progress from his previous position.

The Minister gave us no assurances on adequate welfare advice. My hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue) made a telling case about that. Many will be dismayed by his dismissal of the case for retaining support for disabled children. There is genuine worry about the impact of his refusal to ensure that benefit for children is paid to their main carer.

I wish to divide the House on new clause 2 on child care, on amendment 23 on the saving cap and amendment 27 on support for self-employed people in universal credit.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.

Equitable Life (Payments) Bill

Debate between Stephen Timms and Charlie Elphicke

Tuesday 14th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Timms]

No, the position we are in now is that there are two quite different ways forward. One was recommended by the ombudsman. The previous Government saw some serious difficulties in that approach, so called on Sir John Chadwick to give advice. The Government now need to choose which of those two options they intend to follow. Their difficulty is that every Treasury Minister—including all those I have mentioned—has pledged to adopt the ombudsman’s approach. The Government are currently saying both that they accept the ombudsman’s recommendation in full, and that Sir John Chadwick’s report is a building block for what is going to happen. Nobody knows what that means, however, as it is trying to ride two horses, when what is required is a decision.

[Charlie Elphicke]

As a member of the Select Committee on Public Administration, I know that we will take evidence from the ombudsman in due course. Can the right hon. Gentleman help me and the House by explaining what in his mind’s eye were the “serious difficulties” with the ombudsman’s report that he mentioned?

[Stephen Timms]

I will come to that in a few moments. There are some serious problems with the complexity of the procedure recommended. That is why, I think, the Government have realised that what they said before the election will not be honoured.