Sir Jeremy Wright
MP for Kenilworth and Southam · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I applaud my right hon. Friend’s passion and clarity on this issue. On the subject of democratic accountability, he knows that if, as the hon.”
“I welcome the intent that the Secretary of State has set out this afternoon, and the urgency with which she will require the relevant companies to act.”
“The Electoral Commission has made no formal assessment of this. It would be a matter for Parliament to introduce such legal protections. It is prescribed in law that poll cards and ballot papers must be provided in English or Welsh, but there are no other prescribed language requirements relating to election materials.”
“We can all cynically speculate about the reasons why this sudden about-turn has taken place this week, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy), who spoke from the Front Bench, said earlier, it is our job to scrutinise this legislation and to ensure that whatever we put in place does justice to the determination o…”
“In today’s version of the amendment paper, for the first time, that amendment has disappeared and been replaced not with the detailed compromise that Intelligence and Security Committee members, who have been engaged with this process, have been working towards, along with many others, but with Government amendment 157.”
“As the House would expect, we engaged with that process as diligently as we could, with no partisan politics, in an effort to make good law in the pursuit of greater state transparency while preserving our national security equities. As the hon.”
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“As subsection (6)(d) will remain in the Bill, the problem is straightforward. The touchstone of the entire Bill is that the welfare of the child is the most important thing. It does not seem sensible or in accordance with that principle that a child should be encouraged to enter into an arena in which a discussion is held—perhaps a quite acrimonious discussion—about whether financial compensation should be made in one direction or another. Of course, that argument was made in Committee, when the Government said that it is perfectly in order for a child to be involved in the making of a contact order in the first place. That is of course right, but the process is fundamentally different from that involving compensation for financial loss.”
“10, as it stands, is to delete subsections (7) and (8) of proposed new section 110 of the Children Act 1989, which would be inserted by clause 5 of the Bill. Subsections (7) and (8) deal with subsection (6)(d) of the proposed new section, which adds “the child concerned” to the list of people who are able to apply for compensation for financial loss. Of course, that is the substantial aspect of the measure that is objectionable to Conservative Members. Subsections (7) and (8) contain qualifications that deal with the child obtaining the leave of the court before making such an application, which will be granted under subsection (8) only if the court is satisfied that the child has the necessary “sufficient understanding” to make the application. It thus follows that amendment No. 10 should also delete subsection (6)(d).”
“Member for Luton, South (Margaret Moran) that what is to be avoided is the perception by the child, or anyone else, that parents are being punished, especially when that has a negative impact on the child. However, surely it must be right that, in order to look after the best interests of the child, the court has the option, at the very least, of being able to put the child into the position that it originally intended the child to be in. That is why I support new clause 21. The idea behind amendment No. 10 was discussed in Committee. The same mistake that was made in Committee has been made again. There should be an addition to the amendment to say that subsection (6)(d) on page 10 of the Bill should also be deleted. The effect of amendment No.”
“If that is so, and assuming that the court process operates as it should and as we would expect it to, the court could come to the conclusion that, in the best interests of the child and the child’s welfare, a certain provision should be made for contact with the non-resident parent. That must self-evidently be the case. The court’s view will be that, for a particular period of time, the child should have contact with the non-resident parent. The new clause would come into effect only in circumstances in which the contact arrangement that the court had decided was appropriate had not taken effect for one reason or another. That must mean that the child’s best interests are not being served—because contact is not taking place in the way that the court ordered that it should. I agree entirely with the point made by the hon.”
“I want to say a few words in support of new clause 21 and amendment No. 10. As the House is now well aware, new clause 21 makes provision for the court to have an order for compensatory contact available to it as one sanction for the breach of a contact order. The primary advantage of that would be that it is only an order of compensatory contact that can give effect to the original intention of the court. Only when we can put right what has gone wrong will the court be able to see its original order being put into effect. That is important. The touchstone at the heart of everything that has been said in the course of this debate—rightly so—is that all of us in the House are concerned to make sure that the welfare of the child is the first consideration of all those involved in the court process.”
“The Solicitor-General mentioned that the maximum sentence for the offence would be five years, which is a restatement of the current law. Did the Government give any consideration to increasing the maximum sentence for the offence to make it comparable with the sentence for obtaining property by deception, or with the offences that replace that offence?”
“May I bring the Solicitor-General back to the point made by the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) about the possibility of someone being in possession of an item defined in clause 6(1), but not knowingly? Would the Solicitor-General be amenable to returning to that matter in Committee? The simple addition of the word “knowingly” in that subsection would deal with the point.”
“I accept that, as the Solicitor-General says, not every case results in the maximum sentence, but we could take the opportunity in the Bill to send a message that dishonest acts leading to the defrauding of an individual or a company are all potentially very serious. Whether people are defrauding them of services or of property, the maximum penalty available should be consistent across the board. The Government could take the opportunity to establish that in the Bill, and would be well advised to do so. I hope that we will be able to return to the matter in Committee, and I invite the Government to think carefully about it. Broadly speaking, I welcome the Bill. It is a good Bill, and it is generally well targeted. However, it could be better, and I hope that at the conclusion of its passage through the House, it will be.”
“There must be circumstances, as we can all envisage, in which the value of services is at least as high as the value of property, which is encompassed by the earlier clauses. If, for example, one defrauds a merchant bank of property or money to a high value, one faces a potential sentence of 10 years. If, on the other hand, one defrauds a merchant bank in such a way that one receives the services of a very highly paid, professional and experienced merchant banker, which might be worth as much as or perhaps more than the property of which the bank could have been defrauded, one faces half the potential maximum sentence.”
“The Bill offers an opportunity, which is well taken by the Government, to simplify the whole area and make it straightforward, consistent and easy for the general public to understand so that everyone knows what they are obliged to do and what they are not permitted to do, but there is a potential anomaly in the law as it stands with regard to maximum sentences. Under the Bill, if someone were to perpetrate a dishonest act by representation or by omission or in other ways, leading to a gain or loss of money or property, they would face a potential sentence of 10 years. If, however, they obtained services by dishonesty, they would face a maximum sentence of only five years.”
“The Government need to review not only the criminal law but the systems in place in the benefits system and the tax credits system, and ensure that where simplicity is possible, it is introduced, so as to play its part in defeating the potential fraudster. Thirdly, I return to my earlier intervention and press the point about the maximum sentence in clause 11. The clause deals with obtaining services dishonestly. I welcome the fact that it redrafts the law so that dishonesty, rather than the deception of an individual, is the key question, but it is a restatement of the law with regard to maximum sentences.”
“It is up to the Government to consider the other ways in which they can reduce the likely incidence of fraud. Fraud prospers in complex systems. It is much easier to perpetrate a fraud in a system that is difficult to follow, because that makes it difficult for those who enforce the rules to work out how the rules have been flouted, and difficult for a court and a jury to work out how the system has been abused. I urge the Government to examine the systems for which they have responsibility and ensure that they are as simple as they can be. We have seen recently that in the tax credit system, the internet portal has become subject to precisely the type of fraud that the Bill is designed to address.”
“In my experience juries are well able to deal with the matters put before them in a fraud trial, so long as the lawyers putting those matters before them do so in a straightforward way. The Bill will help them do that, which means that juries will be more, not less, able to deal with fraud trials. I recognise that, as the Solicitor-General said, these arguments are for the time when we deal with another piece of legislation, but I hope that he will not do something counter-intuitive, by passing one piece of legislation that helps juries, and then not taking that into account when he considers whether juries are able to deal with fraud trials. The second issue that I want to raise also follows on from comments by the Solicitor-General with which I wholeheartedly agree. It should not be up to the criminal law alone to deal with fraud.”
“Instead of dealing with deception and the question of who is deceived, which causes the problems that we have discussed, it addresses the fraudster’s intentions and whether or not they are dishonest. That is an extremely effective riposte to the fact that, as fraud is increasingly perpetrated electronically, there is no one to be deceived. I wish to make three points about the Bill against the background of my broad welcome. First, I echo the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) about jury trials. This is a good Bill, because it makes the law of fraud simpler, thus weakening considerably what, in my view, is an already weak argument for a reduction of the right to jury trial for individuals accused of fraud.”
“May I begin by declaring an interest as a non-practising barrister? Like every speaker in our debate, I welcome the Bill, which is a good measure that deals effectively with an unnecessarily complex area of the criminal law. As has been said, there can be no doubt that fraud is a serious business. The criminal law is required to deal with it effectively, and we do not want to construct laws that allow criminals to find loopholes. The Solicitor-General has made it clear that that is the purpose of the Bill, which I welcome wholeheartedly. I particularly welcome the fact that it deals with the fraudster’s intentions, rather than the consequences of fraud.”
“My hon. Friend speaks about risk aversion in the context of civil negligence claims. He will know that those of us who worry about clause 1 are concerned that it does not contain any provision affecting criminal prosecution by the Health and Safety Executive. Many of those who are risk averse are worried about the HSE taking criminal action against them. Does my hon. Friend agree that that should be dealt with in clause 1?”
“If the Government are to succeed in persuading those who operate in the voluntary sector and elsewhere that they are not liable to penalties, in the form either of prosecution by the HSE or of a case brought by someone injured in an accident, they will have to consider not only the civil law but also the criminal law, and ensure that the HSE gives clear guidance about what people are safely able and entitled to do. I hope that the Government will go further and consider the work of the HSE and make sure that the guidance it issues is clear, and does not change behaviour in undesirable ways.”
“However, given all the problems that have been outlined about clause 1, all the difficulties of defining precisely what a desirable activity is and all the possible downsides that we have discussed, could we not do things in another way? I hope that in the course of the debate we shall consider that point more carefully. To be fair to the Government, they have accepted that they cannot simply rely on clause 1 to get across the message that the compensation culture is a myth and that people should not change their behaviour as a result of that myth. There is clearly much more to be done. In an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire, I referred to activities that are not covered by clause 1 and which relate to the Health and Safety Executive. There is much work to be done in that regard.”
“What the Government really need to do is to get that message across to the people likely to be affected by the law, but the way to do it is not with a clause in a new piece of legislation, which will hardly come immediately to the attention of people engaged in voluntary activities, or who run scout troops, adventure training or anything of that nature. Those people will want to hear directly from the Government what their responsibilities are and what they are liable for. That is a communication job; it is an exercise in getting the message across. It is—dare I say it?—a public relations exercise. If there was ever a job for the Government, that must be it.”
“I wonder whether the Government can achieve what they, quite properly, want to achieve other than by constructing something like clause 1. Clause 1, as the Government have made perfectly clear, restates the law. In their view it does not change the law, although I appreciate that some hon. Members disagree with that assessment. The Government believe that clause 1 is about expressing the law more clearly and making clear to everyone who has an interest in this area of the law exactly what it says.”
“If we pursue that sort of scenario, we will discourage our potential entrepreneurs and scientists from trying the type of activities that inevitably involve risk, but without which progress cannot be made in a competitive economic environment. That is the kind of Britain that I fear we are moving towards, not because of a reality but because of a perception. I support wholeheartedly the Government’s intention and aspiration to address that perception, but I have severe doubts whether clause 1 is the way in which we should go about doing so. My basic principle is that if we can do something better without making extra legislation, we should do so. That is something that will be explored as the Bill progresses through the House.”
“That is quantifiable, but we cannot quantify the things that do not happen—all the decisions taken by teachers not to run a school trip, or by youth club organisers not to undertake a potentially dangerous activity that they fear may leave them liable to legal action. There is an area of undisclosed and undeterminable activity that is not happening, and that is the real root of the problem. There is no doubt that that non-activity is real. This is a genuine and far-reaching problem. I do not want, and I am sure that other hon. Members do not want, to live in a society where in some activities that our children pursue in their education it is made impossible for them to fail, while they are told that other activities are too risky for them even to try.”
“That is important, because clause 1 is about persuading people that the position is as the Government argue it to be. The law does not prohibit someone from operating a voluntary organisation or running a scout troop or adventure training organisation or anything like it, but the law will consider someone’s behaviour, and if it is reasonable and they have taken appropriate measures to ensure that risks are limited, they will not be liable. However, that is not the perception. The perception is that if people run an event, they may be liable. That is important, because the effect is difficult to measure. When we look at the figures, we can see whether accident claims have gone up or down.”
“That is clear, and it is the law, but it seems to me that a sense that there is no longer any such thing as a straightforward accident for which no one is to blame, and that someone is always to be held financially accountable, is corrosive. It is clear that people are not rushing to the courts to pursue claims. That is what the evidence shows us, but it is also clear that many of those who operate voluntary organisations and the like still have a profound fear that they might do that, and that fear has to be addressed by the House. That fear is important because it inhibits activities that are not only enjoyable, as my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) described, but can be extremely valuable for the economy.”
“There is broad agreement not only about that, but about the fact that there is a perception of a compensation culture. In my view, that is almost as bad. That perception is widespread and profoundly damaging, as other hon. Members have said. Claims management companies have contributed substantially to that perception, and that is one of the many good reasons for regulating their behaviour. The Government wish to go further to address the apparent perception that there is a compensation culture—and that brings me to part 1 of the Bill. There is no doubt that the perception of a compensation culture must be challenged and changed, because it is doing a great deal of damage. Of course it is right that if somebody suffers injury or loss as a result of negligence they should receive compensation for their loss.”
“I declare an interest as a non-practising barrister, although not in the field of personal injury or negligence. I want to say a few words about part 2, which I welcome, and then to say a little more about part 1. I am certain that part 2 is an entirely appropriate and necessary measure, which will introduce some consistency and ensure that claims farmers are treated in the same way as lawyers and insurers. That is entirely welcome. Like my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald), I hope that that there will be full consistency, and that trade unions will be included in the general consensus. As the House has heard, the Constitutional Affairs Committee, of which I am a member, considered the Bill in some detail and concluded in its investigation that there is no compensation culture.”
“It would distract us, and the individuals whom we are trying to help, to talk incessantly about the sorts of legalistic problems that clause 1 throws up. I hope that the Government will take those comments on board and that the Bill can be improved still further as it progresses through the House.”
“It is important that we recognise what is right about the Bill: it addresses the long-overlooked issue of how to regulate the claims farming industry. That is welcome and we shall make sure, as the Bill goes through Committee, that those provisions work as well as possible. To achieve that, the Government must avoid drawing attention away from their primary purpose by leaving clause 1 as it is, because it may simply act as an unwelcome distraction from what the Bill will, I hope, do effectively. The Government can address the perception that we have a compensation culture, but they need to get their information transmission mechanisms right, and to send the right messages through Departments, through the HSE and through regulation of the claims farming industry that the compensation culture is not a reality, and never can be.”
“I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, who makes a valid point. Part of the difficulty is that the HSE appears to operate on the premise that it must do whatever is necessary to reduce the prospect of an accident almost to zero. That approach is fundamentally flawed and, as many Members have said, although we should look for methods of reducing risk, we must always accept that we cannot eliminate it entirely. We must also accept that if we reduce to almost nothing the chance that people—especially young people—will engage in potentially risky activities, we shall damage their development far more than the risk of an accident would. The Government will have to look at the matter in a broader context than that presented by the Bill.”
“Does my hon. Friend agree that the position on information technology is even worse than he has set out? Is he aware that in my constituency I have a case in which a lady was overpaid repeatedly? She told the authority that that was happening and the reply was, “Yes, we know, but the computer won’t let us put it right.””
“Does the Minister agree that one of the best ways of encouraging Muslim democracies is to encourage a modern, effective secular democracy in Turkey and that one of the best ways to achieve that is to argue for Turkish membership of the European Union?”
“The Paymaster General will be aware that a substantial number of the overpayments are due to official error. In those cases, claimants are expected to identify and challenge the error if they want to avoid repaying the money. She will also accept that there are many cases where the claimant receives a large number of award notices, all of them different, and that task can be extremely difficult. Why should tax credit recipients, who have done nothing wrong, spend so much time correcting the Government's mistakes?”
“My hon. Friend will have had conversations with police officers in his area, as I have had in mine. Those officers say that they police the public with the public's consent, and that they cannot do otherwise. If the measure goes through without public consent, as he clearly demonstrated, that will not assist the strengthening of the relationship that the police need to have with the public, and with which they have had difficulty in the past few years and months.”
“Does my hon. Friend agree that in the scenario that he is describing, his constituents and mine are likely to find that not only are police management structures further away from them, but so is democratic accountability for the police? Larger police forces will have elected or partly elected police authorities, further removed geographically and in their thinking from the people about whom my hon. Friend and I are worried.”
“The Minister has expressed his confidence that the removal of the Post Office card account will have no noticeable impact on the business of, in particular, small and rural post offices. If that is so, why does he think that other hon. Members and I receive so many letters from postmasters and postmistresses who work in such post offices indicating their serious concern that that move will send them out of business?”
“Does the Foreign Secretary accept that it looks increasingly likely that uranium enrichment is continuing in Iran? It is equally likely that the Iranian Government will not restrict the use of that technology to non-military purposes. In those circumstances, can the right hon. Gentleman confirm to the House that the Government will take all necessary steps to prevent nuclear weapons from falling into the hands of the Iranian regime?”
“I have listened with interest to the variety of groups that the Chief Secretary has described as benefiting from the Bill. May I ask him about one that will not? Will he explain to the House why the Government concluded that pensioners needed £200 to help with their council tax last year, but not this year?”
“The problem is that the mistakes that the system has made cannot be corrected, sometimes for months or even longer, because even those employed by the Government to run the system cannot find their way through the maze of rules and regulations that the Government have created. The difficulty experienced by my constituents is that the complexity of the system is not helping those who most need its help.”
“That time could be spent much more profitably on generating wealth and employment which would go towards the sustenance of the state in any case. I am glad to see the Paymaster General in her place this evening, because she is the Minister responsible for the Government's efforts to assist the most vulnerable people in the tax system through tax credits. I cannot be the only Member of the House whose postbag is full of complaints from those who have been overpaid, underpaid or in some other way wrongly paid through the tax credit system—indeed, I know that I am not; I recall the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Julia Goldsworthy) saying that she had a similar problem.”
“Not only are domestic rules to blame. For example, the European clinical trials directive must accept much of the blame. However, the Government can do more, not only by offering greater, but— crucially—simpler tax relief. What is true for research and development also applies more generally and I revert to the theme that many hon. Members have raised. The tax system that the Chancellor created is buckling under the weight of its refinements. The system's complexity goes beyond simply causing inconvenience. It now risks damaging the welfare of not only our businesses but the most vulnerable in our society. Businesses, especially small businesses, in my constituency—and, I suspect, those of many other hon. Members—spend far too much of their time trying to calculate their financial obligation to the state.”
“I approach the matter from a former legal perspective, and I have seen first hand the way in which those frauds have grown. It is important that the Government take action to make such fraud less attractive and feasible. I am glad that they are attempting to do that. I also welcome the Government's attempts to support research and development, which is so important. I accept that the tax relief offered to those who conduct such activity is welcome. However, tax relief on research and development and aspects thereof is valuable only if the financial benefit that can be gained is not outweighed by the administrative effort necessary to obtain it. Ministers know that a great deal of time is already lost, and that there is already huge pressure on those who conduct research and development to complete all the administration involved.”
“I want to start by accepting the invitation of the hon. Member for Wirral, West (Stephen Hesford) and by being as positive as I can, at least at the outset of my hopefully brief contribution. I shall consider aspects of the Bill that I welcome and believe to be positive. The Government have shown their intent to penalise, through vehicle excise duty, vehicles that are the most heavily polluting—a worthwhile aim. It is also worth while to pursue a 0 per cent. rate for the least polluting vehicles. It would be an even more generous offer if any such vehicles were available but, none the less, I commend the intent. Like the hon. Member for Wirral, West, I welcome the news that the Government intend to tackle the serious and growing problem of intra-EU missing trader frauds.”
“All that has happened is that the Government's need for pensioners' support has changed this year, compared with last year, and the Government have quite cynically removed that assistance from them. There has been no credible explanation for that decision. I agree wholeheartedly with the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne that the Budget presented an opportunity to assist first-time buyers, pensioners and even the NHS. It was certainly an opportunity to make the tax system and the tax benefits system simpler, and thereby more effective. In every respect, however, it was an opportunity missed.”
“I am sorry to have to tell the Government that an increase in the stamp duty threshold from £120,000 to £125,000 will do precisely nothing to bring the dream of home ownership any nearer for those I represent in Rugby and Kenilworth. There is no mention in the Bill of what the Government are going to do about NHS deficits, or about restoring incentives to save for one's retirement, which is a huge problem entirely of the Government's own making, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Peter Viggers) has already made clear. Nor is there any mention of an extra £200 to assist pensioners, as I pointed out earlier in an intervention on the Chief Secretary. Pensioners' need for Government support has not changed; in fact, it has grown in relation to assistance with paying their council tax.”
“Their response is to say, "We know you're being overpaid repeatedly, but we can't fix the system so that you will stop being overpaid repeatedly." That ridiculous state of affairs, of which the Government should be thoroughly ashamed, has been brought about by an over-complex system. My constituents would have been delighted to see a simplification of the tax regime in the Finance Bill. Instead, however, it is once again being made more complicated. But the situation is even worse than that. Despite the Bill's 475 pages, 181 clauses and 25 schedules, certain measures are still missing from it, including any genuine attempt to assist first-time buyers.”
“I recognise the Government's intent in establishing the tax credit system. However, I am afraid that the Chancellor cannot resist the inclination to add layer upon layer of complexity to everything that he does. That is why the Government's very worthwhile intent—I entirely accept the hon. Lady's point on that—is being consistently undermined by what they are actually engaged in doing. I shall give the hon. Lady an example. I have a constituent who has contacted me a number of times. She is being repeatedly overpaid by the tax credit system, and she has repeatedly contacted the tax credit offices to tell them that that is happening.”
“Those who suffer from childhood brain cancers cannot afford a reduction in research—they need more of it to be done—so I hope that the Minister will look again at the effect in the UK of the clinical trials directive and cut back on the paperwork, which is costing researchers too many precious hours that could be so much better spent. If those researchers can save more time, they can save more lives. I ask the Minister to meet the doctors at the Children's Brain Tumour Research Centre, so that she can hear directly from them about the problems that they face. So we are having this debate tonight because Thomas Archer died, but we are also having this debate so that others with the same condition may live. We all share that objective, and I ask the Minister to do all that she can to bring it about.”
“In particular, academic researchers funded by grants, who have so far performed most oncology trials, were worried that their resources might no longer suffice to meet the requirements of the new directive. A recent analysis of research since the directive suggests that many of those fears have been realised". The authors were referring to a report by the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer, which showed that clinical trial costs increased by 85 per cent. and that insurance costs doubled, following the coming into force of the directive, resulting in a 63 per cent. reduction in the number of new trials between 2004 and 2005.”
“If we look to medical science to provide new treatments for brain cancer in children, the worst thing that we can do is to put obstacles in the path of medical scientists. The strong view of the consultant who treated Thomas Archer is that the implementation of the European clinical trials directive has damaged such medical research. I readily concede that the serious injuries recently caused to one group of volunteers shows the need for some regulation of clinical trials, but it is vital that regulation does not become counter-productive. A recent editorial in the British Medical Journal by two Finnish researchers, discussing the impact of the directive Europe-wide, said: "at the outset many investigators were worried that the labour-intensive, bureaucratic and expensive endeavour of running a clinical trial would become worse.”
“I understand that national cancer charities spend less than 4 per cent. of their annual research budgets on all forms of childhood cancer. Of course, I understand that the NHS in its current financial state cannot provide limitless resources for the funding of research into childhood brain cancers or, indeed, anything else. We must hope that some of the health research fund that the Chancellor announced in the Budget finds its way to such research. I understand too that, given the relatively small number of childhood cancers compared with adult cancers, there is bound to be a discrepancy in funding, although that compounds the problem, as pharmaceutical companies are also reluctant to invest for the same reason. There is, however, something practical that the Government can do to help without the need for substantial extra resources.”