Gareth Thomas
MP for Harrow West · Labour (Co-op) · United Kingdom
“Local councils such as Harrow need to invest more in youth facilities that divert young people away from crime. Some of the CCTV projects in my constituency that Harrow council has turned down—in Wealdstone, south Harrow and central Harrow—should get funding.”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle and Clitheroe (Jonathan Hinder) on securing the debate and on the way in which he approached the subject. I join him and my hon.”
“I also want to suggest that the Metropolitan police does not get recognition across the whole of the UK for its hugely important work in tackling national and international crime, and that perhaps more recognition of that is required in the funding formula.”
“In particular, in Harrow, we recently saw enforcement teams contracted out to an organisation called Kingdom. The responsibility for that contract was with Harrow council. There was widespread criticism of the way some of the staff employed by Kingdom tried to levy fines on a number of young people in south Harrow, in my constituency.”
“One way we can further support the Metropolitan police is by allowing it to keep more of the proceeds from successful operations, such as recovering stolen funds hidden in bitcoin assets. I congratulate my hon.”
“Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has done a huge amount to try to redirect funding from other parts of his budget to minimise the impact of that cut.”
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“It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins). I did not have the privilege of serving on the Bill Committee, but I spoke on Second Reading and on Report. I welcome Ministers’ commitment to continue to engage with credit unions, which was the primary issue I sought to raise. There is one issue we did not address in relation to Help to Save. With a national provider—National Savings & Investments—it would be relatively easy to disaggregate the data on who is taking advantage of the Help to Save product and to publish them in an anonymised form. We could track the postcodes to see where people are taking advantage of it.”
“I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is aware, but there are rumours that a third round of franchise announcements and therefore closures of Crown post offices is due at any moment, with a potential loss of 190 jobs. Does he not think this debate might be an opportunity for the Minister to put some pressure on the Post Office to think again about that third round of potential franchises?”
“Some services, such as cash and cheque clearing facilities, also appear to be processed more slowly than in bank branches. Other services, such as inter-account transfers and currency exchange, are not available. As the future of the network moves away from full-service post offices to franchises there is concern about the impact on small business access.” It is not just the Communication Workers Union and staff that want change in terms of financial services; it is small business that have genuine concerns. I hope that the Minister will act.”
“Given that many people stick with the financial services provider that they start with, it would surely make good economic sense for the Minister to insist that the Post Office quickly gets its act together on a dedicated children’s product. All of those problems suggest a business that is not taking seriously the ambition of substantial revenue growth from financial services, as Vince Cable once promised. The hon. Member for Yeovil (Marcus Fysh) rightly praised the contribution of postmasters and postmistresses—particularly those who are members of the Federation of Small Businesses. The FSB published a report in October called “Locked Out”, which said: “Business banking services provided at some Post Office branches and franchises are too limited.”
“In one of the district centres in north Harrow in my constituency, there is no bank, and there has not been for some time. The Post Office is the only financial services player still in existence there. The option of a business account would be hugely beneficial to small businesses in that one district alone. I am told that the Post Office is trialling a current account. Indeed, we are apparently four and a half years into the trial; it was supposed to launch in 2014. Why has it taken so long before that product could possibly be launched? There is no dedicated children’s product either. I am aware of the junior individual savings account, but £500 has to be put into that account up front to get it up and running, and that money cannot be accessed until the child turns 18.”
“Again, it would be useful to hear from the Minister what discussions she has had with other Government Departments to encourage them to use the Post Office. I ask that question because the Post Office being the front office for the Government was the first part of the great vision that Vince Cable set out in November 2010. If revenues from Government services have declined by 40%, it raises some fairly alarming questions. There are rumours that Government insiders themselves accept that that option for the Post Office’s future has largely been a failure. The second objective that Vince Cable set out was the expansion of financial services. The Post Office’s revenue from financial services has grown by just 2% over the past six years. Why does it still not offer a business account?”
“Fourthly, is the Post Office’s 2018-19 funding package, which I understand is being negotiated in Whitehall at the moment, going to lead to more closures and to more full-time employees being pushed out of the door, or is it going to be a genuine opportunity for serious investment in new services? Fifthly, and lastly, as I understand it, the 10-year contract that the Post Office has with Royal Mail can be reviewed from January next year. It would be good to hear reassurance from the Minister that Royal Mail intends to stick absolutely to the terms of its contract with the Post Office going forward. Post Office revenues from Government services have fallen by almost 40% since 2010, as no new Government services are using the Post Office. Of those that still are, many Departments are promoting online alternatives.”
“Similarly, New Zealand has a highly successful post office bank, which was established in the past 15 years. There are successful models involving financial services. What is striking about the debate is the cross-party concern about the crisis in the Post Office at the moment. Thirdly—I ask this as a Co-operative Member as well as a Labour Member—whatever happened to the idea of the Post Office becoming a mutual, with a more involved workforce and local community involvement to help to plot a more co-operative future for the Post Office? The last ministerial mention of that vision from November 2010 that I can find was in November 2013. It would be helpful to know whether the Minister still adheres to that possibility.”
“There are five questions that the Minister should answer. Before raising them, I join other Members in praising my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins), and I echo his declaration of interest. First, it would be helpful to hear from the Minister why she thinks Post Office income from financial services have grown so slowly? It was heralded as part of the great future for the Post Office by Vince Cable when he launched a document on its future back in November 2010. Secondly, why has Government business going through the Post Office been allowed to plummet? Ministers promised the reverse, again back in 2010. It is not only the French who seem to be able to run postal services better than the current Government. The Italians have also made a huge success of getting a post office bank up and running.”
“In the end, there will not be the type of peace that offers real long-term security, and the chance for all communities to live together, unless there is a sustained truth and reconciliation process, and human rights abuses begin to be properly dealt with. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.”
“The military’s presence in the north and east is all-pervasive, with many ordinary businesses such as tourist resorts, and even shops selling basic goods, controlled by the armed forces. Economic development, particularly Tamil-owned economic development, lags far behind that in other areas of the country. Sri Lanka is one of the most beautiful islands in the world—a point often made to me when I attend cross-community events in my constituency—but it has one of the ugliest of recent histories. Those who continue to be victims of human rights abuses in Sri Lanka have few people to turn to. Britain has a particularly heavy responsibility to take, given our previous history with Sri Lanka and our commitment to international human rights.”
“Lastly, let me turn to the presence of the military in the north and the east of Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan Government agreed in the Human Rights Council resolution last year that it would accelerate the return of land to its rightful owners. The organisation Freedom House has suggested that the military still occupied 44,000 acres of Tamil-owned land in 2015. The Sri Lankan Centre for Policy Alternatives reported in March that 13,000 acres of land in the Northern Province alone continue to be occupied. Other reports suggest that the military has returned some, but far from all, the land it seized. It is far from clear from public statements whether all the land will be returned to its rightful owners. Again, it would be helpful to hear the Minister’s assessment.”
“However, it is the impunity for previous human rights abuses that stands out as the single most telling indication that change in Sri Lanka is not happening anything like fast enough. Cases include the January 2006 extrajudicial execution of five students in Trincomalee by security personnel; the killing of 17 aid workers with the French organisation Action Contre La Faim in Muttur in August of the same year; the January 2009 murder of Sri Lanka’s most famous newspaper editor at the time, the Sinhalese Lasantha Wickrematunge; and the disappearances of political activists Lalith Weeraraj and Kugan Muruganandan in Jaffna in 2011. Those cases are noteworthy for the profile they had at the time and since, and for the lack of progress in the investigations.”
“It is true that, 12 months ago, the Government announced a plan to deal with the Tamil detainees held under the PTA, with some released on bail, others sent for supposed rehabilitation, and the rest set to be charged. Can the Minister tell us today or in writing whether he has had discussions about the timing of any replacement for the PTA, whether he is confident that a full list of the Tamils detained under the PTA has been made public, and whether family members have been informed? The remarkable people in Sri Lanka who champion human rights—for example, in the organisation Right To Life—continue to report harassment, police and military surveillance, and, on occasion, anonymous death threats.”
“It goes on to argue that the law has been used since 2009 to detain and torture people suspected of links to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, including forcibly returned asylum seekers. Indeed, I have had complaints from residents in my constituency of visits to Sri Lanka resulting in arrest and, on at least one occasion, torture. Human Rights Watch notes that many instances of torture, sexual violence and other ill-treatment occurred in the Criminal Investigation Department and Terrorist Investigation Division offices in Colombo, while others occurred in unofficial places of detention. In addition, evidence in court has confirmed that the navy operated secret detention camps in Colombo and Trincomalee, where detainees were allegedly tortured and killed. Even now, it is not clear exactly how many are held, or where, under the PTA.”
“The UN human rights commissioner acknowledged the access given to the aforementioned UN organisations, but went on to note with concern the lack of transparency in negotiations over a truth and reconciliation commission and a special court. Again, perhaps the Minister could explain what he thinks is going on. Will there be a truth and reconciliation commission, and when might that body begins work? When, too, might we expect the catch-all Prevention of Terrorism Act, or PTA, to be lifted? I understand that the Sri Lankan Government have agreed to that, but, again, they have given no time commitment. Human Rights Watch described the PTA as the legislation used to facilitate thousands of human rights abuses over the years, including torture, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial executions.”
“In May, to be fair to the Sri Lankan Government, an Office of Missing Persons was created, and in August the necessary law was passed by the Sri Lankan Parliament. It would be helpful to hear the Minister’s assessment of the finances and personnel of this new office, and of whether it has the political support necessary to really make a difference. The Sri Lankan Government have also allowed visits by the UN’s working group on enforced or voluntary disappearances, the special rapporteur on torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman, degrading treatment or punishment, and the special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers.”
“The then Home Secretary made it clear that she—and by implication her officials—had made no representations on or offers of help and so on with involving international judges and prosecutors in prosecutions for war crimes in Sri Lanka. In September this year the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, visited Sri Lanka and reiterated his support for international judicial participation in the special court. I ask the Minister gently why Britain has not done more to encourage delivery of that special court with that international judicial co-operation. The resolution passed 12 months ago also approved the creation of a truth commission and of offices on reparations and missing persons.”
“There were, it is true, other elements to the resolution, which I will come back to. On the involvement of international judges and the establishment of a special court, there has been absolutely no progress to date. There have been a series of worrying public statements from the President and the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, stating that the judicial process will have no international involvement at all. What, then, has been Britain’s reaction? I look forward to hearing from the Minister on this point in particular. Has Britain offered any judges to a special court that might be created in Sri Lanka? My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) received a very interesting answer to his written question to the then Home Secretary, now the Prime Minister, on 6 June.”
“The resolution—a significant step away from the international community’s previous support for a full independent inquiry into allegations of war crimes at the end of the conflict and other allegations of human rights abuses levelled at both sides—nevertheless called for measures to advance accountability, reconciliation, human rights and the rule of law. Crucially, it called for international involvement in the prosecution of alleged war crimes and the establishment of a special court “integrating international judges, prosecutors, lawyers and investigators” with an independent Sri Lankan investigative and prosecuting body. Twelve months on since that resolution was passed, with strong UK Government support and with that key and fundamental element contained in it, it is worth considering where the process stands today.”
“Inevitably, the Rajapaksa Government were always unlikely to offer a truth and justice process or one that encouraged reconciliation between the different communities of the island of Sri Lanka. So when the Rajapaksa Government were defeated by President Sirisena and his Administration, it seemed like a genuine moment for optimism about Sri Lanka’s future. Particularly encouraging was the new Sri Lankan Government’s willingness to co-sponsor a resolution to the UN Human Rights Council in October last year, alongside the UK, the US and other countries.”
“In the final months few independent observers—certainly, no one from the international media—were able to get close to the fighting, allowing terrible abuses to take place, according to the witness testimony collected by highly credible international human rights organisations. Murder, disappearances, sexual violence, the use of child soldiers, the use of civilians as human shields and the bombing of hospitals have all been chronicled by witnesses. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) has previously noted, many at the very top of Sri Lankan society, then Ministers, military leaders, figures in the judiciary and civil society, are suspected of being complicit in some of the atrocities that took place.”
“Since that time, as a Minister when Labour was in government and since we have been in opposition, I have continued to raise a series of human rights abuses, both through constituency correspondence and by taking part in debates in this House. I am told that the situation on the ground in the north and east is basically calm. Tamils from other countries can visit and are not routinely stopped any longer by the military or the police. That does not mean, however, that we should forget the terrible events that have taken place in Sri Lanka in recent times. The Sri Lankan military conflict ended in May 2009 after almost a quarter of a century of conflict, with an estimated 100,000 people losing their lives.”
“There is a sense that the Foreign Office either does not want to rock the boat in Sri Lanka, or does not want to put in the diplomatic effort to keep the new Sri Lankan Government under pressure to deliver. I have visited Sri Lanka twice. The first time was as a Back-Bench MP in October 2001, if I remember rightly, when a ceasefire was in place, and there were serious negotiations under way between the Government and the Tamil Tigers about what a peace settlement might look like. I went again as a Minister in July 2005 after the terrible tsunami, but by then the conflict was under way again, with targeted assassinations by paramilitaries taking place and the language of confrontation beginning to ratchet up.”
“The Foreign Office has fought for the disappeared and their relatives with all the energy of a wet dishcloth. Little obvious effort goes into holding the Sri Lankan Government’s feet to the fire, so that they deliver meaningful reform and prevent further human rights abuses, never mind beginning to put right previous abuses. From time to time, it is true that new commitments are made, or a new Government come in, or there are new Sri Lankan Ministers promising to work with the international community to improve human rights. Very occasionally, the odd case gets resolved, but on the ground in Sri Lanka, the story is one of continuing impunity for human rights abusers. Ministers here, I gently suggest, have simply not done enough in recent times to challenge that culture.”
“Although the second highest in the world, these represent only the ‘tip of the iceberg.’ In May, the Sri Lankan government acknowledged receiving at least 65,000 complaints of enforced disappearances since 1995. ” That is 65,000 people who have disappeared in 30 years. The majority of them, though not all, are Tamil. All 65,000 had families and loved ones who are grieving, who have no closure and who, certainly at the moment, have little hope of any justice. I am pleased to say that I have a significant number of Sinhalese and Sri Lankan Muslim constituents, as well as the highest number of Tamil constituents of any MP in the UK. Some of the disappeared have relatives living in my constituency. It is their anger and demand for justice that I bring once again to this great House.”
“I am grateful to the Speaker for selecting this topic for debate, and to my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) for being in her place. It is a particular pleasure to see the Minister for Europe and the Americas, who has successfully returned to the Front Bench. I look forward to his particularly provocative personality helping to shake up the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s handling of this matter. Amnesty International, presenting to the UN Human Rights Council on 15 September, said: “When Sri Lanka co-sponsored UN Human Rights Council Resolution 30/1 in October 2015, among the commitments made were initiatives to account for enforced disappearances.” It went on to say that the UN’s Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances “has transmitted more than 12,000 complaints to Sri Lanka.”
“May I ask the Minister, in the remaining minutes of his interesting response to my speech, to comment on the establishment—or not—of the special court, which was one of the key elements of resolution 30/01? In particular, can he say whether international judges might, in the end, still be participants in that court?”
“The Secretary of State’s Department is supposed to be England’s voice in government, yet standing up for the English and the services they depend on seems low on Ministers’ list of priorities. The independent Care Quality Commission pointed out recently that the Government’s huge funding cuts have left services for England’s elderly and vulnerable at tipping point. With the social care crisis across England getting worse week by week, when might we expect the Secretary of State to act?”
“Will the Minister acknowledge the concern of some that the two-year qualifying period for Help to Save is lengthy for people on very low incomes? Will she also acknowledge the credit union movement’s concern that as a result of the Government response to the consultation on Help to Save—this is how I understand it—it is going to be excluded from offering Help to Save products?”
“I was grateful to the Minister for her response to my question. Will my hon. Friend commit our Front-Bench team to probing the Government further on whether there should be a two-year qualifying period, or if the period should be reduced to 12 months? Similarly, will she commit our Front-Bench team to exploring in Committee whether credit unions can be allowed to take part alongside National Savings and Investments? NS&I already offers national coverage, so there is no reason why credit unions should be excluded.”
“Before my hon. Friend concludes her speech, may I suggest one further area on which Labour Front Benchers could press the Government in Committee? The Bill does not include a requirement that any employer should offer payroll deduction services, but that could help all savers, especially those on low and middle incomes. In that way, people could, if they wanted, have money deducted from their pay at source by their employer. Ideally that would go into a credit union, but it could go into any other source of savings. I suspect that that would create a significant boost to savings in this country.”
“The hon. Gentleman is making a very powerful application to serve on the Public Bill Committee. Given his point about low interest rates, does he not share the concern of many outside the House—indeed, it is a concern of mine—about the fact that the qualifying period to get the Government’s bonus payment under the Help to Save scheme is two years, rather than just 12 months? Would not a shorter period be a further and more sensible incentive to get people saving more quickly?”
“The hon. Gentleman has set out three concerns, if I remember rightly, about Help to Save. I wonder whether he shares my view and that of the hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) that the Government need to do more to explain why they think there should be a two-year qualifying period for the Government bonus for Help to Save, as opposed to just 12 months.”
“It is worth reflecting briefly on the appetite across the House for more diverse financial markets. Arguably, one of the reasons why organisations within the financial services community can sometimes make high charges for their services is that there is not enough competition. Encouraging more savings through building societies, and in particular trying to build up the credit union sector, is surely something that every Treasury Bill, and indeed every Government Bill, should have at the back of its mind. Might there be an opportunity to encourage more tax incentives for savers? The armed forces credit union has been established. Why should there not be tax incentives to encourage more of our soldiers, sailors and air force personnel to sign up and support that credit union, and benefit from its services?”
“One thing the Minister could do if she is not immediately persuaded—I hope she will be by the time the Bill completes its passage—would be to use the weight of the Treasury to encourage all Whitehall Departments to check that every bit of government for which they are responsible allows payroll deduction and lets credit unions offer savings and other financial services to their employees. If the police can offer payroll deduction services—many police officers and other police staff are signed up to credit unions—and if our armed forces can do it, why cannot all of government offer this service? I therefore hope the Minister will not only lead a drive on allowing payroll deduction, but will be willing to contemplate amending the Bill to make payroll deduction a statutory right.”
“When one considers that before credit unions came along often the only products that were available for those serving in our armed forces on comparatively low incomes were those offered by legal loan sharks—the payday lenders charging huge sums of interest—one understands the scale of the benefit that credit unions are beginning to offer to armed forces personnel. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury has a reputation as a shrewd and effective operator around Whitehall. Now that she is in the Treasury, she has even more power at her disposal. Many parts of government, whether Whitehall directly, agencies outside Whitehall, the NHS, individual academies, academy chains or indeed some parts of local government, still do not offer payroll deduction services for credit unions that want to serve their employees.”
“He is right to say that the Government have a statutory right to take tax through PAYE, so why should they not also support a statutory right to allow people, with their employers, to save through a credit union, a standard mutual or a mainstream bank product? Giving people the right to payroll deduction would be of huge long-term benefit. Many of the credit unions that are highly successful underline regularly how important the facility of payroll deduction is to their ability to offer financial services, particularly in the savings context, to their members. For a while, one issue prevented an armed forces credit union from being established.”
“What I fail to understand is why credit unions cannot be allowed to offer the service to communities in their areas alongside NS&I. I hope that the Government will reconsider that point. I have the great privilege of chairing the all-party group on mutuals. I commend the contribution of the Building Societies Association which, in its comments on the lifetime ISA and its briefing for the debate, shares the concern that others have expressed about the risk of the lifetime ISA conflating savings for a house deposit and savings for retirement in one product. Again, there are concerns that the scale of withdrawal charges will be punitive. I hope that the Minister will pick up those two points. I welcome the support of the hon. Member for North West Hampshire for the idea of making payroll deduction a statutory right.”
“She is surely exactly the sort of person we would want to benefit from a scheme such as Help to Save, but I suspect that, if she thought that she was not going to get any benefit from her savings for two years, the struggle to make ends meet in the intervening period would be a significant disincentive to her setting even small amounts of money aside in a savings account. I share the concern of others that the scheme will benefit only those on in-work benefits. Again, I encourage the Government to be a little more imaginative on the scheme. I understand and see the logic of the Government’s need to have a Help to Save implementer with national coverage. Clearly, the Government have failed to persuade traditional banks or big financial players to offer the scheme, so I can see the attraction of NS&I.”
“The Government have decided that they will make their bonus payment after two years, as opposed to 12 months. The hon. Member for Newark talked about the person who has only £100 in their bank account and dwelt on the difficulties they have saving. Two years is a long time. I think of a constituent of mine who does the right thing and is working. She is a teaching assistant and therefore on a low income. She has faced, given the scale of the housing crisis, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles rightly alluded, significant increases in rent, and she struggles to manage her income and to pay all her bills.”
“It is a pleasure—on this occasion anyway—to follow the hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse). I rise in particular to support the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey) and to dwell on a number of the points that I have made in interventions. The hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), who speaks for the Scottish National party, the hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) and my hon. Friend, in particular, addressed the scale of the savings crisis. In their own different ways, they underlined the need to do a lot more to encourage those on low and modest incomes to save. It is in that spirit that I gently underline, in this, I hope, more substantive contribution, the need for the Government to look afresh at their decision on Help to Save.”
“My hon. Friend makes an important point. Many financial services markets around the world are far more diverse than the UK’s, and therefore far more competitive. We need to build up our building societies and other mutuals such as credit unions, and further tax incentives that encourage saving and taking up other financial services through mutuals can only be a good thing. I have no intention of voting against the Bill, but I share the concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles. I hope that both Front-Bench teams will reflect on my suggested amendments and that we will see progress on the concerns that they address during the Bill’s passage.”
“I am grateful to the Minister for his considered response to my request for payroll deduction. Would he be willing to meet me and the Association of British Credit Unions Ltd to discuss this issue further?”
“Given that a 20% increase in funding for the global fund from Britain is perfectly affordable in the context of Britain’s rising aid budget, and given that such an increase would trigger further sizeable increases in contributions from the United States and from Gates, why can the Secretary of State not tell the House now whether she will meet that 20% request?”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. During International Development questions this morning, the Secretary of State said that she would make an announcement on future funding of the global fund at some point next week. It is true that the global fund replenishment conference will take place next week and therefore represents a hard deadline, but given the scale of taxpayers’ funding that is at stake—up to £1.2 billion, hopefully—should not we in the House of Commons, representative as we are of the British taxpayer’s interests, be informed before any briefings are made to the media or to other countries?”
“I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. He was very generous the last time I had an opportunity to intervene on him. Part of the concern in my constituency about the north-west London STP relates to the fact that Harrow receives less NHS funding per patient than any other part of London. For some months we have sought a meeting with a Health Minister to discuss that issue. Is the Minister prepared to receive a delegation from our clinical commissioning group?”
“Prior to the Secretary of State’s appointment, the noises coming out of the Department for Education suggested that London schools, in particular, would be seriously hit by the changes to the funding formula. Schools in Harrow have been advised that they will face a real-terms budget cut of between 3% and 8% as a result of the changes that her Department is considering. Can she offer any reassurance to the headteachers and parents in my constituency that that will not be the case?”
“I know that my hon. Friend was a strong supporter of the Co-op party’s successful campaign during the last Parliament for the Government to establish a military credit union to help protect our military personnel and their families from being exploited by payday lenders. Does he think that this debate might be a good opportunity to hear from the Minister about what progress there has been in terms of people joining the three credit unions established to help military personnel?”
“I also hope that, in time, we will see the new Mayor of London seek to do the same with Transport for London, giving commuters the chance to vote on who should sit on its board alongside the Mayor. In that very direct way, people who depend on these vital public services will have more influence over their direction and future strategy.”