Karl Turner
MP for Kingston upon Hull East · Independent · United Kingdom
“I will call Tom Hayes to move the motion; I will then call the Minister to respond. I remind other Members that they may make a speech only with prior permission from the Member in charge of the debate and from the Minister. As is the convention for a 30-minute debate, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up.”
“From 1997, the Prime Minister campaigned to scrap single-judge trials in Northern Ireland, yet when I opposed his Government’s plan to bring in single-judge trials in England and Wales, I received hostile briefings and smears about my mental health from the lads in No. 10 Downing Street.”
“It must be absolutely exhausting for the Justice Secretary to hold on to an idea that only he still pretends is a good one. The Mayor of London is opposed to these changes and has tried to persuade the Justice Secretary to bin them. The Mayor of Greater Manchester is opposed to this ludicrous idea.”
“Richard Foord will move the motion. I will then call the Minster to respond. I remind Members that they may make a speech only with the prior permission of the Member in charge of the debate and the Minister. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention for a 30-minute debate.”
“Where I think the Prime Minister went wrong was in the shenanigans between those two points: looking around for an excuse for why it had gone wrong. “Just take it on the chin—deal with it!” That is the advice I would have given him, and that is why I am particularly disappointed.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis). He and I rarely agree politically, but we do work together constructively in our constituencies for the betterment of the region.”
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“I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) on securing this debate and on moving the motion. We have had discussions over the years about this case, which is a massive scandal, the likes of which I have not seen before. Before my election to this House in 2010, I prosecuted and defended in criminal proceedings from my local chambers in Hull and, prior to that, I worked with a firm of criminal solicitors. It was there that I met Janet Skinner, who is a constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson). Janet Skinner was prosecuted by the Post Office for dishonesty—theft, fraud and other related offences. I took Janet Skinner’s instructions. It was a very brief encounter, from memory.”
“I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I have described this as the most grotesque version of predatory capitalism I have ever seen. Why? Because £1 billion was invested and senior officials in the Post Office and Fujitsu did everything they possibly could to protect themselves. They knew. Let us be absolutely clear about that. They knew that there were victims who might go to prison—or who had already gone, at that point. It is utterly disgusting.”
“The hon. Lady is absolutely right. These sub-postmasters were respected in the community. The Post Office is a respected organisation that we should all be incredibly proud of, but that was part of the problem. The Post Office was believed. The lies that Ministers, officials and everyone else were told along the line were believed as well. That is why only a judge-led inquiry can possibly sort this out. We need to know who knew what, what they knew, when they knew it and why they acted as they did. I want to say something briefly about one of those senior people in the Post Office, Paula Vennells. I do not know Paula Vennells but I do know that she apparently earned something in the region of £5 million over a six-year period. I believe wholeheartedly that she would have had a very good inkling of what was going on at the time.”
“The Budget committed to a £30 billion investment in road networks, but a surge in road building will only increase road noise and pollution. The Government should reduce road usage by better investing in public transport, such as bus networks and—in the area of the hon. Member for Woking—the South Western rail network. In addition, the Government need to do much more to encourage the uptake of electric and hybrid vehicles. That is all I want to say.”
“It is always an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Gary. I congratulate the hon. Member for Woking (Mr Lord) on securing this debate, which is incredibly important to his constituents. I intend to keep my remarks incredibly brief, not least because I know the Minister, and I know that she is working incredibly hard with her officials on other business. Noise pollution is an issue, and motorists clearly find this problem deeply unpleasant when driving. I know that the AA is often inundated with complaints and concerns about faults to vehicles, and I also know that this is a road safety issue, in that some people slam on the brakes when they hear the noise. Noise pollution is a major issue. It causes physical and mental health problems.”
“The aviation industry is in crisis and 84,000 UK jobs are potentially under threat, yet the Government plan to withdraw from EASA, despite the warnings from the industry and despite its costing 10 times as much money. Will the Transport Secretary put a stop to this reckless plan, stop this needless waste of public money and protect Britain’s impressive and world-leading role in aviation safety?”
“More than 12 months has passed since the Government announced a consultation on banning old tyres from public service vehicles. The Tyred campaign and tens of thousands of supporters have waited far too long. I pay tribute to Frances Molloy and my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) for the work they have done. The Secretary of State has the power to act now before more innocent people are needlessly killed. Is it not time for the Government to get this done?”
“I am sure the hon. Lady will agree that this business—the Post Office—was effectively wholly owned by the Government. None of us should argue about whether lawyers should be paid for bringing litigation on behalf of these victims, but should not the Government themselves step in to ensure that all that money—all those lawyers’ fees—is paid by the Government?”
“That is almost like a solicitor representing a client in a police station regarding criminal proceedings for serious offences—there are more serious offences, but this is dishonesty; this is where reputational damage can be caused, and people cannot live with the consequences of the charges—while working for the Crown Prosecution Service. It is utterly deplorable, and I honestly do not think that I have heard of anything as bad for a very long time.”
“What’s going on?” The Post Office should have investigated the IT system, rather than rushing to interview and investigate, and threatening to interview people whether they liked it or not. The contract between the sub-postmaster and the Post Office was unbelievable. I did not know this then, but the contract said that sub-postmasters were not allowed legal representation in those initial proceedings. Therefore, their only possible representation was through the National Federation of SubPostmasters, which happens to be completely owned and financed by Post Office Ltd.”
“It is a bit like being locked in a burning building, speaking to the emergency services, being advised to smash a window to get out and then, weeks or months later, being prosecuted for the offence of criminal damage. It is utterly deplorable. Lawyers watching the debate will say that that is not a perfect analogy because there is an inbuilt defence to criminal damage, which is reasonable excuse. That does not exist for section 17 of the Theft Act 1968, which provides for the offence of false accounting. It really is utterly deplorable. Janet Skinner and others contacted the Post Office to say, “We have problems with the system. The books are not balancing.”
“She was sentenced accordingly by Hull Crown court, and received a custodial sentence of nine months in prison. Janet Skinner had a son, Matthew, who was 14 and clearly busy with his studies in preparation for various exams that were coming down the track. Her daughter, Toni, who was 17, was in the middle of examinations at the time. It was an incredible shock to Janet Skinner. I remember her instructions to me quite well. I have had the opportunity to speak with her subsequently; indeed, I spoke to her yesterday evening. When I think back, with the benefit of hindsight, I find it chilling and it makes my blood run cold. The prosecuting authority offered the opportunity to plead to a lesser offence, yet according to Janet’s instructions to me, she was effectively led to commit the offence of false accounting.”
“It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. I congratulate the hon. Member for Telford (Lucy Allan) on securing this incredibly important debate, and thank her for the work that she has been doing to expose the Post Office’s utterly despicable behaviour in the entire proceedings, from the very outset when people were prosecuted. Prior to my election to the House, I practised criminal law from my local chambers in Hull, prosecuting and defending. Prior to that, I worked for a firm of solicitors in Hull, the Max Gold Partnership. I think it was in 2006 that I met a sub-postmaster who was implicated in these proceedings. Janet Skinner was prosecuted by the Post Office for theft. During the short proceedings, the prosecution offered her the opportunity to plead guilty to false accounting, which she did.”
“My hon. Friend is spot on. There are major problems in that regard, though I am very hopeful. However, I do not want to interfere with the Criminal Cases Review Commission and the hearing that is bound to come for those individuals whose convictions will be considered by the Court of Appeal. I suppose my point is that Janet Skinner should never have been prosecuted in the first place. She should never have been led, off the record, to falsely account. When her system was not balancing at the end of the day, she rang the Post Office to say, “What do I do?” Off the record, the Post Office said, “Well, just make something up.” There is never a paper trail of that advice being given.”
“Of course, people will say, “Those victims can rely on civil litigation to bring an action for malicious prosecution,” but what sub-postmaster has £50,000, £60,000 or £70,000 spare when their careers have been ruined and every penny they had amassed in savings has gone to pay off the Post Office—money that they did not actually owe?”
“I have read many judgments, both while practising in criminal cases and since that time, and I have never read a judgment as damning as that of Mr Justice Fraser. For that, I pay huge tribute to him. I do not know Mr Justice Fraser, but I know that his practice was technical—in the areas of engineering and technology—and it is clear from his understanding and grasp of that case that he knew exactly what was happening. I think that evidence given in that hearing was tantamount to perverting the course of justice, which I suspect is why Mr Justice Fraser has referred the matter to the Director of Public Prosecutions, Max Hill QC, for him to consider. Honestly, this is utterly deplorable.”
“From a legal perspective, false accounting is not a strict liability offence, so there is an opportunity to defend against that allegation. However, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say that those sub-postmasters were put into a position where they could do nothing but make those false accounts. That is why I think this is the most disgusting example of predatory capitalism that I have ever come across. I say that because Post Office Ltd, along with Fujitsu, invested £1 billion in that IT system. I suspect that senior people within Post Office Ltd were desperate to maintain the reputation of the Post Office, but also, sadly, to maintain their own reputation as senior people within that business. I think people misled from the very outset.”
“At the time, he thought for that reason that the NFSP representative was on his side, but he now thinks that it was all a scam—that the representative was pretending to be interested, to be befriending him and to be representing him in that interview.”
“My blood ran cold, because I had to remind myself what advice I had given and check with myself whether everything had been absolutely right in that regard. Since I have been involved with this matter, I have been contacted by a sub-postmaster who got the opportunity to not be prosecuted by paying the Post Office back; he had to sell his house to do so. He has made the important point that the only people he could turn to were those in the National Federation of SubPostmasters. That sub-postmaster agreed to do an interview in a spare bedroom of his own home. He says in his email that he was shocked to witness the investigating officer, when speaking with the NFSP representative, telling him to “fucking shut up”.”
“The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: alarm bells must have been ringing. I am not saying that my legal advice at the time was bad advice; I think it was perfectly good, considering the weight of the evidence and the instructions I was receiving. However, somewhere in the Post Office, someone must have been saying, “Hang on a minute. We get maybe two or three allegations of wrongdoing per month or year”—I do not know what the figures might be—“but all of a sudden, we have 550 thieving, dishonest sub-postmasters who have never had so much as a parking ticket in their lives,” as Janet Skinner said to me. It is utterly deplorable. For me, the alarm bell rang in 2015 when “Panorama” did its documentary, which was chilling.”
“Thank you, Mr McCabe; I will finish now. That sub-postmaster is now wondering whether what he experienced was all part of the scam. Given what has now been found in these proceedings, I wonder that as well. People have to be compensated properly. Lawyers must be paid. This was an incredibly costly litigation—a David and Goliath situation in which people needed to make representations in proceedings before courts. The Government must step in immediately, pay the legal costs on behalf of those victims and get them the money they so desperately deserve.”
“The Government should force the Post Office to pay. When we have a situation where lie after lie after lie has been told by Post Office Ltd, it needs to be forced by the Government to cough up and sort this out.”
“Given that the Minister had an opportunity to speak to the new chief executive, I wonder whether the Minister and indeed the new chief executive of Post Office Ltd support an independent, judge-led inquiry. The Government need to support that, as does the Post Office.”
“We listen to no end of rhetoric on the importance of regional connectivity, but yet again the Government have allowed a service of critical economic importance to fail. Any kind of positive or proactive approach has been completely lacking. The Government must now answer on how vital regional links will be maintained following Flybe’s collapse. Finally, the sector has asked the Government to review the 80/20 rule whereby if they do not use the slots, they lose them. This forces airlines to continue with flights that are half-empty, or worse. Will the Minister address the industry’s concerns on this matter urgently? Will she break the radio silence that has been happening for many, many months on the issue of regional connectivity?”
“We must recognise the generous offers of assistance from other businesses to support Flybe staff and passengers, but yet again airline workers face an anxious and uncertain future while the Government have sat on their hands and allowed this to happen. Recent airline failures have already lost approximately 11,000 jobs. This time the Government must respond and provide Flybe staff with all the necessary support. Flybe has said that the impact of the coronavirus has contributed to its collapse, so what assessment has the Minister made of the risk to other airlines, and what preparations are now in place? Flybe has provided critical regional connectivity for many locations throughout the country with no other viable option than flying.”
“The collapse of Flybe is disastrous news for passengers and employees alike, and will cause real anxiety in many regions throughout the country. The loss of 2,000 jobs—many in areas that are very heavily reliant on aviation—will be an extremely heavy blow, as will the wider impact on supply chains and regional economies. About 2,000 direct jobs are due to be lost from this collapse. What steps is the Minister taking to help those workers to find new jobs? Sadly, Flybe follows an ever-growing list of British airlines to go under in recent years, and the Civil Aviation Authority has time and again made monumental efforts to look after passengers. Will the Government draw on the skills and expertise of the CAA if existing capacity does not prove sufficient to guarantee that every Flybe passenger gets home safely?”
“Gentleman has said, I do worry: the CAA has clearly said that it will do a full probe, but I am concerned about the fact that the report is going to be kept private. The very least that ought to happen is that he should be given the opportunity to consider the content of the report. I accept that there is no legal requirement for the CAA to publish that report publicly, but frankly, a member of the Privy Council ought to be given the opportunity to see what is in it. However, I make no criticism of the CAA. The right hon. Gentleman raises two crucial points, and I think he has the support of the entire House in doing so. I hope that the Minister can provide some assurances and offer him some support.”
“It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on introducing this incredibly important debate. His knowledge on this matter is obviously far better than mine, and no doubt far better than that of any other Member present. I thank him for providing the House with the opportunity to consider this really serious issue. It is clearly incredibly important to the right hon. Gentleman and to his constituents. However, I will not detain the House for very long, not least because, as I have intimated, my knowledge on this issue is not very good. I start by commending the Civil Aviation Authority on its work. It does a brilliant and incredibly difficult job to ensure people are kept safe and secure. However, from what the right hon.”
“It has been clear for some time that all-lane-running motorways are death traps. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) has pointed out, five people have been killed in just 10 months on a 16-mile stretch of the M1. The Secretary of State has the power to scrap these dangerous motorways now, so will he stop this dither and delay and act now to avoid further tragic deaths and serious injuries? Will he also assure the House that there will be no restoration of these motorways without full radar coverage?”
“We have a real problem with predatory capitalist shipping companies using flags of convenience to get round British maritime rules. This encourages dangerous work patterns and it is costing British seafarer jobs. Some of the worst offenders are P&O Ferries, paying £1.83 an hour on Bahamas-flagged vessels between Hull and the continent; P&O’s Norbay, a Bermuda-flagged vessel between Liverpool and Dublin, paying less than four quid an hour; and Irish Ferries’ Cyprus-flagged vessels between Holyhead and Dublin, paying £4.66 an hour. When will the Minister make sure that Britain has the maritime workforce it needs and deserves? Will she meet me and the general secretary of the RMT, Mick Cash, to discuss what we do to sort this mess out?”
“Q6. P&O Ferries in Hull are finding Filipino seafarers to work for far below the national minimum wage. They are expected to work 12-hour shifts seven days a week for six months at a time. The Prime Minister will remember that the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster, which claimed the lives of 193 passengers and crew, was caused by seafarer fatigue. Will he agree to meet a cross-party group of MPs to discuss that issue, to try to put it to bed once and for all and to protect British seafarer jobs?”
“Does the hon. Lady not accept that the Government that she represents as a Back Bencher have cut police since 2010 by more than 20,000? Does she not want to say that they should take some responsibility for that savage, deliberate and unnecessary cut to policing?”
“The recent mental health prevention Green Paper recognised the link between deprivation and poor mental health outcomes. Along with the proper funding of frontline and early intervention services, mental health inequality needs urgent action, so when will the Minister get to work to sort out this mess? People in east Hull desperately need access to services that are currently not available.”
“P&O Ferries in Hull is continuing to exploit foreign seafarers, which is risking lives and costing British jobs. It proposes to replace all crews with Filipinos. A British rating works two weeks on, two weeks off and is paid fairly; a Filipino will be required to work six months on, doing 12-hour shifts and being paid £60 per day. May we have Government time to debate this really important issue? People might die.”
“In 2005, my constituent Steven Gallant did a bad thing for which he is serving a life sentence in prison. However, on 29 November he was the third man on London Bridge. He wrestled the knife-wielding murderous terrorist to the ground so that police marksmen could shoot him dead. Steven is rightly serving life in prison, but will the Prime Minister congratulate and pay tribute to Steven for his bravery that day, which no doubt saved lives?”
“The “back of a cigarette packet” policy to increase road duty by more than 700% for motor homes and camper vans is reminiscent of the caravan tax of 2013, which I think was invented by the Chancellor’s predecessor George Osborne. That would have decimated manufacturing industry in Hull. Will the Chancellor meet me, colleagues and those in the industry, who are very concerned about this policy, so that they can explain directly to him how disastrous this policy will be for manufacturing industry in Hull?”
“I am here to defend and work hard to protect those vulnerable people, and I promise my constituents in east Hull that I will be doing that at every single opportunity I get.”
“It simply was not true, but it is now. What the Government have not done in this Queen’s Speech is address the issues that concern people in my constituency. They include the bedroom tax, which is incredibly unfair and affects the most vulnerable people in my constituency the hardest. The Government have not addressed the unfairness of universal credit, or the fact that people are still really struggling to navigate that new system of welfare. They did not address an awful lot of things in the Queen’s Speech. It is true that people in my constituency lent their vote to the Conservatives on this occasion, but they will not make that mistake again because the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and we know from this Queen’s Speech that it is going to get a lot worse for people who live in east Hull.”
“I declare an interest as a loyal member of the Rail, Maritime and Transport parliamentary group in this House. People who get up in the morning and go to work do not need fewer rights in the workplace. They need better, stronger rights in the workplace and, my word, they are really going to need them as we move forward with this particular Government. It was a real shame that this Government did not address the social injustices in east Hull. People who get up in the morning, get on a bike, pedal to their place of work and work hard for very long hours tell me regularly in my surgeries that they often resort to using food banks. It is true not just in east Hull but across the country that there are more food banks than there are McDonald’s restaurants. When I was elected in 2010, that simply was not the situation.”
“I welcome some of the things in the Humble Address, some of which were taken directly from the Labour party’s socialist manifesto. However, those people in east Hull who lent their vote to the Conservatives did not give the Government permission to flog off our NHS to Donald Trump’s America. Nor did they give their permission for environmental standards and consumer protections to be thrown away in the withdrawal agreement. They did not give the Government permission to deliberately and savagely erode their hard-fought and hard-won employment rights. It is clear from the Queen’s Speech that the Government intend fully to take away the employment rights of those hard-working people in my constituency. There has also been mention of facilitating a situation whereby transport workers will be prevented from taking strike action.”
“Some from my own region include Nic Dakin, who loyally represented Scunthorpe, Melanie Onn who represented Great Grimsby, Caroline Flint, who was a great colleague and a loyal servant to this House and her constituents, and Paula Sherriff. There are too many to mention all of them, but I just want briefly to say that I have rarely spoken in this House without having the privilege of looking over to the Bench there and seeing the Beast of Bolsover. I have known Dennis Skinner since I was a young child and I remember him fondly. He shared a flat with my predecessor, John Prescott, who I am glad to say is recovering from a period of ill health; he is doing well. This House will miss the likes of Dennis Skinner, and it would have been remiss of me not to pay tribute to him in this way.”
“It is a real honour to be called in this important Queen’s Speech debate, and it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton). I agreed with some of what he said, but there was an awful lot that I disagreed with entirely, not least the mention he made of the former Speaker. For me, John Bercow was somebody who jealously guarded the rights of Back Benchers and more junior Members in this House to hold the Government to account, whether they were on the Government Benches or the Opposition Benches. If you will indulge me, Mr Deputy Speaker, I want to make brief mention of some colleagues who are not here today.”
“The truth is that it is shocking that this Government let down Thomas Cook staff. They lost their livelihoods while the gaffers got rich off their bonuses. The subsidiaries Condor in Germany, Thomas Cook in Spain and Thomas Cook in Sweden are still flying. The Government have stood by and let the business in the UK fail. When the Secretary of State gets to his feet, will he just say sorry for letting down all those hard-working staff and the British taxpayer?”
“I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition for eventually giving way. I was incredibly concerned when I was reminded by my wife earlier today that we spent longer choosing a sofa than this House has to debate this incredibly important Bill. The important point is this: the Prime Minister’s own legislative adviser, Nikki da Costa, has said and advised him that she thinks this House needs at least four weeks to debate this important legislation in order for it to go through both Houses. We have just not got enough time to debate this—does my right hon. Friend agree?”
“It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. The draft regulations concern tachographs—basically, they just put them into domestic law. The Opposition have absolutely no objection to this instrument; in fact, we support it. However, I had an email from a constituent, Mr Jamie Graves, who is a heavy goods vehicle driver. I think I know the answer, but he has asked me directly to ask the Minister about prosecution powers in the event of breaches of the regulations. Are the prosecution powers the same? I think they are, but my constituent asks the Minister to confirm that.”
“It is always an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wilson. These changes are mainly technical—they change the word “Union” to “United Kingdom”, and the Civil Aviation Authority is also mentioned as a technical change to the relevant authority. The Opposition have no objection to those changes, which we support. At the outset of his remarks, the Minister said that the Government are working with “energy and determination” to achieve a deal. I suspect that neither of those things are correct and that the Prime Minister is not very determined. He is certainly not being very energetic about achieving a deal—I wish he was.”
“Thank you very much indeed, Mr. Speaker. It really is an absolute disgrace that, even though the Prime Minister has been dragged here by the most senior judges in the highest court in the land because the advice that the Leader of the House gave Her Majesty the Queen was held to be unlawful, he comes here laughing and joking, and using aggressive language when Opposition Members make salient and serious points. Why does he think he can treat the Queen and the country with utter contempt?”
“It is a sad day, because rumour has it that this is the Secretary of State’s last outing at the Dispatch Box. He is the gift that keeps on giving, but that is not funny because he has cost the country billions. Earlier this month, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders announced that sales of low-emission cars in the UK have fallen for the first time in two years. The SMMT’s chief executive, Mike Hawes, described the decline as a “grave concern” and blamed the Secretary of State’s confusing policies and premature removal of purchase incentives. Will the right hon. Gentleman finally apologise for his political blunders that have cost the taxpayer £2.7 billion?”
“In the very city where William Wilberforce led the fight against slavery, P&O Ferries is employing Portuguese and Polish crews on £1.83 an hour. The deck crew are required to work five months on. British ratings earn about £35,000 a year and are required to do two weeks on, two weeks off. Could we have a debate on this really important issue? I think this is slavery.”
“I wanted to mention a few other points, especially the Government fleet, private fleets and the industrial strategy, but given the time constraints, I shall leave my remarks there.”