Sir John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con): I am grateful to the Minister for changing the policy. I have been a long-standing critic of past Governments and Ministers for not telling the Post Office to apologise and pay up, and I encourage him today to ensure that the Post Office apologises properly, and pays up quickly and generously.

Parliamentary Under Secretary for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Paul Scully):

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. We will ensure that we lean into the Post Office to ensure that they deliver all compensation schemes quickly and equitably so that we can get this issue sorted out. The Post Office has acknowledged that it has done wrong, but the inquiry will detail the questions that it needs to answer over the next few months.

Sir John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con): I will be supporting the Government, as they have made welcome progress on creating better conditions and support for our armed forces, but I would like to press the Minister on housing. When we wish to recruit and retain the best people in the future as we have in the past, it is important that we provide something better on housing than we traditionally have. It is a disgrace if armed services personnel, after providing substantial service to our country, cannot afford to buy a house of their own, and instead have to scramble to get rented accommodation, which they often find difficult.

I hope the MOD can do more through its potential and current schemes to promote home ownership, and to promote buying property nearer home base, for example, so that people leaving the armed forces have a property of their own. If service personnel are not able to do that, a surrogate scheme is needed so that when they leave the armed forces after holding important jobs and earning reasonable money, they are not debarred from the private housing market and they do not come to see their service career as a gap in making those contributions and building up savings in a house of their own. They should have as much opportunity to own their own property as the rest of the community.

Yes of course we need an expeditionary service and service personnel may need to serve in a variety of places abroad, but that should not get in the way of either having a home of their own with their family or having the wherewithal to have a home of their own when they leave the armed services. I hope my hon. and gallant Friend the Minister will sympathise and do more to make sure it can be true. I do not think we need a legal requirement, but we need a firm pledge of intent from the Government.

Winning a difficult vote will come as an unsurprising relief to the government. They had to rely on the Opposition and on this occasion it worked. It does not however solve the underlying problems.

If the virus continues to spread the government will be told by its ever cautious scientific advisers to lock down more. They are bound to say that as it is the safest thing to say if your one task is to curb the disease. The measures taken this week are unlikely to arrest its progress. Indeed one of the main arguments against the vaccine passports is vaccinated people can get and pass on the virus so how does it help as a device to control Night clubs and large events?

If the virus turns out as some think to be milder so there is no surge in serious cases the governments critics will claim the measures were needless.

More  seriously Ministers have to rebuild trust with a large number of MPs who voted against, abstained or wanted to vote against but responded to persuasion or coercion. Ministers need to grasp both the scepticism about some of the forecasts and measures proposed, and the concern that every time a new variant appears there could be more lockdowns.

Government needs to balance freedoms and economic  needs against pandemic control. It needs to recognise that anti pandemic rules can cause more mental health problems, loss of jobs, businesses and income and damage to the social life of communities. There needs to be more evidence about which measures do most at least collateral damage to contain the spread of the virus.

We could do with more information on what progress has been made with air extraction and cleansing in public buildings, more information on approved and potential treatments and more on disinfection.

Government also needs to ensure extra resources going into  the NHS can be used to tackle the many non covid health problems  that do not go away because of the virus.

Question:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, for what reason the total budget allocated to housing illegal migrants in hotels is commercial in confidence when that total would not reveal the contract terms of individual suppliers. (86524)

Tabled on: 03 December 2021

Answer:
Kevin Foster:

The Rt Hon. Gentleman’s question appears to relate to a Freedom of Information (FOI) response. Responses to all FOI requests are handled in line with the legislation, including applying relevant exemptions where applicable.

The answer was submitted on 14 Dec 2021 at 10:31.

COMMENT

This was a question further to a previous Parliamentary Question! It has nothing to do with FOI.

I have received the enclosed letter regarding the settlement funds for Postmasters:

Approval of Funds for Full & Final Settlement for Postmasters with Overturned Criminal Convictions

This House is aware of the distressing impact that problems with the Post Office’s Horizon IT system have had on the lives and livelihoods of many postmasters.

The Court of Appeal handed down a landmark judgment on 23 April 2021 which quashed the convictions of 39 postmasters whose prosecution had relied on Horizon evidence. 72 convictions have now been quashed to date, and several others are in progress. There are potentially hundreds more postmasters whose convictions have relied on Horizon evidence and may seek to have their convictions quashed.

We want to see these postmasters with quashed convictions compensated fairly and swiftly. So far, the vast majority of postmasters who have had their convictions quashed have each received an interim compensation payment of up to £100,000 while they wait for the next steps in the proceedings.

I am pleased to confirm that today the Government is making funding available to facilitate Post Office to make final compensation payments to postmasters whose convictions have been overturned. We are working with Post Office to finalise the arrangements that will enable the final settlement negotiations to begin as soon as possible. By providing this funding, Government is helping Post Office deliver the fair compensation postmasters deserve.

With the Secretary of State’s status as sole shareholder in the Post Office, my Department continues to engage actively with Post Office Limited on this and will maintain strong oversight of the compensation process.