Contributions
2,186 recent contributions in Hansard
HANSARDFinancial Assistance to IndustryI can give the hon. Lady an absolute yes. We are encouraging more business schools to apply to the Chartered Association of Business Schools for accreditation to the SBC, and CABS…24 May 2021HANSARDFinancial Assistance to IndustryThe programme is sector-agnostic, but the peer networking within it means that there can be a certain degree of tailoring towards a particular business leader’s business or…24 May 2021HANSARDFinancial Assistance to IndustryCharities are indeed great employers. Many of them do fantastic work, and there are always interesting things that we can do to support charities. This scheme answers a particular…24 May 2021HANSARDFinancial Assistance to IndustryI used that as an example, but we have been working with business schools and the schemes that I have dealt with over the last year. In my 14 months as a Minister, I have spoken…24 May 2021HANSARDFinancial Assistance to IndustryIndeed, and if there is anything that I do not cover today, I am happy to follow up on it. As I say, we have worked with business schools across the country; 33 are accredited at…24 May 2021HANSARDFinancial Assistance to IndustryI beg to move, That the Committee has considered the motion, That this House authorises the Secretary of State to undertake to pay, and to pay by way of financial assistance under…24 May 2021HANSARDPost Office UpdateFirst, I can say that the work of Sir Wyn to date will not be wasted. That is exactly why we are converting the inquiry into a statutory inquiry rather than stopping and starting…19 May 2021HANSARDPost Office UpdatePart of the inquiry is to measure whether the Post Office has put into place the things that it has promised to do as a result of the civil litigation and the many, many pages of…19 May 2021HANSARDPost Office UpdateThe Post Office speaks regularly to the unions and to postmasters in general. Two postmasters have been elected to serve on the board, but the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right…19 May 2021HANSARDPost Office UpdateYes, I assure my hon. Friend, regarding Noel Thomas and Margery Williams, that we must right the wrongs for these people and for many, many others. I just want to correct her on…19 May 2021HANSARDPost Office UpdateWe absolutely want sub-postmasters to give evidence. There is obviously a cost implication in extending the inquiry and making it statutory. I am working through that process with…19 May 2021HANSARDPost Office UpdateThis is the end of the beginning. Clearly, there is a long way to go to ensure that we get the answers, but in holding the Post Office’s feet to the fire, I do not want to add…19 May 2021HANSARDPost Office UpdateMy hon. Friend is absolutely right, and that is what is so galling for the postmasters who had those roles in the past. They were the stalwarts and the backbone of their…19 May 2021HANSARDPost Office UpdateI thank my hon. Friend, who has been really dogged in her championing of Tracy Felstead and many others who have been affected. I was pleased to meet Tracy—who gave such tragic…19 May 2021HANSARDPost Office UpdateI always welcome meeting the hon. Lady, and I congratulate her on her work for the all-party group. I appreciate her support for this change and I absolutely agree with her that…19 May 2021HANSARDPost Office UpdateI thank my hon. Friend, a former postmaster himself, for that. He absolutely understands the situation and has been a dogged champion. We did say that if things should change, we…19 May 2021HANSARDPost Office UpdateI thank the right hon. Gentleman, who has rightly been pushing on behalf of postmasters in general for a number of years. Yes, nothing is off the table. We want to get justice and…19 May 2021HANSARDPost Office UpdateI absolutely agree with my hon. Friend about the role that post offices play in communities, which is all based on postmasters. I speak regularly to the chief executive and other…19 May 2021HANSARDPost Office UpdateTo be fair, the accountability of managers will absolutely be in the inquiry, because that is part of the expansion of it. Sir Wyn can now look right the way out to the settlement…19 May 2021HANSARDPost Office UpdateMy hon. Friend is absolutely right. That process is already taking place under the leadership of Nick Read, who comes from an independent supermarket background, where he managed…19 May 2021