Results 1-20 of 4,879 for (in the 'Commons debates' OR in the 'Westminster Hall debates' OR in the 'Lords debates' OR in the 'Northern Ireland Assembly debates') speaker:Mark Hoban

Opposition Day — [19th allotted day]: Equitable Life (21 Oct 2009) has video

Mark Hoban: Conservative Members welcome this debate and will support the motion in the Division Lobby later this afternoon. The motion has cross-party support, and early-day motion 1423, which is at its core, has support from Members in all parts of the House. The strength of cross-party support is a testament to the work of the Equitable members action group and to the number of constituents whose...

Opposition Day — [19th allotted day]: Equitable Life (21 Oct 2009) has video

Mark Hoban: My right hon. Friend echoes an important point that was touched on by the ombudsman and raised in the Public Administration Committee report. There is almost a sense that the Government are using the ombudsman's status as an investigator rather than a judicial authority to wheedle their way out of taking responsibility for these things. I want to return to a point that the Chief Secretary...

Opposition Day — [19th allotted day]: Equitable Life (21 Oct 2009) has video

Mark Hoban: My right hon. Friend speaks from his experience of Barlow Clowes. The Prime Minister has tried to avoid paying compensation to people who suffered loss through the maladministration of Equitable Life. He is trying to block the process and has fought every step of the way to prevent that from happening. I am happy to say that we want to ensure that policyholders receive the justice that they...

Opposition Day — [19th allotted day]: Equitable Life (21 Oct 2009) has video

Mark Hoban: I have some clear advice that my hon. Friend might wish to give her constituents. History has shown that this Government have consistently sought to block compensation for policyholders who have lost as a consequence of maladministration, whereas the Conservative party has argued in favour of compensation for policyholders when there has been evidence of maladministration. There is a clear...

Opposition Day — [19th allotted day]: Equitable Life (21 Oct 2009) has video

Mark Hoban: We accept the ombudsman's recommendation that payments should be made to policyholders who lost out. She was right to make her points about relative loss and the impact of compensation payments on the public purse, and I do not believe that anybody in the House disagrees about how that is to work. However, we need to consider the matter of the tribunal. Strong arguments have been made about...

Opposition Day — [19th allotted day]: Equitable Life (21 Oct 2009) has video

Mark Hoban: What the Government mean by "disproportionate" is one of the matters that they are yet to address. The Chief Secretary's predecessor, the right hon. Member for Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), was pressed on that when she made a statement in January. No further progress has been made on elaborating on what that means, which creates uncertainty in the minds of policyholders and a...

Opposition Day — [19th allotted day]: Equitable Life (21 Oct 2009) has video

Mark Hoban: My hon. Friend raises an important point. Some people affected are suffering real hardship, which has been prolonged by the delay in introducing the scheme. Once the Government have decided upon a scheme, having received Sir John Chadwick's recommendations next spring, I hope they will consider that seriously. There is a real risk that the suffering and hardship will continue without any...

Opposition Day — [19th allotted day]: Equitable Life (21 Oct 2009) has video

Mark Hoban: My hon. Friend is absolutely right: that is what our constituents want to know, and it is the essence of this debate and of the letters that we receive. I understand that Sir John Chadwick needs to work through what the scheme might look like, but when policyholders will get money is a really important question to answer. I thought that the Chief Secretary was going to get there today: he had...

Opposition Day — [19th allotted day]: Equitable Life (21 Oct 2009) has video

Mark Hoban: All I will say to the hon. Gentleman is that we want to see policyholders compensated quickly and fairly. We all need to bear that in mind when thinking about how the process might develop. By next spring, so much work might have been done by Sir John Chadwick that setting up a tribunal could delay justice still longer. We need to be really careful and to think this through to ensure that we...

Opposition Day — [19th allotted day]: Equitable Life (21 Oct 2009) has video

Mark Hoban: My hon. Friend is right: the episode has undermined people's confidence. They need to have confidence in the pensions system if they are to save for their retirement, and also confidence in the regulation. People will not look beyond the headlines and will not be looking at the fine detail of the Parliamentary Commissioner Act 1967, which set up the office of ombudsman; they will just get the...

Opposition Day — [19th allotted day]: Equitable Life (21 Oct 2009) has video

Mark Hoban: No. I have been generous in taking interventions and have gone on for rather longer than I had hoped, and I am coming to the conclusion of my speech. I ask those from across the House who signed early-day motion 1423 to vote in favour of the motion. That would be a clear sign to the policyholders that we are united in support of their campaign for justice, and a sign to the Treasury that the...

Opposition Day — [19th allotted day]: Equitable Life (21 Oct 2009) has video

Mark Hoban: The Chief Secretary is in danger of treating the House and our constituents like fools. He tried to dance around the issue of when payments will be made, and he said that Sir John Chadwick would design a scheme by spring 2010. Surely the Treasury has looked at how long it will take to implement a scheme. Treasury officials tell us that it has been working in parallel on those issues since Sir...

City of London (14 Oct 2009)

Mark Hoban: I congratulate the hon. Member for Selby (Mr. Grogan) on securing the debate, even though it had a changing title. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Field) and the hon. Member for Southport (Dr. Pugh) said, it was until relatively recently entitled "The Impact of the Hedge Funds on the UK Economy" and we had all geared up for that. None the less, the...

City of London (14 Oct 2009)

Mark Hoban: There needs to be proportionate regulation of the sector, which recognises the risks and responds to them. My hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster talked about the Financial Services Authority. The FSA has been very effective in regulating hedge funds, because the regulation is proportionate to the risk. The directive, as it is currently drafted, is not proportionate to...

City of London (14 Oct 2009)

Mark Hoban: My hon. Friend makes a good suggestion. There was a disconnect between the directors and the boys in the engine room: each seemed to think that the other knew what they were doing. I just wonder if that disconnect was not a cause of the crisis. There are some regulatory issues that we need to address. Clearly, the capital requirements in place for banks had not been fully thought through. The...

Oral Answers to Questions — Justice: Equitable Life (21 Jul 2009)

Mark Hoban: Is it not clear that a year after the ombudsman published her damning report on the regulation of Equitable Life, and six months after the Government's response, no real progress has been made? Policyholders are no closer today to knowing whether they will receive any payments for the losses that they incurred as a consequence of the failure to regulate Equitable Life properly. In the past...

Oral Answers to Questions — Treasury: Equitable Life (14 Jul 2009) has video

Mark Hoban: It is now a year since the ombudsman produced her report and it is six months since the Government produced their response. Does the Minister not appreciate just how angry policyholders are that they still do not know how much they may receive or when they may receive it? Is it not time for the Government to give a clear deadline for when policyholders can expect to receive some payments in...

Care Homes (Domestic Pets): Schedule 56 — Penalty for failure to make payments on time (8 Jul 2009)

Mark Hoban: I wish that I could talk about the Bill with the same degree of conviction as the Financial Secretary. He has referred to what appeared to be a cornucopia of goodies, but I have to say that this has been a relatively uncontroversial Finance Bill. It has ducked the main issues. Although we have the legislation to establish the 50p rate, the measure to set the rate is deferred to another day;...

Care Homes (Domestic Pets): Schedule 35 — Pensions: special annual allowance charge (8 Jul 2009)

Mark Hoban: Schedule 35 has caused much concern to many people, including pension providers and the self-employed. They are concerned about the hasty way in which it was introduced, without consultation, the rough edges that it creates and its discrimination against people who do not make regular contributions—quarterly or more frequently. People have made many representations and sought ways of...

Care Homes (Domestic Pets): Clause 25 — Agreements to forgo tax reliefs (8 Jul 2009)

Mark Hoban: I am not entirely convinced by the argument about the delays that would be caused by agreeing a statutory instrument. If the Economic Secretary looks back over the history of the past few months, he will see that the Government have taken action to deal with Bradford & Bingley and the Dunfermline building society, for example, and taken measures that require statutory instruments to be...