Clive Efford: I welcome the statement, the legislation and the removal of the Post Office from the process to the extent that we have seen so far. However, I do not think the Post Office is able to deal with any claims credibly. I wrote to the Minister on 12 February about my constituent who came forward after the TV programme. She had had problems with Horizon, had agreed compensation with the Post...
Clive Efford: Over the last 14 years, the Conservatives have clearly failed to act for the common good. Budgets are about choices, and they have consistently made the wrong ones. We have the highest tax-raising Parliament since world war two. The Resolution Foundation says that the tax increases since 2019 will cost £3,900 per household, and that incomes will be lower at the next general election than in...
Clive Efford: Will the Minister give way?
Clive Efford: I did not intend to give a speech in this debate—I just wanted to intervene— but as there were so few of us contributing, I thought I would make a short contribution at the end. I am grateful to you for allowing me to do so, Mr Deputy Speaker. I accept that the time has come for this technology. As somebody who worked in the transport industry for many years prior to becoming a Member of...
Clive Efford: Scrutiny of accidents is going to be important, because we will learn a lot. We can improve safety with this technology—there is no question about that. The question is about the moral argument when accidents do happen and how we choose how vehicles should behave in those circumstances. A constituent has come to me about a tragic case of a child being killed at a bus stop. A lorry lost...
Clive Efford: That gets to the nub of the point. Because these vehicles are going to be automated, they will be governed by an algorithm written by a human being somewhere remote from where an accident might occur. How do we determine whether the primary purpose of that algorithm is to protect the person in the car or someone outside the car, such as a pedestrian or a child crossing the road? How does the...
Clive Efford: I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way a second time. I agree entirely that, overall, roads will be safer with automated vehicles, but there will still be accidents. My question was specifically about where there is an accident and there is a choice to be made about protecting the person inside the car and injuring someone outside the car. How do we determine what takes...
Clive Efford: I agree with what the Secretary of State said about tinkering and that nullifying any insurance, but we have also just experienced the Horizon scandal, where the manufacturers themselves had access to the technology. What security do drivers have from the designers of the software governing these cars covering their own backs?
Clive Efford: I come to the House virtually every time we have questions on this subject, or it is before the House, and I am taken in by the Minister’s mellifluous bromides about the compensation scheme. However, a letter from the chief executive of the Post Office, Nick Read, suggests that over half the convictions are safe and that the Post Office would defend them. Furthermore, he says that the Post...
Clive Efford: If Henry Staunton is guilty of what the Secretary of State has accused him, it beggars belief that he was appointed only two years ago by this Government. May I ask her about Post Office investigations? I have yet another constituent who has come forward who was forced to sign a non-disclosure agreement by the Post Office and who has not been fully compensated for what they lost when they...
Clive Efford: According to the forecast, in five years’ time debt will be higher than it is now. Is this a reasonable time to be talking about tax cuts, and does their doing so not suggest that the Government have learnt nothing from the Budget of September 2022?
Clive Efford: I welcome the Minister’s statement, and I support the reference to protecting war memorials. As the son of someone who served in the second world war and as someone who grew up knowing people who lost comrades in the war, those memorials are often the only place where those people are commemorated, because they have no grave of their own, and such memorials should be protected in the way...
Clive Efford: May I add my call for a statement from the Paymaster General about the contaminated blood scandal on the day we get back after the recess? I am delighted that the Leader of the House has announced two weeks of business for when we return the week after next, but we have been promised that the football Bill is imminent and it does not appear in the business for those two weeks, and there is...
Clive Efford: The pothole situation is a metaphor for what the Government have been doing with public investment in the past 14 years. The roads have got worse and worse, with the Automobile Association describing October as the worst month for pothole breakdowns on our roads. If the Government were really concerned about this issue, they would not have starved local authorities of the resources to deal...
Clive Efford: The Mayor of London has frozen fares for five out of the eight years he has been in office, meaning that they are 14% below national fare increases. Should I take it from the Secretary of State’s earlier answer to the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) that he is opposed to those fare freezes, and that he expects a Conservative Mayor to put fares up if elected?
Clive Efford: If the Tories cared about the NHS, we would not have 7.6 million people on the NHS waiting list and dentistry in crisis. The answer that the Secretary of State gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) demonstrates why we are in this situation. It is not about people turning up at A&E; the inability to access NHS dentistry services leads to people being...
Clive Efford: Whether he has had discussions with Cabinet colleagues on the potential cost to the Exchequer of compensation for people infected and affected by contaminated blood and blood products.
Clive Efford: We have had Sir Brian Langstaff’s recommendations since April 2023. Mrs Dorricott, the wife of the Chancellor’s constituent Mike, told the inquiry that the Chancellor, when he was Health Secretary, told Mr Dorricott: “Don’t worry about this, we’ll sort it.” He is now the Chancellor, with his hands on the purse strings, so will he now—through his colleague the Chief Secretary to...
Clive Efford: I welcome the Pharmacy First initiative—its roll-out is long overdue—but what expectations are we creating in the minds of patients attending pharmacies? Will pharmacists be trained in denying medication to people who turn up expecting to be given a prescription of some sort? Clearly, the initiative will encourage more people to present in order to get medication when it may not be necessary.
Clive Efford: It is an honour to follow the right hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green), who, like me, is a member of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee. He speaks with authority on many of these issues, although I did not agree with everything he said. However, I certainly agree with him about broadcasting highlights of major sporting events, and I hope the Government are listening. I welcome the...