John Penrose: I am listening with great interest to the hon. Gentleman's account of the Select Committee's inquiry. Did it consider options other than closure to maintain the 11,000 post office branches at a profitable level, such as finding cheaper ways of delivering some of the services that are delivered manually over the counter or alternative revenue-raising opportunities for existing branches? If so,...
John Penrose: If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.
John Penrose: Is the Secretary of State aware that the Highways Agency is refusing to increase the capacity of junction 21 of the M5 in my constituency until more local jobs have been created to reduce the number of people who commute into Bristol each day? The regional spatial strategy, which would have achieved exactly that, has just been amended by Government-appointed planners to allow even more houses...
John Penrose: rose—
John Penrose: I have a question on a separate issue, although it is related to the points that the hon. and learned Gentleman has just made. He is describing particular sections of the public sector work force that will be excluded from the Bill's provisions. Yet further on in the Bill, as the Minister will obviously know, a procedure is laid out for occupational schemes to exempt themselves from applying...
John Penrose: I thank the Minister for that reply. I suppose that the underlying concern behind my question is that many private sector firms are worried that the process for opting out is over-complicated, and some would like it to be simplified. I completely applaud the Minister's reasons for why one would want to exempt the groups that he has just described. However, if an exemption is given to public...
John Penrose: The hon. Gentleman says that it might be appropriate to allow grants or loans to be made, but those two things are very different. He has explained his position on loans clearly, but the implication of grants is that the money given does not have to be repaid. That might cross a boundary in terms of providing unfair subsidy in comparison with other providers of pensions. Did he mean to use...
John Penrose: I understand what the Minister has said about commercial confidentiality preventing him from saying too much about costs, but may I press him a little further on the matter? If PADA has done enough detailed work to know that the timings involved can be achieved, at least in theory, it must also have made some estimates of the costs involved. I appreciate that there could be commercial...
John Penrose: I suppose that the bottom line is that everyone will want reassurance that the Minister has not seen anything to lead him to believe that in the long term we will not be able to reach the target number of basis points of the long-term cost, which the hon. Member for Rochdale (Paul Rowen) mentioned earlier. Has the Minister seen anything that leads him to believe that that is not possible in...
John Penrose: Will the Minister give way?
John Penrose: I thank the Minister, and I apologise for chuntering at him. The reason why I was muttering was that Otto Thoresen has said that his report does not cover the kind of generic advice on personal accounts that the Minister is describing. He came before the all-party Work and Pensions Committee a few weeks ago, and I asked him that question. He said that it does not cover that. The Government...
John Penrose: I want to join the consensus among Members on both sides of the House about the critical importance of preventing levelling down, and therefore of accepting new clause 6 and its associated amendments. It is worth pausing for a second to understand precisely what we mean by levelling down, as we have been using the term to cover a variety of things. It is worth remembering that, for several...
John Penrose: My hon. Friend anticipates the point that I was coming to. There is an argument that because personal accounts are an ultra-cheap, ultra-simple alternative, they will not compete with existing occupational schemes because they are designed in a different way and they do not provide the additional flexibility and levels of outcome that occupational schemes provide. However, that assumption has...
John Penrose: If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
John Penrose: In an earlier response, the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Ms Clark) responded to a question about the rescue package for the 10p rate of tax by saying that she could not reveal, or did not know, all the details in that package. Given the sensitivities on both sides of the House, and given the fact that another member of the Chancellor's Front-Bench team was reluctant to reveal...
John Penrose: I bow to your point, Mr. Speaker. Which elements of the 10p tax rescue package will and will not be backdated?
John Penrose: I assure my hon. Friend that I have received numerous representations from people in my constituency who run establishments such as those that she describes. They are all suffering greatly. Many have experienced catastrophic falls in revenue and many wonder for how long they can continue. My hon. Friend is right and I cannot emphasise enough the seriousness of the position of that sector of...
John Penrose: One of the original ideas that led to the changes was the trade-off whereby super-casinos were to come in and ambient gambling was to be reduced. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that plan has evaporated because super-casinos are not going to happen, but that ambient gambling is still being hit? The Treasury therefore risks losing revenue from ambient gambling because those business are all...
John Penrose: May I echo the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale) about the urgency of the issue? Many businesses in seaside towns throughout the country, especially in my constituency of Weston-super-Mare, are suffering huge problems, and swift action is vital. I remind the Under-Secretary that one of the reasons for reducing gambling in the Gambling Act 2005 was to...
John Penrose: Does my hon. Friend agree that on the basis of what the Minister has been saying, it seems that the review in three years' time will be undertaken against a background of a Government-wide review of Crown status and perhaps the terms and conditions of employment of a great many civil servants? Surely that might poison the atmosphere and make the maintenance of staff morale between now and...