[Miss Anne Begg in the Chair] — Farepak

Part of the debate – in Westminster Hall at 10:23 am on 7 November 2006.

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Photo of Alasdair McDonnell Alasdair McDonnell Shadow Spokesperson (Work and Pensions), Shadow SDLP Spokesperson (Health), Shadow Spokesperson (Education), Shadow Spokesperson (Treasury) 10:23, 7 November 2006

I congratulate you on your direction of the debate, Miss Begg. It has been a good debate. I congratulate Anne Snelgrove on securing the debate and allowing us the opportunity to discuss this matter.

I shall be brief. To me, the collapse of Farepak is a crisis, but to many people, such as the low-income families in my constituency and adjoining constituencies, it is a tragedy. Some figures have been bandied about. In my area, one lady, Linda Robinson, is out £20,000, £5,000 of which is not recorded. She has receipts for only £15,000 and the receipts for the rest are missing. Donna Lavery has lost £4,000. Sharon Gilmore is a single mother and she and her 90-year-old grandmother are caught up in the business, with a similar amount of money having gone missing through Farepak.

We estimate that some 3,000 people in Northern Ireland are affected by the problem, although we need to establish the exact numbers and how much each has lost. I welcome what some hon. Members have said about agents having more information, but some of the agents' bookkeeping might not be as good as it should be. I appeal to the Minister to establish a single relief company or agency in each region, so that relief efforts can be co-ordinated and so that people will find Christmas. Perhaps the consumer councils in the regions would be useful. There is a desperate need to establish the exact amount of exposure, because Farepak was neither efficient nor effective in its management. I believe that money handed over in the past two weeks might not be accurately recorded and that the accounts might not be made available to the liquidator.

As I see it, we have three main tasks: to get relief urgently to those who have been robbed; aggressively to pursue criminal charges through the fraud squad or whatever other squad is required to ensure that the poor conduct of the company is punished; and to ensure that such a problem never happens again, perhaps through regulation. As Mary Creagh said, stringent financial controls, bonds and whatever else is necessary should be used. We need, too, to work with banks, credit unions and those responsible in the Treasury to ensure that those who have been savagely affected by the problems are not thrown into the arms of loan sharks to get past Christmas.