Anneliese Midgley

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. As so many colleagues have said, at the heart of this debate are people who have worked as public servants, many of them for decades. Everything that I am getting in my mailbox relates to hard-working people who have tried to do the right thing—it is just not fair, is it? I have constituents who are afraid of losing their homes because they cannot pay their mortgages, their credit card bills, or their electricity and gas bills. But herein lies a bigger issue, I think. It is on stuff like this that the public have lost faith in us, because it is not the first time that something like this has happened. There needs to be accountability. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster Central (Sally Jameson) said, Capita has a record of incompetence and crisis under its belt, including on public service pensions, so why was it awarded this contract? What advice was given to Tory Ministers, and by which officials, when the contract was awarded? What commitments has Capita given this Government about resources to clear the backlog, and what firm timelines has it given for that? Crucially, what will be the consequences if it does not hit those targets? Will it just get away with it, with a fine, a slap on the wrist or maybe a newspaper story? If this is not already failure, what constitutes failure? As I said at the start, at the heart of this situation are people’s lives. If the Government do not get to grips with it, we will be back here again, as my right hon. Friend said, and I can foresee an ITV series starring Toby Jones in a few years’ time. I thank the Government for the sticking plaster in the form of loans for those who need them most, but the taxpayer is once again stepping in because of failure, incompetence and maladministration. I urge the Cabinet Office to do the right thing and make sure that everything is done for people who have worked hard all their lives so that they get their pensions paid.