Speeches by Thomas.

“My hon. Friend has been one of those who campaigned consistently over a long period of time for justice for sub-postmasters, in particular for her constituent Chris Head. I hope he and she will recognise that one of the recommendations in Sir Wyn’s report that we confirmed today we will accept is in no small part due t…”

“I commend the right hon. Gentleman for his campaigning on this issue. I know that he has continued to push different Governments and different Post Office Ministers on the issues around this scandal, and I have no doubt that he will continue to do so. He is absolutely right that the people responsible for this scandal …”

“I thank the hon. Gentleman for his work on the Business and Trade Committee, too. He gives me the opportunity to pay tribute to the noble Lord Beamish, who campaigned for a considerable period of time to bring the House’s attention to the issue of Capture sub-postmasters. No definitive number exists of how many Post Of…”

“I thank the hon. Lady for her comments and questions. She was right to say in her opening remarks about this being the greatest miscarriage of justice in our country’s history. The responsibility is therefore on us all to do everything we can to make sure the victims receive full and fair compensation, and to ensure th…”

“I have absolutely no doubt that we need to see, in full, who was responsible for this disaster and why. Sir Wyn Williams’s work on that is critical. We await his final report, which will look at what happened, why, and who was responsible. That transparency will be hugely important to help the Post Office, and the coun…”

“To be clear, Sir Wyn Williams’ recommendation of a standing body to deliver compensation is very much to ensure that if there is ever a future disaster on this scale—and we all hope that there is not—the Government are better set up to respond to it. He has not specifically suggested that we transfer into such a body t…”

“My hon. Friend raises a significant issue, and one that I have no doubt had a bearing on the way in which the scandal unfolded. She will understand that for a formal view on who was responsible and what went wrong, we need to wait for the final report from Sir Wyn Williams. But it is quite clear that a significant numb…”

“The hon. Lady makes an important and significant point and gives me the opportunity to comment on that particular constituency case, which she and I have discussed a couple of times. She is absolutely right when she alludes to the fact that there are victims of the scandal who have not yet come forward or, perhaps for …”

“On the right hon. Gentleman’s direct challenge, I certainly want to do that. I completely share his view that every victim who still has not had compensation has waited too long, and that I in particular, and the whole House, have a responsibility to keep up the pressure to get full and fair compensation for those vict…”

“I take this opportunity to commend my hon. Friend for his consistent campaigning on this issue. He is absolutely right to underline the moral responsibility that Fujitsu has to contribute to the cost of the scandal. I welcome the fact that Fujitsu has accepted that it has such a moral obligation. I have made it clear t…”

“There is no question but that the compensation process has taken far too long. The scandal could have been stopped a lot earlier. Everybody who was a victim of the scandal should have had compensation—certainly by the time we took office. Having said that, we have set out to speed up the delivery of compensation. We ha…”

“I recognise and understand why there is considerable scepticism across the House about the Post Office continuing to have any role in the delivery of any part of the compensation process. As I said, when I first came into this role, I looked very carefully at whether we should essentially start over and take the Post O…”

“Sir Wyn Williams has today released the first volume of his report into the Horizon scandal, which caused so much harm to so many innocent people. The fearless and diligent work of his inquiry has, I believe, won the trust and admiration of postmasters. The inquiry has asked penetrating questions of a large number of w…”

“The straight answer is that I do not know, but I am very happy to take that away, have a look and come back to the Committee.”

“Absolutely. There is some work being done in this space. I will probably need to write to the Committee with a bit more detail, but I absolutely recognise the issue.”

“I just want to add that the Secretary of State for Business and Trade has announced the creation of the Business Growth Service. It is modelled on the US Small Business Administration, but the ambition is to provide a much quicker service for businesses and entrepreneurs to get access to the advice and support they nee…”

“I support what Baroness Gustafsson says and, to be very boring and practical, the £250 billion figure comes from the Rose review, which reported about five years ago. Obviously, the industrial strategy is a much more recent initiative of the current Government. As Baroness Gustafsson said, there is a range of measures …”

“First, we have an existing access to finance programme on debt funding called the Start Up Loans programme, which is not unique to women founders, but approximately 40% of those who benefit from the programme are women founders. We want to expand the Start Up Loans programme significantly. We are working out exactly wh…”

“As you rightly say, more generally beyond just the British Business Bank, there is a problem with data collection in that we do not have a comprehensive database anywhere in the UK to track lending to women entrepreneurs, or indeed to black and ethnic minority entrepreneurs. That is one of the issues we have been discu…”

“I am very happy to think about it. Anything we can do to increase the amount of money being made available to women entrepreneurs is absolutely something we would want to consider. We would want to look at whether there are any wider implications, but in principle, I am happy to look at that as an issue.”