Speeches by Eagle.

“We are where we are on that because of the new systems that were created to purchase public goods. I am fairly astonished, but not surprised, at how complicated the system that I am now having a look at has become in that short time. We have to look much more at deliverability and simplification, to see how we can stab…”

“People are allowed to complain about tax increases and changes to the tax system. I was Exchequer Secretary for a while and I got well used to it then. They often, while they are complaining about that, say they want more grants and resources from the money that you get with the tax take. It is always a balancing issue…”

“I might be very sceptical of somebody who said I could have one master database that would solve all my IT problems.”

“It is a capacity issue in the Department and not an issue of negotiation with the EU, to be very frank with you.”

“I do not think that the Treasury ever wants to make anybody’s life easy, especially when money is scarce and we are spending £100 billion on servicing the debt that we have taken out. That makes it a lot harder for us to do some of the things we might want to do in slightly financially easier situations.”

“It has to be trialled and accepted. It has to be proved scientifically before we can make it commercially available or think about how to deploy it. We are in third-stage trials, but there was a slightly odd result in the second stage, which was unexplainable, that might have set us back a while. This is the science. Y…”

“I have not seen any draft of it at the moment. We are looking to bear down on all these areas. You have the Godfray report in front of you. You can see which direction the professor thinks we should be going in. Some of our constraints are scientific; some of them involve trade and the trade-offs between vaccination an…”

“I am aware of the potential of these things. I was Procurement Minister at the Treasury very many years ago, so I understand how fragmented the system used to be and what the potential opportunities are if we can get it more strategically focused.”

“Food price inflation is caused by a range of things. It is tracking above overall levels of inflation. We know that the bottom 20% of the income distribution spend much more as a percentage—I think it is nearly 15%—of their income on food compared with the top 20%, who spend 8.6% or something like that. Therefore, ther…”

“The Godfray report was very clear about that. We will not get there at the rate that we are going. He said we need to spend more money on it. The refresh will be an important part of seeing how we can bear down on this in different ways. Farmer management on farm is an important aspect of this, as is badger vaccination…”

“It would, as well as biosecurity and trading from high infected areas into low infected areas. There is a range of issues that you can look at in this area.”

“Absolutely, yes. It is particularly important, given the wide variations in rainfall that we are now seeing, to ensure that farmers can abstract water and have reservoirs on farm so that they can distribute over the year much more effectively. I am well aware of the planning issues that Mr Dewhirst was just talking abo…”

“We are looking in the TB refresh at what we can do around all these issues to see how we can be more sophisticated, especially given that the vast majority of badger culls are coming to an end.”

“There are various things that are happening, but the test that you are talking about—the SICCT test—is the internationally recognised test. Bovine TB is a notifiable disease, so we have to use that test. Professor Godfray’s final report on bovine TB eradication was published in September this year. The new APHA tests a…”

“We agree about that and I would ask you to keep your ear open to what is happening later.”

“I know you are keen to get on to fishing, Chairman.”

“It makes sense to think about how vaccination for turkeys, which is a very high-value area, might work. As I have just said with the French ducks example, it is not an absolute answer to the issue. We are happy to trial it and see whether it works and what the consequences of vaccinating a flock actually are.”

“Avian flu is now endemic in the wild bird population, which means we are getting waves. There is a kind of yo-yo effect. If you look at the costs for the last five years—it sounds like you have, since you have added them together—you will see that in 2022 it was around what it is now, and then there was a huge increase…”

“There is going to be a statement this afternoon from MHCLG, which I think you should look at very carefully, which I am quietly pleased about.”

“We try to foster those, with greater success in some contexts than others.”