Speeches by Dixon.

“Do you have targeted support for any staff who are victims themselves of assault?”

“Earlier, we were talking about the impact on prisoners and you did raise the impact on staff themselves. The Committee would also like to recognise the work that the staff are doing under very difficult conditions. You raised the issue of recruitment and that you feel you have done very well on that, but you recognised…”

“The bottom line on all of this is that the current crisis in capacity is having a negative impact on the ability to get into drug rehab, the ability to educate and the ability to reduce reoffending rates by giving people purposeful activity.”

“I have one final question on this matter, which comes to education. There seems to be evidence of links between getting education in prison, as part of prisoner rehabilitation, and reoffending, but also employment on release. We received quite a lot of evidence that those educational facilities were in a state of decre…”

“Well, basically making sure that there was drug treatment available. We have not had any evidence that these numbers of 15% are going down.”

“Does the hon. Member agree that the investment in and setting up of GB Energy, the location of which is not far from his constituency, will ensure that the transition to clean, green energy generation happens quickly, and that the failure to invest happened on the Conservatives’ watch?”

“Will my hon. Friend give way?”

“The hon. Lady talks about protecting a unique habitat. In my Shipley constituency we have peat bogs, the restoration of which is essential for limiting climate change. It is estimated that the Great North bog stores 400 million tonnes of carbon. The council is doing a lot to rewet those areas. Will she join me in comme…”

“I want to go beyond presentation—although that is important—to look at what you are doing to manage these underlying issues. Let’s stick with pensions. What actions are you taking with Departments about some of these very large liabilities in terms of the unfunded pension schemes?”

“Obviously the direction is hiring more doctors, nurses, police officers, so are there projections and assumptions about workforce growth that arise from changes in Government policy built into this?”

“Okay. Perhaps you could follow up in a note on that point. Thank you. The most significant other contingent liabilities—if I could come to those briefly, Chair; I am conscious of time—are: first, nuclear decommissioning, which is some £18.5 billion or around 27% of the amount; and secondly, clinical negligence, which a…”

“As the co-chair officer for the APPG on patient safety I commend you as somebody in Treasury with this understanding, but I think it is perhaps not as high profile an issue with the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England. The result of not paying attention to patient safety and of not having the right cul…”

“I hope that through discussions with the Department of Health and Social Care, we will make sure that it does bite in terms of taking patient safety seriously. Thank you.”

“I do not know whether this was highlighted when you discussed discount rates earlier, but obviously, as we come to the end of this session, the value of the Whole of Government Accounts approach is to give us a big picture of where our net position is. According to the Institute of Chartered Accountants, if you looked …”

“But you would not read anything too much into the figure that I just cited? What perspective does it give in addition to the OBR perspective, which you are saying is really the one? The Chancellor has made it very clear that the most important thing is the fiscal rules and whether we are meeting them.”

“Good morning to the witnesses. Before I get into my area of questioning, I have a couple of relevant conflicts of interest to declare. I worked as a civil servant at the Department of Health and Social Care until 2015, and as a result I have a civil service pension. You will be pleased to know that we are moving on fro…”

“I think it is fine. As you say, the Department of Health and Social Care is the largest, and this Committee will be coming back to the most recent Department of Health accounts, subsequent to this. We will probably have more opportunity to drill into that, but I invite the Comptroller and Auditor General to comment.”

“Good. That is positive to hear. Another area in the accounts is the treatment of NatWest Group. Obviously, it was previously under public ownership and, therefore, very much on the Government accounts. Gradually, the Government have been disposing of its shareholding to the point that the Office for National Statistics…”

“Thank you. Another challenge with the WGA is the alignment of financial year ends. Ideally, all the public sector bodies that you scoop up into the WGA would have the same period. Probably one of the most significant misalignments relates to academy trusts and further education colleges, with FE colleges now having bee…”

“Okay, so you are not seeking to move them to align and they will stay on their current pattern. Could you say a bit more about the ability to be transparent about the methodology? Is the intention that you would use a much more transparent, and therefore auditable, methodology to try to model the alignment?”