Speeches by Kane.

“Does the Minister share my surprise that a Member of the party responsible for more than a decade of rising poverty, record benefit delays, and billions lost to fraud and error is now suddenly concerned about tackling that? Across the House, while we recognise the need to tackle fraud in our welfare system, we should a…”

“In Scotland, where we have votes for 16 and 17-year-olds in council and Scottish Parliament elections, I have found that some of the most engaging, respectful and searching questions have come from those in that age group, whereas in general elections a 16 or 17-year-old’s response is often, “I’ll go and see if my mum …”

“Sometimes, when the puns keep coming, you just have to “Roll With It”. In my constituency, Braehead community garden is a remarkable 2-acre, community-led project where residents grow fruit and vegetables in raised beds and polytunnels. It also has an apiary, a workshop and a 30 kW solar array. It hosts pumpkin festiva…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch (Katrina Murray) on securing this important debate. At a time when we are all looking for practical ways to support our communities, a simple but powerful action stands out to me in re…”

“When we talk about military recruiting, the military are aware that they have to figure out a way to let people leave and come back. Do you think, as the civil service, that you are doing that well anyway? Will this strategy help you keep people for longer? Will you also have that ability to let them leave and come bac…”

“Are you losing them out of the profession? Do you think they are going sideways to—”

“What is your instinct about what is happening at the moment? I am curious about this. If you are in Edinburgh, Newcastle or wherever, is it your instinct that you have a lot of people who are incredibly frustrated in their jobs, because they cannot get on and they are stuck there? Would you surmise that those who have …”

“There is something about moving between organisations. Why is that not happening at the moment? If I am living in Edinburgh or Stirling and there are multiple different organisations, there is nothing to stop me moving between them at the moment. Therefore, I would surmise that either I am not recognising that my skill…”

“Can I talk about impact, please? What impact will this strategy achieve for organisations? What will it achieve for staff and what will it achieve for users of services?”

“I want to ask a quick question on AI. Paul, you mentioned that we are still digitising services. We are still, in effect, catching up with, in effect, the 21st century when it has moved on rapidly in the last 12 months. We are still digitising services from an analog world. This new thing called artificial intelligence…”

“It is worth seeking a little bit of further clarity. We mentioned the pandemic. There are wonderful things that we did to adapt to the pandemic, but I am never sure today, in 2025, how much we are capturing where we are today rather than thinking back to those days five years ago where innovation was kicking in. Do you…”

“I appreciate that what was done in the pandemic was unique. I hope we never ever have to have that unique approach again, where there is an external factor of that magnitude that makes us more innovative. Do you think that we have returned to the previous habits, prior to the pandemic, where there were barriers to inno…”

“If I can move us on, I am looking at page 8 of the Report and the 20 lessons and insights to improve operational delivery. I am looking at the last one, which is, “Creating a working environment that encourages openness and innovation and challenges current thinking. You need leaders who ask what barriers and problems …”

“I am very much enjoying this because, from a Scottish perspective, it is intriguing to see that a lot of the problems are the same with local government. Perhaps I would add to that by saying it often feels like it is local government standing outside the window looking in, pressed up against the window, in a sort of D…”

“I absolutely agree with Nesil in the sense of place, but my observations were that, within the sense of place, there is a resource imbalance between local and central Government. Central Government want to put in more resource if they can. You are putting more resource into the development of this standard, the develop…”

“Before I go to my main question, can I just close off something that was mentioned when we were talking about local authorities? My experience of local authorities is as a council leader in Scotland, which I recognise is a different kettle of fish. If English and Scottish local authorities share anything in common, I s…”

“Just to help me understand, when you talk about putting a resource towards people who are vulnerable, I would imagine that you have people who are vulnerable, people who are digitally excluded and people who just don’t like technology or change. How are you breaking down the different types of people who are resource-h…”

“In specific relation to staffing, we are in a digital transition, but we have not transitioned to the digital world yet, so we can still rely on staff to provide a certain service level in a way that we hope we can rely on technology for in the future. The one thing I would imagine you can do is put in what you think i…”

“What did you do to test Capita’s assumption that it could do this with fewer people, based on automation and technology?”

“Just to finish that concern off—going right back to what we talked about with trade union recognition at the beginning—if you have fewer people being asked to do more, one thing that will happen is that people can be overworked and stressed, and working conditions can go down. It is even more important that we get an u…”