Speeches by Kane.

“Paragraph 2.8 of the Report says that “some SLA owners highlighted the lack of penalty or break clauses in the agreements, or that they were uncertain what the escalation mechanism was if RFCAs did not respond to performance concerns they had raised”. How do you manage poor performance, particularly if there are not an…”

“The strategic defence review mentions working with the Department for Education, and you mentioned it there. To pick up on my earlier point, when it mentions the Department for Education, it means the Department for Education here, but this is devolved. Can you talk to me about how you are going to get these links to e…”

“In the NAO Report, paragraph 2.22 talks about what could be done to encourage employers “to support staff who are adult volunteers”. Let us park the 30% expansion for a minute and talk about the need to support the adult volunteers who run local cadet units. Are we supporting the process enough to find more of them?”

“Obviously, schools are a devolved issue. Can you talk about the differences you may be seeing when it comes to approaching schools or recruiting cadets within a devolved landscape? Is the approach to the four home nations working the same?”

“The strategic defence review says, “Reconnecting Defence with society should be the starting point” for “a renewed focus on home defence…as part of a national conversation led by the Government on defence and security. This can be achieved in part through expanding Cadet Forces by 30% by 2030.” General Gordon, are the …”

“It does, but it also introduces an uncertainty in that that answer is slightly at odds with what is in the Report. I am happy with the response, and I understand that you will be looking at this as you move forward. I am comfortable with that, so thank you both.”

“My observation would be that if it is articulated in the Report that there is uncertainty about escalation mechanisms, I would read into that that there are problems that some people think should be escalated and are not sure how to do it. My take from that is that it is not working in all instances as well as it could…”

“My experience of dealing with contractors in the highlands is that they are used to dealing with the great distances, and that going between the first call in the morning and the second call can sometimes be 50, 60, 70, 80 or 100 miles. Certainly, the contractors that you encounter in the highlands do not see the geogr…”

“Thank you. I will just make the point, slightly tongue in cheek, that for hundreds of years, Stirling bridge has been the Army’s definition of the difference between the highlands and the lowlands, and you still have that, because my constituency is right in the middle, between the highlands and the lowlands. But it wo…”

“Thank you. I note that the Highland RFCA was one of the two that was visited for this Report. There are challenges in supporting an estate and a process when the geographical scale of the highlands is such as it is. How do you address the challenges of dealing with an estate, and a process, that is incredibly spread ou…”

“To follow up on that, with the different ranks of non-commissioned and commissioned officers, does that approach to getting geographical spread occur across all ranks of the armed forces, or do you find that you recruit officers from one part and NCOs from another? I am part of the armed forces parliamentary scheme—you…”

“I suppose what I am hearing—tell me if I am hearing this right—is that a potential barrier to a 30% increase in cadets will be the number of volunteers that exist to support them, so in order to achieve the 30% expansion, we also have to have a programme to expand the number of volunteers. Again, I think I heard from y…”

“A very happy birthday to you, Mr Speaker. Given the enormous potential for renewable energy generation across Scotland, including in my constituency, does the Minister recognise that accelerating community-owned energy projects and, crucially, improving local transmission infrastructure would not only reduce fossil fue…”

“It is the Department’s decision to reduce the number of work coaches, rather than the funding following the decision for that.”

“Good morning Sir Peter, Barbara and Katherine. Before I start, can I say that I went for a visit to my local jobcentre in Stirling? We are going to talk an awful lot about it, but I would like to recognise the work that the staff are doing in centres around the country. They are working hard and we should recognise tha…”

“At the start of your answer, you described what I would imagine is normal planning for your Department. You are going to get variations in job figures around the country. You have introduced a temporary framework to, I assume, allow for a temporary change in this. Your answer, to be fair, described how you would work u…”

“I heard from your answer that this shortfall is a perfectly normal thing that is just to be expected, yet you have a framework and we are seeing throughout the Report that there is a huge workload. We will come on to all of that, but the shortfall is having an impact on staff and outcomes. I heard that this is just a n…”

“Can I ask Barbara some questions now? What impact has the reduction in support had on claimants?”

“You said that it has been minimised, but what has been minimised? What is the impact, even if it has been minimised?”

“We will probably pick up on that.”