Speeches by Kane.

“Going back to social housing, David, what can we expect to see developers doing to unblock cost disputes with social providers?”

“Are you comfortable that the work and the common endeavour to get through disputes is happening? It is not nice to be in dispute—it impacts the way we all act—but as long as we are doing it with a common endeavour, we can get through it. Are you confident that members have the right mental and social approach as well a…”

“I want to move on to a question for Richard about skills and capacity. As you speed up identification of the buildings, are you assured that there are sufficient skills and capacity in the market to remediate at the new pace you are looking for?”

“This is a UK-wide problem, not just an England problem, and I want some assurance that there is some co-ordination among the home nations generally, because if you are increasing the resource in one part, you could be taking resources away from another. What I do not want to see, or would hate to see, is that suddenly …”

“Can you talk about the challenge I put to the building industry in the last session? It’s okay to say you do that; it’s okay to have a protocol in place, but the working relationships can be the difference between something working and not. Is it a good, robust working relationship among the home nations in order that …”

“Good. Thank you for that.”

“I am a former local council leader, and my alarm bells started to go there. Given where we are with needing to set resources ahead of budgets, are you confident that local authorities can do that? It is all very well for them to say, “Yes, we can do it in six months,” but are you happy with that?”

“Are they aware of the plan? They will not have to wait until the legislation goes through to get enough of the details to begin the workforce planning and the resource implications that they are going to require.”

“This is obviously one where you do not need to wait for the legislation for the details of how you are going to do it. Can you give us a little bit more colour as to how this is actually going to work in practice? Also, how are you going to make sure that the developers pay it? It is all very well to have local authori…”

“But fundamentally, if they do not pay it, no one is moving into their buildings.”

“I will try to be very circumspect about this. I am a bit troubled by the fact that a death can cause you that lack of information. It sounds like it would be useful for us to understand a bit more about that, perhaps in a letter. I am keen to understand whether it is a one-off—a highly unusual situation—or whether some…”

“I have worked in the creative industries all my working life, from helping my father to sell radios and televisions when I was a teenager, to presenting radio shows on stations across Scotland and supporting businesses by creating content for websites. Today, I want to address the disconnect between creativity and cost…”

“It is the word “hope” that causes the issue.”

“I remember my postgraduate business course at the University of Stirling, where we did an accountancy module. I always recall my lecturer saying, “I’ve got you for 10 weeks. I can’t teach you how to do accounts, but I can teach you how to ask your accountant questions.” That has always stuck with me, because this is an…”

“The Chair has just given you feedback, which leads me on to my next question. All MPs could probably give you feedback. You may want to write to us on this, rather than go into depth just now, but I am keen to understand how you are continuing to engage with MPs to get their feedback. Accountants tend to speak a very s…”

“This is a question for the permanent secretary. The disclaimer on the accounts puts a question mark over the value of them in the mind of non-accountants, so straightaway you have a perception problem with regard to the disclaimer. Could you give us your views on what this criticism does to the value of the Whole of Go…”

“Rosie or Will, what do you think has caused the local audit crisis?”

“Are you confident we are going to fix it?”

“Until you fix it, will it be that more moneys are required to help with the audit fees?”

“I remember that in my time in local government, in respect of the prudent approach, it was always politicians who tried to be the least prudent, and then it was officers and then the accountants. The accountants are always the ones who are most prudent. In terms of your financial forecasting as a Department for how lon…”