Speeches by Kane.

“I get the fact that you have a justification for missing the target. I accept that that justification exists, given the numbers. What I am saying is that as the numbers in the programme can ebb and flow, a target of 25 days is an internal target to help you manage internal processes and expectation, but it is also an e…”

“You are talking about a demand-led programme, with numbers that can ebb and flow, but a target that is fixed at 25 days. Can you talk about how you look at that target? I am not asking you to tell me what you may have internally, but if the numbers treble and the target stays the same, and it is known at the start of t…”

“Bringing that future-gazing to the target, when can we expect the average time taken to process applications to fall to your target of 25 days?”

“Paragraph 18 of the Report says: “DWP told us it is currently seeking to manage the backlog of applications within the budget for the scheme, but this means it does not expect the backlog to fall significantly in the short term. It noted that it needs to balance the demand for Access to Work with its other priorities a…”

“Good morning, everyone. Sir Peter, let me quote from the NAO Report, paragraph 14: “The average time taken by DWP to process applications more than doubled, from 28 working days in 2021-22 to 66 working days in 2024-25, and has continued to increase. In November 2025, the average time taken was 109 days compared with D…”

“This is the last one from me. You have talked about openness and the “no surprises” culture. I cannot resist asking whether there is anything that surprised you about the success of the “no surprises” culture. Is there anything that you do not want us to lose in our deliberations about the importance that the openness …”

“I want to drill down a couple of things. It often comes up in this Committee that business and technical specialists do not work well together. What do we need to take away from your project that specifically made that work, and that can be learned elsewhere? The business and technical specialists seemed to work well t…”

“Lots of little things.”

“It sounds fabulous, but it almost sounds very basic. It sounds like the sort of thing that we always want to do. Looking down on that, Sir Dave, why do you think it was successful? What do you think, strategically, made all that come together?”

“Victoria, do you want to add anything?”

“I had a number of questions about governance, but you have covered them all very well, Chair, so I will move on and ask about culture. Nathan, you were talking about the co-location aspect of fostering good culture. I wonder whether we can go into that a little more and talk about how you went about creating that cultu…”

“In terms of that migration of people who have come through the system and are presenting as homeless, they can go to Scotland in a different way than in England. Glasgow has been pretty vocal over the last few months about how it faces a disproportionate share of people who are presenting as homeless after they have be…”

“It is the ownership part. I am trying to ensure that you are sorting out this problem at a UK-wide level, with robust interactions and connections with the devolved nations as you are setting up within England. It is about giving me a sense that you are looking at this as a UK-wide problem in the way you are tackling i…”

“Is it not incumbent upon you to understand that burden without giving local authorities the additional burden of reporting? You talk about the burden of reporting; why do we not talk about the burden of gathering information?”

“As a Scottish MP, I am always interested in how we talk about taking ownership of this when there are devolved nations involved. Perhaps this is more of a question for Simon than for Josh. How are you ensuring that the joined-up approach—the joint ownership of the problem that we heard Jo talk about with justice—is UK-…”

“Simon, can I ask you a quick question? You mentioned a few minutes ago that when you are engaging with local authorities, it is definitely not as early as they would like, and I suspect that there is a bit of tension when you do. When you say that it is definitely not as early as they would like, do you think there is …”

“I will move on. We have the costs of dealing with people when they are going through the system, but when they have left the system and have had a response, how are you ensuring that local authorities have adequate information and resources to manage the impact on homelessness in their areas of people being granted asy…”

“Giving them more money to employ people to do the reporting burden. The reporting burden is left to be delivered by an increasingly dwindling number of people who can deliver it. You could fund the reporting burden itself with additional people. Could you not do that?”

“As a former local council leader—not having direct experience of this, but having spoken to councillors who have—I know that sometimes it is not just that it is not early; it is that it is ridiculously late before they hear what is happening. Do you think that there is an understanding in the Home Office that even if i…”

“Thank you for that, Chair. My question is specifically about immigration—”