Speeches by Anderson.

“They are ongoing. I cannot say an exact date, but they are absolutely ongoing at the moment.”

“I have no remit to speak just on my own. I spend time in Northern Ireland meeting with Ministers. For example, I met jointly recently with Minister Givan, Minister of Education in Northern Ireland, and Minister Morgan, the UK Government Minister, to talk about the childcare strategy. When I go to Northern Ireland with …”

“Welcome to my world. My whole remit is being a champion of Northern Ireland in the UK Government, and then being the champion of the UK Government in Northern Ireland and facilitating those connections. I see this like a corridor where you have all the Ministers’ rooms lined up, and they all open doors for the Northern…”

“The new fiscal framework is down to the Treasury to negotiate. There are parts of this that I am responsible for and parts that other parts of the United Kingdom Government are responsible for. I can talk a bit more about that. For us, it is relaying what we hear and what is needed, supporting the independent Fiscal Co…”

“Thank you to the whole Committee for holding this inquiry. It is really important. It is what I hear talked about by almost everyone I meet as I go around Northern Ireland. As a former member of a Select Committee, when we do reports and wonder what is going to happen to them, to have this follow-up report on the repor…”

“I am Fleur Anderson. I am an Under-Secretary of State for the Northern Ireland Office.”

“Thank you for raising that here. I will take it up. We have been talking about difficult decisions, and I do not know what the outcome will be, but I will certainly take that up. Thank you for raising it.”

“I absolutely agree with that. It has been my absolute privilege to visit some of the organisations that you are mentioning there and to talk with young people. I have made a point of asking to speak to young people at every opportunity. I used to be a youth worker and I know how difficult it is sometimes. It takes a bi…”

“As you may know, Claire, I come from the voluntary sector, so my absolute passion is seeing this. I see this as part of public service delivery, so I am glad that you are raising this. As you say, the sector is often picking up the pieces. When we talk about cliff edges of the devolved Government’s budget, it is often …”

“We need to look at every way in which we can improve outcomes for people. If anyone is on that long waiting list, however we can solve it, that is what we should work as politicians to achieve. Those examples of all-island health strategies should absolutely be built on. We recently had the British–Irish Intergovernmen…”

“I absolutely agree that trust is an essential part of this. This goes two ways. The UK Government working with the Executive, and the Prime Minister leading from the front and having a conversation with the First Minister and Deputy First Minister in his first couple of days of office, not only started off the way we w…”

“It is a really good point. It is certainly something I have done in the different roles that I have had. It is important to do that. It is much harder in politics than it has been in previous roles that I have had in life, for sure, but it is really important. We need to have some honest discussions. The helpful way of…”

“It is a really helpful amount and I hope that it will be helpful not only for the money that is provided, but also for the conversation that is going to be had when the full board is set up. I hope that that will be by the end of this financial year. The full board of experts will be talking about public sector transfo…”

“On the £47 million a year, you can also ask the Minister of Finance about this, but I think that there have been conversations about actually not having that, but dividing the total pot by five and allocating it by year. We need to frontload some of that money, so I hope that we will see that. More of it needs to be sp…”

“Digital transformation is really fundamental to changing the model and that whole part of transformation. This is actually linked to the transformation board, because one aspect of the transformation board is the digital landscape review, by which we mean looking at how we can use digital to transform the different are…”

“It is a great question. I also come from a project management background and I want to see outcomes. We all do as well, do we not? We want to see the outcomes that are best for people in Northern Ireland, so absolutely driving that transformation forward. That is some of the thinking behind two aspects of this. One is …”

“All of these conversations are with the Treasury as well, so it is very much a joined-up conversation.”

“It is, yes. I have spoken directly with Northern Ireland Ministers about this for different areas of work, and it is under active consideration. We want to be able to unlock the finance to provide for better outcomes in public services. I cannot guarantee that there will be a great outcome in all of them, but it is und…”

“In short, they have the powers they need. These are decisions that they need to make. There is devolution of the full fiscal framework, so it is up to them to make those decisions. A negotiation of that would be to change the means of devolution. The devolved settlement is there, giving them all the powers and levers. …”

“These are being held by the Treasury directly with the Northern Ireland Executive. I am glad that you are speaking to the Minister of Finance after this. It is very much a devolved matter. This is a political decision for the Executive to make. I know the potential options that there are. The discussions we are having …”