Speeches by Baldwin.

“With a stroke of his Whitehall pen, the Secretary of State has just abolished Malvern Hills district council, Worcester city council, wonderful Wychavon district council and Worcestershire county council. He said in his statement that this is about making “real improvements to people’s lives and…communities”. Can he ex…”

“Could the Leader of the House make a commitment that the new Chancellor of the Exchequer will come to the House on the first day we are back from recess? The current Chancellor has raised taxes on payrolls, and we have fewer payroll jobs; she has raised taxes on businesses, and businesses have closed; and she has raise…”

“You stand by your statement that the Employment Rights Act will have a negative impact on growth. That is what you said on the record; I am literally quoting from your record.”

“One of the things that interests me in what you have said in the past year in Parliament is: “I think the Employment Rights Bill will subtract from growth. It is bad for intangible investment. Given the weak situation that firms are in, I just do not think we should be going ahead with it.” We have gone ahead with it. …”

“The word “Act” is important, because when we asked the previous Chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility whether they had scored the impact of the Employment Rights Act in their analysis and their forecast, they said, “No, because it’s not yet an Act.” It is now an Act. Are you going to stand by your words that it…”

“If in aggregate, the Employment Rights Act measures subtract half a per cent from growth, that would be pretty material. I would not want you to drill down into such detail that none of the measures went above the 0.1% threshold.”

“Jobs?”

“Was it? Okay. You saw the advertisement, I guess, when it was published in February and you put your name in the hat. From your perspective as one of the candidates—the candidate who succeeded—what was slowing that process down?”

“Thank you. Now—”

“No, no.”

“Professor Haskel, as the Chair was indicating earlier, the Committee thinks it is extraordinary that we are at the end of July and this post has been vacant since last October—”

“Act.”

“Was it pressure on their diary? The Minister who appeared in front of us said that there was a lot going on in the world. Do you think there was pressure on their diary?”

“This is really important, because the Office for Budget Responsibility says, “We don’t score anything that has a positive or negative impact of less than 0.1%.” I would not want you to say, “Each of these individual measures out for consultation doesn’t quite get above 0.1%”—”

“And you are not proposing as the incoming Chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility, if we approve you today, to change that parameter of 0.1%. You are not going to try to say, “Actually, let’s make it 0.5% or 1% before we score legislation.””

“And you will score these measures as they are consulted on, or you will score the measures in aggregate with that five-year horizon in mind.”

“Were you interviewed by Ministers?”

“Yes, and I am asking for your perceptions as the recipient of the process. You have obviously applied for other jobs in your life. What was it that seemed particularly slow about this one?”

“So it was scheduled.”

“In your extensive experience and analysis, in terms of the Employment Rights Act subtracting from growth, which is your starting point, is it your expectation that the aggregate of all the measures will be considerably more than 0.1% or more than 0.1%?”