Speeches by Baldwin.

“Would you recommend any movement to Government?”

“At this stage you cannot tell us if the redundancies have affected the skill mix or the quality or experience of that important human capital?”

“I took the legislation through.”

“And so did John. I want to pick up on something you mentioned in your questionnaire. You say that sovereign debt pressures are one of the main risks to UK financial stability. Obviously, today there was an auction of 10-year gilts that went for over 4.9%—the highest level for 20 years—so to what extent do you want to e…”

“Would it affect regulated firms mainly through the impact on their mortgage books, or do they hold substantial portions of gilts unhedged themselves?”

“I should put it on the record that I worked with Ms Braddick when I was Economic Secretary—”

“Do you see the UK gilt market as being particularly risky at the moment? If you are paying that level of interest rate, debt in this country is obviously going to compound much faster unless we can get better nominal and real growth in the economy.”

“I can see there is probably a limit to what you can tell us on that.”

“By the PRA itself?”

“Where do you think things have got to on Solvency II? Is there still more that the PRA might be doing in terms of the changes to insurance capital requirements?”

“We have had feedback from industry about how it can be quite slow and bureaucratic.”

“When the Prime Minister was in the middle east, did the subject of the UK’s dependence on helium come up? It is an element that we do not produce in the UK, and it is vital for things such as MRI scans in the NHS.”

“I thank the Minister for confirming that this Parliament has not ratified the treaty. As Parliament and the British public heard more about the deal, one of the things they found most inexplicable was that it involved us paying a substantial amount of money—how much has not yet been confirmed to Parliament—to the Mauri…”

“We were hearing that digital exclusion is a big driver of financial exclusion in 2026, and I was going to ask Kate Pender, what the most transformational change would be to achieve the large economic activity numbers you cited earlier, presumably from your research.”

“If you had to pick one of those, in terms of the scale of the impact it might have on that total, which one would it be?”

“That is the big driver increasing digital exclusion—”

“I am about to be interrupted by the Division bell, but I will ask about the trends that are driving exclusion at the moment. We are in 2026. We have had evidence to the Committee that financial exclusion is driven less by lack of access or capability, and more by the fact that there is just no money left after paying e…”

“Does your research prove that that would be the single most impactful intervention?”

“Q9. The Prime Minister says that he is concerned about the cost of living, so can he explain why he allowed his Local Government Minister to give permission to Reform-led Worcestershire county council to inflict that 9% council tax hike on my constituents?”

“So for digital exclusion it is about auto-savings. Do the other panellists want to pick out one thing that is driving exclusion, or that would solve exclusion?”