Speeches by Baldwin.

“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.”

“Would you recommend any movement to Government?”

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

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

“It has been widely reported that the Bank is going through a round of redundancies. Have you been told how that might affect the people who work for you at the PRA? Just to put it out there, my worry was that I read that the redundancies were very much a voluntary process. That tends to mean that you lose all your best…”

“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…”

“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…”

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

“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?”

“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…”

“That is the big driver increasing digital exclusion—”

“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.”

“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?”

“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?”

“Given the current crisis, does the Chancellor regret in her first Budget increasing unfunded borrowing by £150 billion over this Parliament, which the Office for Budget Responsibility said at the time was “one of the largest fiscal loosenings of any fiscal event in recent decades”?”

“It is good to hear that inflation will be back at 2%, which I seem to recall it was back in mid-2024. Dr Pill, you have mentioned the Budget at the end of last year a couple of times, but there was also the Budget in 2024. In the sessions after that Budget, we asked the Governor what impact it might have on inflation. …”

“Can you put a number on that in part?”

“I have one last question, if I may. Would the motor finance redress scheme and the issue around that have got through under these new rules that you are implementing?”

“Are you ready as of now, or will you have to make changes in your organisation to be ready?”