Speeches by Tufnell.

“Can I move on to testing? I think you have done some work. You had a podcast called “Untold: Toxic Legacy”, where you said that the equivalent of one supermarket shelf’s worth of produce is tested every year for lead. I think that is what you said, which is quite remarkable. Why do you think that is? Why is it so low?”

“Finally, how are you working with the devolved Administrations, particularly with Welsh Government and Scottish Government? How does your working relationship with them look?”

“Can I ask about staffing, which you have touched upon, and particularly recruiting specialist staff? I think in October 2025 you were talking about the recruitment challenges not being to do with financial pressures, but to do with the lack of recruitment in those specialist areas. What are the main factors affecting y…”

“You are paying a lot in consultancy fees. I think it has increased from £4 million in 2023-24 to over £5 million in 2024-25. Your total costs for 2024-25, including for temporary staff, are £12.9 million, to give a context to that figure.”

“Good morning. Thank you for your attendance. You are working across two distinct regulatory regimes in Northern Ireland and Great Britain. Can I ask what impacts that has on your work in practice and whether it affects your core functions?”

“What is the turnaround time on the applications?”

“On the national residues control programme, the NRCP, how will the alignment with the SPS, or upcoming alignment with the EU in respect to the SPS agreement, affect the costs and resources required to deliver the work?”

“Presumably, this is something that you are keeping a close eye on and you are working closely with the Minister.”

“Are those your eligibility criteria? Do you set the eligibility criteria?”

“I am more concerned about this number of patients; I do not understand where they are going, how it works for them and why they are not linked with you. I would rather explore that first—I think we are going to come to IPFRs later.”

“Why is there such a big differential between the approval rates in Wales and England? I think you said it was 5% approval in England, and you are at 79% in Wales.”

“Is there any way that you could provide evidence to the Committee about why there is that massive differential?”

“I think I have taken this as far as I can, Chair.”

“Which are established through those contractual relationships that already exist. I understand that. Evidence that we have had before has shown that those are quite successful: there is quite a streamlined process because the relationships are established and that is quite smooth. The fear is that the IPFRs are quite c…”

“It is quite big.”

“I understand that bit, and I understand that happens with other health boards, like Betsi referring to the Wirral—I get that. I also get the IPFRs, which we will come to later in respect of high-cost medication. What I do not understand is where there is this third batch of patients, and how they are being referred for…”

“Thank you very much for coming in today. Could you clarify something rudimentary for me? We have health boards that potentially have established contractual relationships—we have heard about established cancer pathways and, for instance, Betsi using neonatal services in the Wirral and Hywel Dda using services at Agnes …”

“Those are the contracted relationships that I touched on before.”

“You do not think that they are your responsibility?”

“So you have nothing to do with those?”