Speeches by Baxter.

“I was surprised by what you said earlier, Morgan, about any mitigations at any point being welcome. Given we have such a short time before the pension age starts to increase, what could the Government realistically do now?”

“Thank you for joining us this morning. Following on from the previous questions about mitigations, given that we have had plenty of notice of the forthcoming increase in the pension age, why do you think no mitigations have been put in place?”

“The UK shared prosperity fund currently supports about 20% of Renfrewshire council’s employability budget. Given that that funding is due to come to an end, can my right hon. Friend outline what steps he will take to support employability services in Renfrewshire going forward?”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. I thank my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Irene Campbell) for securing this debate. I declare an interest as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on cats. Across the United Kingdom, nearly 60% of hous…”

“I will be brief. When will the pensions dashboards become available to the public?”

“I am conscious of time, so my last point is that I urge you to reopen the negotiations with those trade unions because industrial action would have a catastrophic effect on claimants. In a recent survey of the DWP workforce, 20% of respondents suggested that they were claiming in-work benefits themselves and 14% were u…”

“That is an interesting point, because DWP is falling behind other Government Departments according to the information that I have seen. On pay awards elsewhere, in the Department for Education AOs was up 7.88%, in the Ministry of Justice it was up 5.6% for AOs, 5.7% for AOs in HMRC and 4% for AOs and EOs. By comparison…”

“Did you make any representations to the Treasury on this matter, specifically on pay for your workforce, given that the vast majority of them are in lower-paid roles?”

“On the Department having a different composition in the workforce than other Government Departments, the profile is different: 63% of DWP staff are women compared to 56% across the wider civil service; 47% of DWP staff are 50-plus in age compared to 37% across the wider civil service; 76% of DWP staff are executive off…”

“Let’s talk about that, but I would be interested to know if you are putting in place contingency arrangements in the likelihood that the strike takes place. My understanding is the indicative ballot indicated that 80% were in favour of some form of action. Very quickly, are you putting in place contingency arrangements…”

“As we speak, you are in dispute with the largest trade union representing the workforce in the DWP. The PCS union is balloting its members on strike action over the 2025-26 pay offer. As a trade union official for 25 years before I entered this place, I spent all that time in negotiations. If you end up in an industria…”

“I welcome both the Foreign Secretary’s statement and the Prime Minister’s remarks this morning. It may be surprising that neither Greenland nor the Arctic featured as a strategic priority in the United States’ national security strategy, published in November, although transatlantic trade did. Will the Foreign Secretar…”

“Is this the first role in which you would be required to act independently of your industry colleagues?”

“It will come as no surprise to colleagues across the House to hear that the issue I want to focus on is the treatment of the Ukrainian children. When I first visited Ukraine, this was the issue that struck me to my core. Russia has stolen 20,000 Ukrainian children from their home, and Russian authorities themselves rep…”

“Can you talk to us about areas of industry poor practice that you think the Pensions Regulator should be doing more to address?”

“Can you give us an example of where you have had to act independently despite pressure from your contacts?”

“Thanks for joining us, Emma. Do you have any intention of returning to work in the pensions industry?”

“I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement and pay tribute to his leadership on this issue, as well as that of the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister. I also welcome the statement by the coalition of the willing on their commitments to deter further Russian aggression. Do those commitments extend to preventing …”

“Q12. Adrian Howe was a successful and dedicated Vodafone store manager for over 20 years. In 2017 he was offered the opportunity to take on a franchise for one of their thriving stores, but the goalposts changed and he was forced to take on a struggling store. Just days before he was due to open that store, Adrian step…”

“For some Ukrainian children, this will be the fourth Christmas that they will spend in Russia, after being torn from their families by the Russian state. Others will spend their Christmas living under occupation, and many more will spend their Christmas in a military training camp, being taught to fight against their o…”