Speeches by Glen.

“But to the bigger point I am making?”

“That is what I was going to ask.”

“Could I take forward the conversation around what you see as necessary to get more investment in high-growth firms? That is a universal imperative in the economy, on which the Chancellor has given some instruction. You obviously have to reconcile the stability imperative around that enablement, and the whole Solvency U…”

“It takes time to consolidate.”

“Yes, and that was never going to be fruitful in the first place.”

“Basically, you have all referred to the aggregation of pension funds, new financial instruments that look at things such as intellectual capital as something that you can invest against, and improving market awareness.”

“It was very efficient.”

“I am not trying to be difficult.”

“So are the Government doing enough to create information flows to possible new opportunities for funding?”

“I congratulate the Secretary of State on getting the town of culture competition to happen. I was briefly Arts Minister nine years ago, and Sir Phil Redmond did an amazing job then of setting out the distinction between city of culture and town of culture. I seek the Secretary of State’s advice about Salisbury. As it i…”

“May I say what a pleasure it is to serve not only under your chairship, Dame Siobhain, but on the Treasury Committee with you and the hon. Member for Hornsey and Friern Barnet (Catherine West)? I first became engaged in this subject during my first Parliament, when I joined the all-party parliamentary group on hunger a…”

“Duncan Grocock, a frequent commuter from Salisbury to London, came to see me about the short-forming of South Western Railway trains along the line through Andover and Basingstoke. Passengers can be compensated when trains are late, but not when they must stand for commutes of an hour and a half. Will the Leader of the…”

“I hear what the Minister says, but does she not recognise that if the prevailing increase in the national living wage is 6.7% and inflation is about half that, and given the other costs mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore), many employers will not be able to take on any casual e…”

“On the balance of probabilities, it is likely that, across all the new things that you have to do—we have already discussed several of them this morning—one of them is going to go wrong. How do you use your experience to justify that degree of optimism going forward, Mr Russell?”

“I am concerned about the complexity of the operations that you currently have to deal with and the challenge of trying to absorb quite a new responsibility. I understand that the VOA routinely takes nine to 12 months to process applications from owners seeking to move from, say, self-catering properties from council ta…”

“That is another complexity for you to deal with.”

“With respect, most agencies of all Government Departments make those plans—you are an experienced civil servant—and these unforeseen problems arise. Chair: It is the real world.”

“Sorry, I am just a bit confused. If the threshold does not change and the triple lock progressively accelerates each year and increases the amount of basic state pension that somebody receives, there is a difference between those two amounts, which is taxable. It gets bigger over time. If we take, which we will, the Ch…”

“It is very steep. How do you feel about that? Do you reference what has been said in previous fiscal events by previous Governments when thinking about how likely it is that we will get to that point?”

“It seems to be—I suspect all Governments have a tendency to do this—optimistic at the end of the period. How do you feel about that? What is the conversation with the OBR around verifying whether that is realistic? It is easy for any Government to say, “We are going to put in these measures and we are going to have a m…”