Speeches by Glen.

“How do we, as a Committee, and the public verify the added value of the Office for Value for Money, given that its advice to you is private?”

“Mr Smewing, I will just put it on record that I never had a problem with the work of your team and did not feel the need for additional advice.”

“But can I ask one further tight question on the departmental delivery plans? They have identified, I think, annual efficiency savings of £14 billion by 2028-29. How will it be verified that they have been achieved? What is the tangible, clear evidence that that number will be met by that time?”

“What happens if they don’t?”

“They would have to find cuts in other line items within their own budget, because no other money is available.”

“Gemma Tetlow from the IFG talked about the uniform 10% administrative budget cuts. If you are doing a zero-based review, as Mr Dean said, it is a holistic opportunity to consider first principles: what are we doing and what are we not doing? How do you justify what appears to be, and what Ms Tetlow appeared to say was,…”

“Why the universal 10%?”

“I certainly get the point about there being a consensus between the previous Government and this one on devolving decision making. How do you avoid a situation where you create lots of happy people outside London, with local mayors who are given more discretion to make growth-enhancing investments within their terms of…”

“With the greatest respect, that is not the point I am making. I totally agree with you that it must be their decision. I am saying that the combined aggregate economic value of those intra-city transport schemes is less significant in terms of the national growth mission overall, and that there are better decisions tha…”

“No, what I am saying is that spending money locally has a different economic outcome from national infrastructure projects that do not involve one particular region or a combined series of regions. Rishi Sunak came as a Back Bencher to see Philip Hammond when I was Philip’s PPS, and he said he wanted to do freeports. T…”

“I do not think I have been very clear, but what I am trying to get at is the arbitration between the relative value of delegated expenditure and centrally driven infrastructure or other stimulants from capital expenditure from the centre.”

“Well, I think that is what we are saying—we will have to wait and see. But there is no measure to arbitrate on that; it is a judgment.”

“Just to clarify, Professor Wachter, do you see the regulators doing enough at the moment to deal with the evolving risk in terms of the use of this often protected data?”

“Is there not a significant risk that if we do not have more intervention in this area, we will actually have market providers diminishing as their data confidence levels over risk levels for some cohorts in society become so high? That imperative around privacy actually gives them the right not to offer a service in or…”

“Professor Andreeva, do you have anything to add?”

“Turning to the insurance industry, clearly the amount of data points that exist for different individuals allows companies to form a different profile and understanding of risk, which has quite significant implications in terms of the loss of pooling, the anatomisation of a market and the offering of different position…”

“Thank you; that is really helpful.”

“Professor Lawrence, could I clarify what you meant in terms of the regulators’ budgets? My understanding is that the PRA and the FCA, in financial services, for example, are funded from levies. They determine their own budgets on a business plan and so on and are scrutinised by this Committee and others.”

“Yes, quite.”

“Regulators and Governments are always very reticent to put imperatives to the tech companies for fear of over-regulation.”