Speeches by Grady.

“No, I should apologise.”

“Can you reassure me, therefore, that if there is something that you think is inappropriate—for example, pressure to change a forecast that you and your team are rock solid behind, or starving you of resources or some other set of events that makes you uncomfortable—you would actively seek to come before this Committee?”

“Let us suppose for a moment that the Chancellor down the line during your term is less friendly than I am and says, “I’m going to cut your resources.” What would you do?”

“I want to talk about the independence of the OBR. Over the last four years, we have had the September 2022 mini Budget, where the OBR was shut out, and we had the early resignation of its chair last year. How would you assess the state of independence of the OBR at the minute?”

“I suppose, Professor Haskel, the issue here is that you have worked for the CMA—a body that I have some experience of—and now the MPC, and you are now appearing before this Committee, but this role is to a different order. What happens with the OBR is not really just a discussion with The Economist and the Financial Ti…”

“The OBR has limited resources, as you have set out, and you are dependent on HMRC and DWP for tax modelling. We have had a reasonable amount of evidence that there might be a little bit of overdependence going on there. Do you share that concern, Professor Haskel?”

“Is there anyone on the market side who has not participated in this but you would have liked to have participated?”

“Mr Blyth, I want to ask you two exam questions, which I might be copying from the Governor. First, does everyone properly understand the interconnections between private credit and other parts of the system? Secondly, do the people who own it understand the characteristics of the things they own? With the progress made…”

“Moving on to market-based finance, Mr Kroszner, in your appointment hearing in January 2023, you told this Committee that “the data is just not there” on private credit and market-based finance for the non-bank sector. Do you think the system-wide exploratory scenario is answering that data question, so that we better …”

“Governor, I suspect that you will want to add something anyway, but given the growth in private markets compared with the banking sector over the last, say, 20 years, do you think we are all giving enough weight to this sector, as opposed to having long conversations—rightly so; this is not a criticism of Mr Glen—about…”

“It would be useful to come back to us in writing on that important point.”

“Governor, you mentioned legal responsibility for agentic models. I am a recovering lawyer. Is the Bank and do you think we are clear about who is responsible if, for instance, financial institution A uses an agentic model and it starts cheating and lying, as you describe it? Perhaps you could answer briefly because I d…”

“To follow up on that, you mentioned that this has allowed more debt to be issued and that the market is more fragile. We have debt to GDP of about 100%. Does that give you any concerns about the Government being able to borrow in sufficient volumes, should they wish to, and the price of that borrowing? Do you think tha…”

“Q4. The Family C official report, about the most depraved sexual abuse of children, identifies serious failures by Glasgow city council and other bodies. The report says that one child victim “banged on the windows shouting at the health visitor not to leave”,but this was treated as “streetwise”, instead of a desperate…”

“7. What discussions he has had with the Northern Ireland Executive on recent disorder in Northern Ireland.”

“The Roma have suffered centuries of prejudice and hate. Under the Nazis, they were subjected to concentration camps and genocide. Roma people have made their home in my constituency and in Northern Ireland, and should be treated with decency, yet they have been subjected to terrible racist violence in Northern Ireland.…”

“Mr Pollard, the DIP obviously makes several bets on uncrewed and autonomous technology, citing the lessons from Ukraine, but witnesses we have had before us warn of over-learning lessons from Ukraine and assuming that autonomy fixes everything. Briefly, are you confident that the Ministry of Defence has got the balance…”

“That is helpful, Mr Pollard. Time is marching on. The exam question that we are all facing here is, can we defend the United Kingdom? Can you reassure me that the decision to significantly shift emphasis in this way was driven by that exam question and not financial considerations?”

“Businesses trading with unlawful settlements can be under no illusion that the settlements are unlawful and that the majority of Members of this House view them as utterly morally repugnant. Nor can they be under any illusion that the UK Government’s position is that people should not trade with unlawful settlements. I…”

“3. What steps she is taking to keep children safe online.”