Speeches by Grady.

“Does the Minister agree that it is due to the careful management of the public finances that we have record investment in defence and other areas of the Scottish economy, creating lots of well-paid jobs in Glasgow?”

“The Scottish public finances have been aided by a record budget settlement from the UK Government, but there is a £5 billion black hole in them. Might it be the case that after 18 years of the SNP, some responsibility for such matters lies closer to home, perhaps in Edinburgh?”

“Perhaps Reform UK is polling high in Perthshire as well. Leaving that to one side, let me tell the hon. Member what my constituents in Glasgow East are not relieved about: record NHS waiting lists, an SNP Government who block nuclear developments that would bring in hundreds of thousands of pounds a year through the cr…”

“To sum up on this, if I was a company secretary of a listed company in some merger and acquisition situation, I would have to communicate anything about that at specific times, with specific levels of clarity, in a predictable way: the announcements have to be made before the market opens and so on. These are well unde…”

“I will make some progress—I am mindful of Madam Deputy Speaker’s time limit. Child poverty blights the lives of children in Glasgow East, and the levels of child poverty are a moral outrage. The Conservatives’ approach is to refer to my constituents as being on “Benefits Street”, which reveals the contempt that they ha…”

“On the tightening, Chancellor, a lot of commentators point out that much of the savings are back-ended to ’29-30, that much of the tax rises are also back-ended, and that we have real pressures at the back end of the forecasts, with £6 billion of SEND provision moved across, defence spending going up—but with a real ri…”

“Would it have created more confidence if we had brought some of the tightening forward, given that lenders take the view that the UK has for many, many years lacked fiscal credibility?”

“Last week, Dr Beck-Friis from PIMCO told us that UK fiscal finances are in a fairly fragile state. Bond investors are focused on actual deficit reduction over the next two years, as opposed to what is forecast or promised for 2029-30. Chancellor, is that where you think the bond markets are too?”

“I have a question for Ms Lombardelli. The costs of the Bank of England to society relative to the costs of inflation to society are tiny. I think that what Dr Dhingra’s evidence and what other commentators would say is that, frankly, we do not understand enough about inflation. We need to understand quite a bit more ab…”

“It must follow from what you say that we need to either make other tools, such as anti-trust and competition law or supply side reforms, more effective, or develop new tools to address issues such as the pervasive feature of your evidence today—the issue with administered pricing, where vast amounts of things in the ec…”

“We have an excellent team who draw these things to my attention, so you should thank them too.”

“I have a couple of questions for Dr Dhingra, following your interesting Knoop lecture in November. I want to test a couple of propositions with you. Is it your position that at the moment, there may be a bit too much emphasis on monetary policy—if you answer quickly, we can come back to it another time—and not enough e…”

“I thought I would finish on a gentle topic. This Committee was interrupted for a vote on the single market, so I thought we could have a wee chat about Brexit to finish us off. Professor Dhingra, in recent speeches you have cited a published paper on Brexit that says that it has reduced UK GDP by 6% to 8%, which is a l…”

“Thank you. Ms Lombardelli, could you set out in writing to the Committee the reason for the bifurcation, because I do not think it should detain us any longer now?”

“That is the decision, but are you content with that decision or do you think it should be revisited in the future?”

“I wanted to follow up briefly on a small point, Dr Mann. You explained that the committee does not get to vote on the tenors, but you expressed your views very clearly. Is it your position that the committee should get to vote on the tenors?”

“On a moral ground, as an MP with high levels of child poverty in the seat, I agree.”

“I am very mindful of time. Ms Curtice, do you have anything quickfire to add to that?”

“Dr Beck-Friis, Ms Miller has described an Augustinian current account policy, where we pay off and move into surplus, but not yet. It is always a few years ahead. Is there a point that you can identify where we actually need to move into current account surplus, or else we will move from fragile, as you have described …”

“What if we do not move towards that path over the next two years?”