Speeches by Barron.

“Good morning, everybody. You have mentioned collect and pay on a couple of occasions. What do you think will be needed for the Child Maintenance Service to safely transition to a single-tier system based on collect and pay?”

“Yes.”

“I will briefly raise the issue of the wide differences in attainment and opportunity between different areas of the country. There is a lot of talk about devolution and everything else, but I would like to know about the areas where there is no devolution. What will we do to measure the areas that have been most left b…”

“Just over 18 months ago, Harshita Brella was murdered in Corby and her body was found in the boot of a car. We are aware that there is an ongoing police investigation, and none of us wants to do anything to prejudice that, but her family feel isolated; recently, they flew over from India to get an update. When they hea…”

“Q2. Max Hall is 14 years old. He should be worrying about school, football, friends and what he wants to be when he grows up. Instead, he is living with a high-grade brain tumour and there is no cure available to him. His parents, Jackie and Steven, want to know why children being diagnosed with brain tumours are still…”

“As the Member of Parliament for Corby and East Northamptonshire, I agree with everybody about the emergency services, the NHS, the community who came together, the guards, the staff and the passengers as well, who did not go through the panic that can sometimes happen in situations like this. The 16.40 London train fro…”

“There are obviously threats and dangers in relation to how people get a lot of their information, because if it is based on social media, you do not even know whether or not that is—”

“Having gone through the process to develop the action plan, what changes do you think are needed in the way the Department operates?”

“When will that be published—shortly?”

“Targets would obviously be one way of addressing the success of anything. The DWP has said that, I think, 500,000 opportunities for young people have been identified. Is that a start?”

“Over two years ago, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman identified “a systemic failure in how DWP responds to what research and feedback is telling it.” You committed to learn from mistakes and develop an action plan, so when do you expect to publish that?”

“On NEET rates, is there a target for the reduction?”

“I don’t mind, but it was over two years ago.”

“Any kind of—”

“I will use my time today to share the words of Jackie Hall, mum of 14-year-old Max Hall. She says: “Dear Members of Parliament, Max should be worrying about school, football, friends, and what he wants to be when he grows up. Instead, our family is living with the reality that he has a high-grade brain tumour and that …”

“Do you think there are any further improvements the Department could make?”

“Rick, I think you have already covered the first part of my question, in relation to council tax reductions. Moving on slightly from that, the Scottish Government have introduced regulations to ensure that when a disabled person migrates to universal credit, the transitional element will not be counted as unearned inco…”

“Thank you. Daphne, you shared concerns with us about poor quality and limited effectiveness of DWP safeguarding referrals. What is creating those challenges, and how could they be remedied?”

“Following the Sayce review into carer’s allowance, has the Department taken on board challenges relating to how it communicates expectations with claimants and the possible consequences of when it does so badly? That is probably for you, Daphne.”

“Professor, what progress, if any, have you seen around DWP involvement in safeguarding adults boards, since the memorandum of understanding was agreed between the Department and the National Network for Chairs of Safeguarding adults boards?”