Speeches by Atkinson.

“I understand that a charity was commissioned by the Home Office to provide independent support to the victims and survivors’ panel. I wonder if you could say a little about how the Home Office went about commissioning and identifying that charity and what you see as the relationship going forward. There is a clear publ…”

“Does the introduction of that new unit within the Department address what you thought was a lack of capability previously? Has there not been that co-ordinated capability?”

“Could you just say a little more about that interaction? The Home Office does not employ police officers; the 43 forces do. In terms of meeting the Government’s manifesto commitment of 13,000, what is your assessment of the relationships and interface between the Home Office and the police forces that would give you th…”

“You gave a good example there about the prison crisis from last year. Are there other examples of where some of your leadership team’s actions have been to stop things getting worse? Are you still in that trajectory rather than delivering positive improvements that the public would see?”

“In terms of your assessment of the particular drivers of low public confidence and delivery priorities, what are those? What lessons can you learn, perhaps from other organisations or areas, for turning around public confidence that will help inform your approach?”

“Do you think that speaks to a cultural characteristic of the Home Office that it previously had a tendency to see challenges as a communications challenge rather than a delivery challenge?”

“The low public confidence in the Home Office is reflected in the performance report, and there was an adverse trajectory in 2024-25. Could you outline what you are doing to address the drop in public confidence in the work of the Home Office?”

“I do not ask that with a particular example. Does the entire reporting infrastructure need to be reviewed or are you broadly happy with the reporting that has been done, but you know the pressure and clarity of accountability for delivery against those metrics is on?”

“Mr Glass, you mentioned the metrics that were included in the annual report and I wonder if I could zoom out. Dame Antonia, you took over leadership in April or May this year. Clearly, the last published report we have of the performance of the Home Office is up to March of this year. In the annual report that we have,…”

“I commend my hon. Friend for securing this really important debate. Does she agree that even if the Home Office does not agree with changing legislation, more could be done within existing legislation, for example with drug checking facilities, of which a very small number are already licensed by the Home Office? That …”

“What is your assessment of how widespread the active misuse and exploitation of student visas is? The Government have also suggested some changes to the compliance assessments they carry out with universities.”

“On the evidence base that underpins the policy setting that the Government will have to do, can you say a bit about the evidence base that the Government have at the moment, and how you think it could be improved? I am particularly thinking about the welfare of British citizens and their right to family life, and how f…”

“The Government’s immigration White Paper states that it is “essential that any individual that our country welcomes here to study is…not using their application for a student visa simply as a vehicle to move themselves and their dependants to a new life in Britain.” How far do you think the current student and graduate…”

“What do you expect the impact of the planned changes to move the graduate visa length to 18 months from 24 months to be?”

“Building on that, I have been thinking about the potential for the work plans. We have got a situation at the moment where people might have an active job offer in the UK for an amount of money that would not meet the skilled visa entry route requirement in itself, but is clearly in excess of what their partner is earn…”

“Dr Sumption, you mentioned before that, following your family visa financial requirements review earlier in the year, it was for the Government now to make a set of fundamentally political choices about balancing different considerations. Could you outline in brief what key considerations you think the Government need …”

“Given what we know about differences in average wages across the UK—I represent Sunderland, which has fairly low average wages—does it follow that the current policy is essentially creating further harms in places such as Sunderland, where the average wages would be lower, because the minimum income requirement is a na…”

“Professor Bell, I think earlier you expressed some queries about the current design and use of the student and graduate visa system. Can you say a bit about your views on that?”

“Thank you. Mr Comerford, you have mentioned this already, and I know you covered it in your written submission and ISD’s written submission as well, but could you tell us more about what you think a public health approach to tackling extremist violence would be in practice, and particularly what you think Government sh…”

“Do any of the panellists have any particularly different views about limitations of this approach or anything? Chair: I have Jo White and Paul Kohler who want to ask some follow-ups and then we will move on to the actual technologies.”