Speeches by Taylor.

“To evolve the question, parliamentary scrutiny is at the old-fashioned departmental level. When we are trying to align that with the first steps, the milestones, the foundations, or the overall delivery of the missions, do the changes made or does the structure at the moment make that scrutiny more difficult, or is it …”

“Forgive me for trying to play that back. Rather than looking at the progress of the steps that are being taken to achieve your milestones, that is now back up at the mission level to broadly test the temperature of the culture and the teamworking, rather than checking how many of the 6,500 new teachers you have deliver…”

“That was a very good answer. I enjoyed that. Just to loop back on the previous section—I thought I understood this, because I did my homework—we had five legacy missions, as they were, from the manifesto from back in the day. We then had an extra one, which was the foundations, and those gave us national security, secu…”

“I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to Sebastien Lai, whom I and a number of colleagues met earlier, and who has shown courage and fortitude throughout this process. Ever since the verdict was announced I have been inundated with the concerns of Hongkongers in my constituency about what this might mean…”

“I thank the Minister for coming to the Chamber to clear up concerns following the statements by the Home Secretary yesterday. The Met police are expected by March 2026 to have 2,508 fewer officers than they had at the time of the May 2024 election. Fewer officers means more space for men to commit crimes against women …”

“It is a pleasure to contribute to this debate. Together, the 100 smallest carbon-emitting countries represent more carbon emissions than China on its own, so if all those smaller-emitting countries make their own contribution it can make a bigger contribution to cuts than China. Does the right hon. Member not agree tha…”

“Will the right hon. Member give way?”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Western. I thank the hon. Member for Brigg and Immingham (Martin Vickers) for securing this important debate, and all the Members who have spoken for their contributions. I declare an interest as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for the future of aviation…”

“I completely agree. That is why we are talking about a transition. It may well bring shivers to the hon. Member’s spine to talk about transitions, but it is critical that we talk about them in a reasonable and sensible way, and about how we look forward to the future rather than to the past. Reform’s approach is equall…”

“I know that the hon. Member has a lot of knowledge on this issue. I think that looking at all the options that maintain capability is critical. What might come out of this is an ask for this Minister— or potentially the aviation Minister, the hon. Member for Selby (Keir Mather)—to sit down with our APPG, in which there…”

“To come back on that point, would not the prospect of a veto being given based on, in this example, security services’ advice, dissuade a Prime Minister from taking that course of action in the first place? We can point directly to an example where this occurred and that check did not happen. Ultimately, in my view, th…”

“I wanted to come in on your raising of the question of a veto. Under the previous Government, there was the incredibly concerning case of a rogue Prime Minister overriding the advice of the security services to appoint a peer who had been identified as a risk. The lack of a veto at that point meant that the appointment…”

“Looking back on the report published in October 2023 following the recommending of your appointment, and in your evidence it says, “I would search for a way to avoid the situation where a PM insists on an appointment thought to be unsuitable by HOLAC.” It sounds like you have very much stopped that search and are perfe…”

“I would just like to come back again. We are in unprecedented times. We have various concerns over foreign influence on our politics. Both financially and individually, we have an incredibly challenging international political environment. We are up to three years away from the next general election, where we may see a…”

“I hope you would take away from this session that we are concerned that that has not happened, and I would hope that in the report we can reflect that in no uncertain terms. There seems to be a real gap there, but to be fair, you go on in your evidence to talk about the statutory basis that that may require. In terms o…”

“So you feel you have resolved that issue?”

“We understand then from the report that you were not consulted at various stages when you should have been. What actions have you taken or will you take or do you usually take to track and monitor public appointment processes so that you are taking a more active role in understanding how processes are proceeding?”

“You say it is the worst you have seen and I assume that when you compare it and you look at other appointments processes this was the worst in class example of the art?”

“While Hanlon’s razor invites us to be charitable over the intent of mistakes made, I think many of us would question the credibility of somebody saying they could not remember such a significant donation to their individual campaign. Did you find the explanations credible?”

“I would like to turn now to a specific example, which has consumed some parliamentary time recently, the investigation into the appointment of the Independent Football Regulator. Setting aside the specific breaches of the code that I am sure we will come on to, what is your assessment of the overall process for the Ind…”