Speeches by Western.

“Is it less than half the time?”

“Is it half the time?”

“Just on that, Minister, give us a flavour. It is not our area of expertise, but procurement has struggled under Governments of all hues. You mentioned that you have been able to speed up the process. It is the same people. You talked about delegation downwards. If the time the procurement process takes in the UK is 100…”

“Minister Jones, we were talking earlier about the plan for steel. What, in the view of the Government and the market, are the greatest opportunities for UK steel in the future?”

“Minister, when will the Department have established what the total opportunity market is for UK or for export?”

“The situation in Ukraine has changed the view on conflict and how it is fought in the modern era. There is now a need to be more agile. What other lessons have you learned from the conflict in Ukraine?”

“I could not agree more. I am just slightly surprised, if I may say, about the horizon being just 10 years. One of the points that came out of the sessions we had with the steel producers—this will come as no surprise—was that they have one issue, which is the price of energy. How would the £2.5 billion that the Governm…”

“I want to ask you both a slightly more specific question related to this, which might just help to illustrate the possibilities of the strategy. It is around armoured steel. I was surprised to learn that Sweden and Germany are the two nations we tend to source from, but we do not produce it currently. Given that so man…”

“The plan will identify those sectors, and it is setting out a horizon until when? It is a plan for steel in the UK over what period?”

“On higher education, I am interested in your views on the Asian market, which I think has a real affinity for UK education whether it is school-age or higher education. I was recently talking to a group of parliamentarians in a particular country and 60% of the parliamentarians around the table had been educated at UK …”

“Should the Government be looking at this part of the world and perhaps softening its stance?”

“My sincere condolences go to the shadow Leader of the House. Hundreds of thousands of households across this country live on unadopted estates. They can be in that status for a great many years—I am hearing up to 10 years. In my constituency of Warwick and Leamington, I have estates where certain streets have been buil…”

“I thank the Foreign Secretary for his update. What we are seeing is clearly appalling. The signals coming from Defence Minister Katz are absolutely clear: the Israeli Government seek the total destruction of Gaza and they see the occupation of west bank as their objective. The leverage over Netanyahu’s Government is fr…”

“Has the R&D programme continued?”

“Mr McDiarmid, briefly.”

“Mr Nair and Mr Bell, do you have any additional brief comments?”

“Obviously you will be familiar with the Government’s industrial strategy—the sectors that the UK Government are looking for growth from and investment in. In the Budget, they announced £2.5 billion for the steel sector. In your view, Mr Bolton, in what way should that money be spent, in what form and where? What sort o…”

“Will the industrial strategy council succeed? Will it work in your eyes for the sector?”

“How was it working a year ago?”

“On the relationship across Government and how DHSC is working as a customer alongside the NHS with, say, DBT, how is that relationship working in your eyes?”