Speeches by Thomas-Symonds.

“No. I think this is my ninth appearance before a Select Committee, here and in the Lords, to discuss the EU-UK relationship. I am not objecting to appearing before Select Committees—”

“I am looking at ways in which we might be able to speed up decision making across Government—I am sure we will come back to this at a future Committee meeting, Chair. Obviously, my role is unique in Government because I am the lead negotiator, so I am not sure you could transfer my model directly to other Departments. …”

“I don’t think there is a constitutional reason, to my knowledge, but I defer to Home Office colleagues on the scope of the inquiry. I have not been involved in that particular decision, John, but I would be quite happy to get them to write to you if that would be helpful.”

“That is one of the ones that is under this new process, which has been signed off in the Cabinet Office. But, Cat, on an official level I think we have some—”

“I would not pick one and say, “As of today, that is the one we will choose to emulate.” Everyone around this table will remember the covid inquiries, and there were some countries, particularly in Europe, that were doing their inquiries in a very quick fashion. What I will undertake to you, as will my officials, is tha…”

“That is a very good question. When I originally took on this role in shadow form in Opposition, in the late summer—I think it was September—2023, there was a debate about where the role should lie, because there is an argument that it could be located in the Foreign Office or in other Government Departments. The real a…”

“Yes. I can see why the power is there, and there is theoretically the possibility that you had a chair who started behaving in an unreasonable or unacceptable manner. Fortunately, we have not had that situation as yet.”

“I am not aware that the power has ever been used. I stand to be corrected, but I do not think it has ever been used. I find it difficult to envisage circumstances in which that might happen—perhaps if a chair behaved in an appropriate or unreasonable way. I do not know; I cannot envisage the circumstances at the moment…”

“Let me move on from the specific example, because I think you have raised a couple of really important broader points. First, with some public inquiries, it may be that by the time they have reported, the processes of Government or the public sector will have changed anyway. I am not referring to your particular case—I…”

“Certainly.”

“I do not know the specifics of the point that you have raised, but my officials can certainly take that away and the Home Office can write back to you on that specifically.”

“I confess that digital design is not one of my strongest points, but of course we keep accessibility across all Government communications under review. I am not saying for a moment that the particular design at the moment is necessarily the correct one. I am always open to suggestion or review. If it comes back to us t…”

“I would describe a termination clause as standard in international agreements. That is simply because international agreements are between countries, and not between the Governments that happen to be in power in those countries at the time. It is something that I would expect as standard in any of these agreements, whe…”

“There are two things here, I think. First, there is the role that we play in the original ordering of the public inquiry. That is why we have introduced that change to the ministerial code, which it is to try to get co-ordination at the centre and a sense of when inquiries have been ordered and how many are being order…”

“I do not have a precise date for you, but that is certainly in train. We certainly want to be in a position to do that. Again, having that guidance available sits as a really important part of this landscape. I go back to the previous question, though: this is an area in which I welcome debate across the House. I do no…”

“Yes, there are.”

“This is a really important issue, in my view. I will first say that, broadly, I do think that public inquiries play an important role for victims, in a real moment of public justice. I do not think we should underestimate that at all, but I would also observe that there are concerns around the time inquiries take, and …”

“Evidently, as we go forward, the way that the alignment mechanism will work is around Parliament having a say. Laws and secondary legislation going forward will set out exactly how that will work in terms of the Bill. Certainly, there is absolutely a role for Parliament. Indeed, when we agreed the common understanding,…”

“I am not aware of that, but if it were happening, I would want it to be drawn to my attention. To conclude on a point of agreement, John, we may disagree on many things, but we do not disagree on the benefit of the United Kingdom.”

“They certainly do. I take the view that the deal we struck is very much in the interests of our fishers, and I think we will demonstrate that in the years ahead, both in the significant investment in our fishing fleet with which we are accompanying this, and when we reduce the barriers to exporting fish to the EU. Both…”