Speeches by Fortune.

“Well, the figures speak for themselves. As was highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy), who has morphed into a Whip at the moment, English schools have soared up the rankings. If we look at the recent PISA league tables, we see that English education is now ranked seventh-best for maths…”

“I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight East (Joe Robertson) for bringing forward the debate. I want to speak about the impact that the jobs tax will have on my community. One excellent charity working in my constituency of Bromley and Biggin Hill is South East London Mind. It faces a £190,000 increase in i…”

“At an estimated cost of about £100 million. Has anything changed?”

“I will go and look those up then; that is my interest. My question was actually for Mr Foster and it is about the decommissioning of the sites in phase 2. Can you just give us an update on that, please?”

“I apologise for my ignorance here. If land has been acquired by a CPO for a project that it is then subsequently not used for, are there any limits or rules on what can be done with any profits that come out of that?”

“We are up to $150,000 already.”

“I would imagine that Camden would want control of it because it is right in the heart of the borough. I will tell you what made me think of it. I just recalled a leaked report about the state of Euston underground station, which I think was in November. It talked about the fact that it would need a rebuild, which is wh…”

“Again, I am very familiar with these models, having worked with and tried to unwrap some of the challenges around the LLDC site. I know Mark will be sighted on some of the complexities and difficulties that can throw up, and also how that might delay any progress, especially in negotiations with Camden.”

“This is a very quick question. This is London-centric. Mark may remember when I was chairman of the London budget scrutiny committee, so some of this déjà vu. In terms of the development of the Euston site, have there been any conversations with the mayor about setting that up as an MDC?”

“I think the original plan was to be completed in 2027. Is that right?”

“ Sir Jim, you mentioned the investment to raise another £6.5 billion. There is an investment of £1.4 billion in new staff, with 5,000 coming on stream, 200 of whom were due to start in November.”

“ Some are external, but some are internal, so the 5,000 figure is not new staff.”

“ I have never heard “additive” before. I am going to take that away and use that one.”

“ So it is a multi-year project.”

“ That will still leave about 4,500 to find. When will they be ready and where are they coming from? Where are you finding that level of staff? Is it all new staff or is it redeployments?”

“Sorry—what will be done differently now from what was happening in 2019?”

“I appreciate that it is very difficult, because of covid over the last few years, to assess these things linearly. I went back to an IFS report from November 2023 that looked at staffing versus treatment volumes; it compares 2019 with 2023, so I hope it misses the sort of heat of covid. The comparison from then to now …”

“I will just follow up on some of those figures and I am looking forward to when you release the figures about productivity. You think that is imminent, do you? I think you said you were giving them to the board next week.”

“What was that figure again on patients? Sorry—I missed that.”

“I have an interest in local government, but I am not a councillor.”