Speeches by Blake.

“ We will come on to AI separately. I wanted to understand this system. Is it something to which you are going to be allocating more resource? Is that how you are changing the system—by moving more people on to the investigations? What is it that you are changing in the system?”

“ Could you give us a little more detail on what those systems might include? We have some questions further on in the session about AI and analysis, but what exactly will you be doing? Are you seeking to find more complex cases to raise significantly larger sums in fewer investigations, or is it flatter, smaller s…”

“ Thank you for joining us. It is good to meet you. I wanted to probe some of the Budget measures to close the tax gap. I am particularly interested in the table which sets out some of these measures, and in line 19: “Increasing tax receipts from modernising HMRC systems and data”, anticipating an additional £35 mi…”

“On the company and licensing side, is there any value in there being one point of contact?”

“Are there any risks in terms of not being aware of actions of individuals between the two of you?”

“Good morning. Can you share with us what the impact of the launch of the Office of Trade Sanctions Implementation has been?”

“In terms of the response from companies that need to work with both yourselves and the Office of Trade Sanctions Implementation, has there been a response from them about having to work with at least two different entities?”

“On investigation capacity, is there a shared approach on investigation? Clearly, you are working with a lot of the same companies on one side around licensing, but also presumably interested in a lot of the same individuals around investigation and enforcement. What kind of shared capacity and information-sharing arran…”

“My constituent, the British citizen Jimmy Lai, is in failing health, and I thank the Foreign Secretary and his Department for all their work to uphold his rights under international law. Can the Foreign Secretary share his assessment of the scale of international support for Jimmy Lai’s release?”

“May I offer my condolences to Lord Prescott’s family? He was a true pioneer and an inspiring role model, and he will be remembered here and in every place that benefited from his leadership and support for communities and neighbourhoods. Last month, I met my constituent Sebastien Lai. We talked about my constituent Jim…”

“Communities are really suffering with the increasing number of short-term lets in the Cities of London and Westminster. Local authority time is being used up to clean the mess, and the availability of genuinely affordable homes is being eroded. Landlords are sometimes struggling to evict tenants who are illegally sub-l…”

“I have one final question. How concerned are you about volatility in that demand given perceptions of inflation?”

“It is good to meet you. I want to ask and probe more about inflation indices. You have talked a bit about your overall assessment in your decisions earlier this month, but we have seen overall inflation stabilised. I wonder whether you could talk about some of the indices that we might not be focusing enough on, so the…”

“Building on those points, I understand that you are focusing on CPI, but you take into account other indices. You have acknowledged already the experience of high food costs. How do you think that experience of high food costs will be affecting demand, to the point that Professor Taylor was making earlier?”

“To follow on from that and your analysis of demand, we have an analysis of the impact of inflation and interest rates on mortgage holders most recently. When you are looking at that income distribution and how people are affected by inflation, how are you balancing an understanding of mortgage holders with perhaps peop…”

“Thank you. Can I just come back on social care, which we have started to talk about? We have looked at the front-loading of spending, particularly on the Department of Health, and the £600 million specifically into social care. What assessment has been made of the level of interaction between health and social care, an…”

“Chancellor, I want to offer you my congratulations on this role. We want to move now to departmental spending. We have talked quite a bit about efficiency and monitoring of impact, but I want to look at the unprotected Departments and the impact of spending in those in ’25-26, and to really probe how that would be mana…”

“Professor Miles was clear that the OBR was not able to factor the impact of planning reform into its forecasts, which we took to mean that there was, as you described, an upside risk. But I am interested in why you interpret that as only a positive, because I think it could be quite a big sensitivity as well.”

“We have talked a bit about public spending. Now I want to delve more into the departmental budgets. We have talked about some particular categories of public spending, and I want to focus on the front-loading, which you alluded to a few questions ago. What scope do you believe there is for Government to reduce spending…”

“Is that because it is very difficult to forecast and understand because of regional impacts? Could it be a bit of that, or is it because of the lack of detail?”