Speeches by Blake.

“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?”

“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…”

“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…”

“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?”

“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.”

“I was referring to the suggestion that the proposed independent living rent body would start setting rents under subsection (2) based on the property size, quality, local incomes and location. Given the constrained market that would establish, surely it might reduce availability even further.”

“The hon. Lady might be coming on to the impact of the criteria in the new clause, but I am concerned that the market could respond to them by drawing investors into just one location that was already a serious hotspot. It would be helpful to understand more about why they might help.”

“You have quite effectively highlighted the importance of reform, which we will be coming on to with the Chancellor. Could you just sketch out volume pressures and explain some of the detail of what you mean by volume pressures?”

“I am concerned about how realistic, towards the end of the spending review period, those figures might be and your assessment of how realistic they might be, and how you have come to that assessment.”

“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?”

“Professor Miles, I was struck by what you said about Government investment in response to John Glen’s question around growth. I am really interested to know how you factored in the proposed planning reforms, and whether or not there is any dependence on the deliverability and the market’s response to those reforms to d…”

“Does the hon. Lady think that the ombudsman could play a greater role in determining outcomes? Her point on the damage that discrimination can do was well made, but the Bill may be able to address that discrimination in other ways.”

“Does the hon. Lady acknowledge that her description of some kind of arrangement between the ombudsman and her proposed scheme would be incredibly burdensome, complicated and opaque for tenants? It would not necessarily deliver the type of justice she described.”