Speeches by Reeves.

“We do not want to rush it, because we want to make sure that we understand people’s different needs, but do I think that reform would be worthwhile. That is what we are looking at at the moment.”

“I am not going to give a timetable for that at the moment, Dame Harriett. I recognise the importance of cash for a lot of people. Already, you can save in a savings account, and some of that—the interest on that—is tax-free. We also have the ISA limits. I do want to look at the balance, because I think sometimes it is …”

“I know you have a background in this area. So we are making those reforms. We are also looking, as you say, at making sure that the ISA system works well for savers, a bit like we are trying to do on pensions in making capital markets work better for the UK. The EST, Emma Reynolds, will be very happy to give you more e…”

“Well, actually, we have speeded up the process, but would I like to do it quicker? Yes. It is really important. At the moment, advice and guidance is the preserve of the wealthiest, and that should not be the case, because people who perhaps need the advice and guidance most are those who make quite big sacrifices to s…”

“Thanks very much for that question. In the Mansion House speech that I gave in November, we set out reforms on advice and guidance. At the moment, sadly—”

“We are very carefully reducing that spending. Again, you will see in the numbers that we set out last week that it does not just drop off in one year; it is a £500 million reduction this year, increased in subsequent years, because we are not just going to leave programmes high and dry. That would be an irresponsible t…”

“Look, we have just set out the funding to get to 2.5% of GDP, which is through a reduction in the international development budget from 0.5% to 0.3% of GDP. You can see in the numbers that all that money is being redirected into defence. That is the right priority, given the challenges that we face. We are achieving th…”

“We might not be inside the European Union, but we are very much inside Europe. We have a shared objective with our allies in and outside the European Union—there are other European nations that are not in the European Union who want to be part of defending our continent. Certainly, our allies in the European Union reco…”

“We absolutely need to learn lessons from the past on failed and poor procurement, and on cost overruns. That is why we are determined to do things differently. It is why I am working closely with the Defence Secretary to get value for money for our defence spending. It is also why we are looking, too, at more innovativ…”

“The universal credit reforms, in the sense that you would expect that someone who is severely disabled would meet a four-point assessment—it depends how you define it—and would not lose their PIP following the introduction of a tighter gateway. It is focused on supporting those who might otherwise lose some of the univ…”

“When we publish the accessible version, we will then start the consultation. It is important that we have the accessible version before the consultation starts. The consultation will kick off at that stage, and then we will announce the timeline.”

“That is a Green Paper, so it is being consulted on. Once we have done the consultation and announced what we are doing, we will be able to assess that.”

“We think this is money well spent. I am very pleased to put money into this, because it can improve people’s lives and have a net positive for taxpayers as well. It is a good scheme, and as Louise Tinsley has said, it is on top of the £240 million we announced in the Budget for these trailblazers. The “Get Britain Work…”

“We have been in government for nine months, so since the election we have been working on the sorts of reforms that we need, and we set them out a couple of weeks ago.”

“We have been working on these for quite some time.”

“I am absolutely confident that the system we inherited is not working and has to be reformed. I think everybody agrees that the current system is not working. There is plenty of evidence from past programmes that we can do more to support people into work. If you look at the international evidence, you do not see such …”

“Yes, that is what they are going to provide, but this is not the only thing that we are doing. This £1 billion back-to-work package is just one of a number of measures that we are doing to help people into work—apprenticeships, which we have already had a conversation about, the increases in the national minimum wage a…”

“Yes. This is not the only thing that we are doing, remember. We are beginning to roll out the free breakfast clubs—”

“I do not want to pre-empt the work that is now going to take place in assessing that, but I am confident that those impact assessments do not reflect what will happen, because it is inconceivable that you put £1 billion into targeted, personalised support and it makes no difference. In fact, all the evidence, under the…”

“We know that there are hundreds of thousands of people with a disability who want to work, and there are many people with disabilities who already do work. We want to give them more support, whether that is adjustments in the workplace or training, for more of them to fulfil their potential. I do not want to write peop…”