Speeches by Quigley.

“Okay. Correct me if I am wrong, but the EIC has no regulatory power or political power to enforce standards. Will its creation change anything?”

“Probably most of us would agree with removing the necessity to go through an MP, but do you envisage any unintended consequences of doing that? Do you think your workload would increase beyond what you currently see?”

“When we came up for our visit last year, which I found very interesting, you mentioned the MP filter and the potential issues with it. A respondent to our inquiry described it, in their exact words, as, “A gatekeeping mechanism that denies access to administrative justice.” Would you agree with that?”

“And colleagues, yes. The Public Office (Accountability) Bill, known as the Hillsborough Law, that you just mentioned, aims to put a legal duty on public services to act truthfully and to fully support investigations. Do you think that it will have the impact it is intended to, bearing in mind the cultural issues that y…”

“Exactly—this would be a much shorter process.”

“Do you think then, because it is a Minister’s decision, that they may sit at a desk and say, “No, there's no need for a public inquiry in this instance”, but then when political pressure builds around them from the press or whatever else, they end up creating a public inquiry that was not necessarily required?”

“Thank you for being honest—that saves us all a lot of bother.”

“Yes, slightly—it depends where you are taking us for lunch, Chair. You have done very well at explaining how to change the system, but if you had a magic wand, what would Government do to improve the role it plays in public inquiries?”

“As we are in danger of this meeting going on as long as a public inquiry, I will be brief.”

“Rosanna, if you have anything to add, please do.”

“You mentioned the lack of outcomes previously. Do you think that the lack of institutional knowledge within this place because of the churn of staff and everything else is a factor in that? Is there a better way for us to make sure that outcomes are followed through?”

“Professor Williams, you alluded to the potential conflict of a Minister’s being the one who calls for a public inquiry when they might be responsible for the Department that has caused the wrongdoing or harm. Could you be a bit more specific about how we could guard against that? What would good look like—I would say p…”

“T3. The wage gap between the Isle of Wight and the rest of the UK—[Interruption.] I know that Conservative Members love the Isle of Wight, but they did nothing about it when they were in power. The wage gap between the Isle of Wight and the rest of the UK leaves full-time island employees about £5,500 a year worse off …”

“Governments have focused on ALBs that have been officially classified and where consolidated information is provided, but not public bodies at large. Is it a mistake to ignore other public bodies?”

“You alluded to this briefly, but in your review you describe arm’s length bodies as defying “rational explanation”. Has that got worse since you were a Minister or is it a case of unfinished business? There is a second part to that: from what you just said, would you describe the machine of Government as being too big …”

“What would you do differently with the Treasury?”

“When Governments have focused on arm’s length bodies, they have tended to pick the ones that are officially classified and that the Cabinet Office provides information for, but they do not focus on other public bodies that are more general.”

“I do not think anyone in this room would be surprised by how you describe the Treasury and its vice-like grip on everything. With that in mind, does that make ALBs pointless, or does it make Ministers outside of HMT pointless?”

“May I say what an incredible pleasure it is to serve under your superb chairship, Mrs Hobhouse? I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) for securing this debate. As in so many other ways, I am proud to represent an area that truly punches above its weight in literary tradition, not …”

“Q5. As the Prime Minister will have heard me say, the Isle of Wight is a fantastic place to live, work and learn, despite the Leader of the Opposition trying to give us to China. He will also be aware of some of the challenges we have in cross-Solent transport with reliability, frequency and price. The emissions tradin…”