Speeches by Lowe.

“I could not help asking because I think it is quite important.”

“It came from the Secretary of State. You hand out £484 million to these 15 institutions, or you did in ’24-25, and I think I am right in saying—unless you tell me differently—that in January 2026 you had not clarified how you intend to assess whether the museums and galleries are delivering against those three prioriti…”

“Let us at them. “Growth and good jobs in every place” is verbal baby food. What does “Richer lives with choices and opportunities for all” mean? Does that mean you are going to hire people on merit, or through ability? I am not clear. I am of adequate intelligence—I am not very clever—but that is not entirely clear to …”

“Are they clear on what they need to do? Presumably, you will skew your grant funding towards those who deliver on your objectives. You are, after all, the master and they are, ultimately, receiving gifts. I am not sure from your answer that it is entirely clear to them.”

“Are they clear on what they need to do? Presumably, you will skew your grant funding towards those who deliver on your objectives. You are, after all, the master and they are, ultimately, receiving gifts. I am not sure from your answer that it is entirely clear to them.”

“It came from the Secretary of State. You hand out £484 million to these 15 institutions, or you did in ’24-25, and I think I am right in saying—unless you tell me differently—that in January 2026 you had not clarified how you intend to assess whether the museums and galleries are delivering against those three prioriti…”

“I am delighted to see that your visitor numbers, both domestic and overseas, are rising after some terrible decision making during covid, which affected everybody in the country, so that is good news. I should disclose that my brother is responsible, through his Madrid company—a business called Factum Arte—for making t…”

“First, I agree that it is a cracking Report from Gareth and his team.”

“Let us at them. “Growth and good jobs in every place” is verbal baby food. What does “Richer lives with choices and opportunities for all” mean? Does that mean you are going to hire people on merit, or through ability? I am not clear. I am of adequate intelligence—I am not very clever—but that is not entirely clear to …”

“I could not help asking because I think it is quite important.”

“I think, Philip, you have been at the coalface doing this yourself, so my question—we have been over this before in a previous meeting—is because in the private sector there are quite severe penalties if people do not file their accounts within a statutory period. I think we have identified that that is not the case fo…”

“I must confess that I am quite bemused about this whole thing. I want to ask a few questions—ostensibly about cost, although I think that cost is pretty irrelevant at this stage. Is the objective of this exercise to basically do necessary repairs to the UNESCO heritage building, or is it to provide better accommodation…”

“It will be helpful if you could explain the responsibilities of accounting officers, the Treasury and the Government Finance Function in this process. I think it would be useful to know what part you all play.”

“I listen in horror. I built the stadium at Southampton, which was not as big a project as this, but we built it on budget and on time. The only way we did that was by identifying what the design was, what we wanted and what it was going to cost. The other thing we did, which you have got to do in this situation, is bol…”

“When we look at figure 1, we see the situation is varied: pre covid, 76% of public accounts were meeting the summer deadline, but that then dropped to 42%; currently, it sits at 64%. Is that acceptable?”

“Lastly, on the £1.5 million a week that you are spending on what I think you called refurb—”

“Good, because I hope we can all agree that timely and accurate accounts are the genesis of any form of stability and of people being held to account for failure.”

“I want to understand this. Is the IAAP made up of people with construction experience? There does not seem to be much construction experience on the two guiding boards.”

“I am not going to go on. The only other question I have is about RAAC and asbestosis. If it needs to be dealt with, it has to be dealt with, particularly RAAC. How much is that likely to cost us? That I see as a necessity purchase rather than an arbitrary purchase.”

“Does that include these wretched gates and everything else that has gone in? Is that all included or is that on top?”