Speeches by Carling.

“I recently met a police officer in Cambridgeshire who told me that that force had a policy requiring all footage from stop and searches to be reviewed by a more senior officer. Due to this, they feel discouraged from doing proactive patrols due to the extra work that it adds for already stretched supervisors. Will the …”

“I have been supporting constituents living in ex-military housing on Embry Road in Wittering, in my constituency. The Ministry of Defence sold the homes years ago, but my constituents have been left in limbo because their properties remain wrongly classified under MOD commercial energy contracts. Despite repeated attem…”

“I apologise for being late, I was delayed by the tube strike. Your answers to the questionnaire were really helpful, and thank you for going into such detail. You will no doubt be aware of the seven principles of public life. I wondered if you could give us a couple of examples of those and how you have met them.”

“Thank you. That is a really comprehensive answer. On a slightly different topic then, how do you envisage having a relationship with this Committee during your time in office?”

“That is useful; I think that is all I really needed on that. Can I ask a separate question about an individual called Alison Pritchard? This is someone who we have heard mentioned a few times. She is still listed on the website but does not seem to be at the ONS any more. Are you able to shed any more light on what hap…”

“But even before Sir Robert came in, the previous board was not sighted on the report.”

“Sir Robert Chote took over in ’23. I have that it was published in March 2023.”

“When we discussed this with the board chair, his perspective was that, essentially, he had caught wind of it almost by accident.”

“We have asked the board; I am interested in whether you thought they were doing it.”

“Fine. That is helpful. You have talked a little about wanting to make sure that the board were sighted on everything. We have just talked about how perhaps that did not happen with the Labyrinth report. There was also this issue with the labour force survey and the declining response rates; we had a conversation about …”

“Okay, but why did you not take the Labyrinth report to the board? There was no discussion on it by the board.”

“That covers a few of the points that I was going to raise. I just asked about the Labyrinth report; I was going to go on to say that there were some really damning comments in it, which I will refer to briefly. There were comments on the governance and decision-making structures that are widely seen as ineffective in s…”

“That is useful.”

“Sir Ian, I have some broad questions on governance and the board, which I know you want to get on to, but before we do, I have a few questions on the cultural points. We have discussed the Devereux review and some the issues from your perspective with it. I will put it to you that that was not the first review or the f…”

“That answers my question, but I am really shocked by the severity of that. The whole point of a board is to be a critical friend to the senior leadership of an organisation, to allow these sorts of issues to be explored, and for the expertise of board members to be used to help resolve them. Was there a reason that you…”

“I could do. I was just processing the implications of what you said, Sir Ian. We had quite a discussion around the appointment process for that individual in the previous meeting, and some of us expressed concerns at the lack of an open process for that and the way they were seemingly slotted in. You were essentially i…”

“Is there usually a board meeting in December?”

“In that case, I will look again, but I could not find any board minutes from that month.”

“Okay. Well, I suppose that comes back to what one of the reviews said—I cannot remember which one, but it may have been the Lievesley review—about the need to modernise and improve the website. Perhaps that explains why I could not find the minutes, but I will have another look later.”

“I am going to ask you a question similar to one that I asked the board chair. In September 2023, the board minutes say that they were not aware of the extent to which response rates had fallen recently, which to me means that either the board are not being proactive enough and not noticing the problem, or that they wer…”