Speeches by Carling.

“Thank you; that is really helpful. Some of the issues you have touched on around accountability are very much things we have found in some of our inquiries, particularly on the ONS and otherwise. As you also touched on, there are around 300 arms’ length bodies, but there are broader classification issues, as your writt…”

“Thank you very much, Chair—it is a great honour. Joe, can you start by summarising the current public bodies landscape as you see it?”

“Q12. In September, a National Secular Society report highlighted alarming numbers of extremist religious organisations in the UK from various faith traditions expressing hideous views about women, including promoting female genital mutilation and denying the existence of marital rape. Many of these are registered as ch…”

“I have some questions mostly around civil service workforce. The spending review included cuts of 16% to administrative budgets across Government by 2030. What reduction in civil service headcount is that likely to entail? How many civil servants are we looking at having by the end of that period?”

“That is really helpful.”

“That is useful, and I am glad that you made that comment at the end there. In our work with ALBs, we have had a lot of discussion around the balance between accountability versus independence. It is good to hear that the way that the Government are thinking of it is very much on those systems levels. Finally, it is sti…”

“Thank you. That is really helpful. It is useful to recognise, as it does not always happen, that a lot of those savings do not necessarily come from headcount reductions. It is useful to have that point on the record. You have anticipated my next set of questions about the strategic workforce plan. We were originally t…”

“That is helpful. Minister, in April, your predecessor, Pat McFadden, announced a review and rationalisation of arm’s length bodies. This Committee is doing quite a lot of work on various arm’s length bodies at the moment. At Liaison Committee yesterday, I noticed that the Prime Minister used some quite interesting phra…”

“That is helpful. Finally on this topic, before I move on to something else briefly, is there a sense of how many voluntary exits and voluntary and compulsory redundancies we have had through these schemes, particularly in 2025?”

“That is helpful. That comes on to what I was about to say, but I will ask the question that I had planned anyway, just in case you want to add anything. What measures are in place across Government to make sure that we are not seeing lots of senior officials, who have developed lots of expertise over time and will be i…”

“It is also worth just bearing in mind that we are seeing voluntary and compulsory exit schemes across Departments already coming online. When we do not have that strategic workforce plan, how are decisions being made at this stage around who can be let go under those schemes versus who should be kept?”

“That, again, very helpfully leads into my next question, around when it will be published. It is an entirely fair answer, and I very much respect that, although that then creates a question around why an expectation was created that it would be published alongside the spending review in the first place.”

“I welcome that the strategy will have a focus on tackling the root causes of misogyny and radicalisation in young men. Those roots are often laid in early childhood, so what consideration has the Minister given to how social and emotional learning programmes in early years settings could be part of the prevention strat…”

“I hugely welcome the appointment today of the chair and panel members, all of whom are brilliant appointments and who will do a thorough job. I am also pleased to see religion referred to in the terms of reference. IICSA unveiled serious problems in religious groups of many different faiths, many of which also operate …”

“Baroness Deech, you have issued new forms to political parties to strengthen the process a bit, I suppose, and stress the importance of considering the seven principles of public life—the Nolan principles that we have talked about—in making appointments. Do you think that has made a difference so far to the people bein…”

“Do you intend to raise it with the current Government?”

“No, I am sure. Is this something that you have had conversations with the Government about? If so, what has been the response?”

“That is quite useful. In your pre-appointment hearing, you suggested that you felt HOLAC should examine proposed appointments from political parties for suitability as well as propriety. Do you still feel that is a role HOLAC should perform?”

“Without discussing the particular cases, can you give us a sense of what the reasons have been why appointments of proposed people by political parties have not been recommended by HOLAC?”

“That is a fair enough response. Just on that subject of turning people down, my understanding is that in 2024, HOLAC turned down or could not support four people who were nominated. How does that compare, roughly, to previous years? Is that something you would know?”