Speeches by Green.

“I beg to move, That this House has considered the second anniversary of the Hughes Report. Although it is a pleasure to open this debate under your chairship, Dr Allin-Khan, I do so with a sense of déjà vu, because we have been here before, on the anniversary last year and in debates on the Cumberlege review before tha…”

“I do agree, and I thank the hon. Member for raising it. I know that many colleagues present have been championing this cause for years. There is a string of parliamentary questions going back to the launch of the report two years ago, asking for progress updates. The Patient Safety Commissioner herself used her statuto…”

“Does that not happen already?”

“To follow up, when changes are introduced to financial reporting requirements, how do you test whether they are suitable for bodies of different sizes? Do you test and assess, or is that not a consideration?”

“You referred to it as a “one size fits all” regime. Have you ever explored, or are you exploring, having a separate regime for smaller bodies, or is that not on the cards?”

“Is that almost giving them permission, because they can see that other bodies have gone down a similar route?”

“You are getting the information that you actually need.”

“I am keen to understand what role the Treasury has in the support for smaller bodies. What support do you provide to those smaller bodies? I read in the Report that you make yourselves available if somebody asks you for support, but what does that look like in reverse? How do you make yourselves available, or is that n…”

“That is very helpful. How about you, Indrani? Is there anything you would change if you could wave a magic wand?”

“That is really helpful—thank you. I know that colleagues have lots of questions, so I will leave it there.”

“Thank you, Chair. I would like to address my question to Indrani and Micon, if I may. What does complying with functional standards and financial reporting requirements look like in practice for your organisations? May I ask you to go first, Indrani?”

“How do you do that in practice? How do you choose what applies to you and what does not?”

“Micon, how do you find it?”

“It does not work for everyone.”

“More agile?”

“How does that compare to what the larger Government Departments do, because you are being held to the same standards by the sounds of it?”

“Definitely Sarah Green. I have a question for the whole panel. If you could make any changes to the accountability requirements for small bodies, what would they be? What would “good” look like for you?”

“Can you give me an example?”

“How about you, Farhad? You must have lots of different, smaller bodies. What would you change if you could to make life a bit easier?”

“When you say “recently”, what do you mean by that?”