Speeches by Hall.

“I have a couple of points to follow on from Catherine’s; I think most of it has been covered. On the overall phase 1, including the temporary accommodation, the thing that we as a Committee are very keen on is milestones, reporting and making sure things do not slip. What will be in place to track progress through that…”

“How do they differentiate the decisions they make, which Parliament then has to approve? Is one strategic?”

“Who does that involve? Who is doing the scrutinising?”

“Sorry to interrupt, but you say “regular”. How regular are we talking?”

“Let us be clear from the beginning: corridor care is unacceptable. No patient should be treated in a corridor. No family should watch a loved one receive care without the privacy and dignity that they deserve. No member of our brilliant NHS staff should be put in the impossible position of delivering care in an environ…”

“I agree with my hon. Friend and will touch on that point in a second, using Warrington as an example. I am pleased that our local trust has already taken steps and is rightly treating corridor care and waiting times as a priority, but there is more to do. That is why I have been working closely with our local NHS, Mini…”

“I absolutely agree; the NHS system as a whole is very fragmented, and the lack of connectivity is a big issue. Social care is a core component and it needs to be a priority going forward.”

“But there is also the announcement of, for instance, the data centre in Warrington—”

“Why was that decision taken, given the amount of work that had gone into it?”

“I would say that it is quite a critical programme, not least because of the AI—”

“Has a wider decision been taken on whether the HNCDI is going to be ending?”

“I will touch on a couple of specific projects. First, has any decision been taken to mothball CLARA as of yet? RUEDI, too, seems to be up in the air. I know that in late 2024, they were told to continue the research, but information since has been to pause on that piece of work.”

“It is fascinating, but has any decision been taken to remove the core funding for this? I ask given how critical it is.”

“Rather than a strategic decision, it is a short-term budget decision.”

“So you know.”

“So, speeding up the process, with a lot less to read as well.”

“Okay. I will ask a question that Rupert very generously gave to me, not related to Daresbury. In terms of assessing business cases for genuinely novel research infrastructure, what do you need to do differently?”

“We have been talking about supercomputing and just how essential that is. Obviously there is the Hartree centre and the Mary Coombs supercomputer, which is phenomenal. These are just some of the facts that we have been given; this is just a little piece of information. It is a 24.4 petaflops system; it can perform 24.4…”

“But that is completely different tech from what I am talking about and the surrounding skills and connections that they have. We were talking about universities in the north. They have fantastic connections with universities like Liverpool and Lancaster. There is a massive ecosystem, and my worry is that if in the nort…”

“When do you think you might revisit it?”