Speeches by Hall.

“Which is fantastic—don’t get me wrong.”

“I would hate to see what we have seen in the past in Daresbury. Years ago, we lost tech that was conceived there and developed there—created there—to Oxfordshire. We lose a lot of the talent in the process, so I would hate to see that again. I am thinking of the wider north-west innovation ecosystem and the impact of l…”

“Has it been cancelled, or just paused for the time being?”

“I would hope that that cluster is part of the strategic thinking.”

“Recently, about a week or so ago, I visited the Daresbury laboratory, which I am sure you are very aware of. Over the years, some phenomenal research and tech have come out of there. I will focus my first few questions on Daresbury and some of the information, or lack of it, that has come out of there. My first questio…”

“Have you reached out to MPs as well? Not everyone may have realised that you were in post from October. In terms of proactivity, it might be worth reaching out to MPs’ offices.”

“Are there worries about the supply chain and those component parts, and even about the people who will be working on this from start to finish? Is that being built into the process as well? Obviously, there will be quite a lot of demand.”

“I declare an interest as the MP for Warrington South, so Warrington Bank Quay is in my patch. I am understandably very excited about the plans for it, which include a new station. One of the things that has been raised with me by local people time and again is that there is an element of scepticism, because this is obv…”

“I would like to look at the high-profile instances of theft from national museums. We have touched on the cyber side of things, but some of the things that have been highlighted in terms of these thefts is that they are internal threats, there is a danger of delayed transparency and there is a real need for fundamental…”

“What about things of an internal nature—I am not just talking about what happened here, but as we have touched on, the Louvre and so on and so forth—like whistleblowing? If concerns have been raised, are we confident that we have robust procedures there for people to share concerns? Is offboarding, when people leave th…”

“You are saying it is operational, absolutely, but a lot of these are top-level things that can be replicated across any museum or gallery—making sure that security is up to scratch, and that they have robust offboarding processes and regular training, I suppose. All those things can be disseminated across the board, th…”

“On the security systems themselves and modernising, is support being given to make sure that security standards are where they should be?”

“On the security systems themselves and modernising, is support being given to make sure that security standards are where they should be?”

“Making sure people only have access to the things that they need to have access to, I suppose.”

“What about things of an internal nature—I am not just talking about what happened here, but as we have touched on, the Louvre and so on and so forth—like whistleblowing? If concerns have been raised, are we confident that we have robust procedures there for people to share concerns? Is offboarding, when people leave th…”

“On specific lessons, can you give us some examples of things that will change as a result of the thefts?”

“You are saying it is operational, absolutely, but a lot of these are top-level things that can be replicated across any museum or gallery—making sure that security is up to scratch, and that they have robust offboarding processes and regular training, I suppose. All those things can be disseminated across the board, th…”

“Going back to digitalisation and digital inventory, obviously there will be lots of items that are not categorised or on the system, and may be in storage. How do we know, in a timely way, what has been stolen?”

“I would like to look at the high-profile instances of theft from national museums. We have touched on the cyber side of things, but some of the things that have been highlighted in terms of these thefts is that they are internal threats, there is a danger of delayed transparency and there is a real need for fundamental…”

“Going back to digitalisation and digital inventory, obviously there will be lots of items that are not categorised or on the system, and may be in storage. How do we know, in a timely way, what has been stolen?”