Speeches by Olney.

“That is an absolutely relevant point. The Mental Capacity Act was not drafted in anticipation of it ever being used for this kind of scenario. Therefore, it is really incumbent upon us to weigh very carefully whether the Mental Capacity Act is the right way of assessing people’s ability to make this decision. As I was …”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. I thank the hon. Member for Spen Valley for her opening remarks. I am grateful to be called so early in proceedings, because I believe this is one of the really important issues before us. It is about whether or not somebody “has the capacity to make a decisi…”

“Given that some of these unknown costs are likely to be significant, what are the chances that you might have to come back with a supplementary estimate?”

“Indeed it is. I wanted to know if you could give us an update on London office refurbishment. Is it proceeding as planned?”

“When will we have those forecasts for future years?”

“So far, you have spent £17.3 million. The total expected income from interest on the loans is £78 million, so you have spent 22%, so far, of that expected income. We know that nine organisations have gone insolvent and that a further nine are behind with their repayments, so if you do not yet have an expectation of fut…”

“But you have not done it yet?”

“Okay. Do you think there is a point at which it becomes more cost effective to make these loans into grants? How will you know? What will be the factors that will decide that?”

“Ms Hewer, why has it been so difficult to get a memorandum of understanding agreed between you and Arts Council England for their collection of the loans?”

“What were the specific challenges around that?”

“I was just going to ask.”

“Ms Hewer, I am looking at figure 12 in the Report, and it appears to show that no costs have been forecast for any financial year after this one. Is that an actual reflection of your expectations, or is there another reason why no costs have been forecast?”

“There is a degree of uncertainty in some of your estimates, because you have had to make assumptions. First, as you have mentioned, new audit responsibilities will be transferred to you. Also, in the ones that you are already doing, there is the possibility of unexpected further work being required. You do not routinel…”

“I am struck by the fact that you said to Mr Betts that there were households you could not reach; you made a decision, based on cost considerations, that there were households that you could not prevent from going into fuel poverty. Yet the scheme has ended up costing so much less than you predicted. I am keen to learn…”

“I want to do a quick follow-up. Previously, Mr Mills, I was asking you about the forecast costs being much, much greater than they turned out to be. Subsequently, you have explained to Mr Betts why cost considerations meant that you were not able to save many more households from going into fuel poverty. I am intereste…”

“Mr Mills, the original estimate for how much it was going to cost to run the schemes was £139 billion, but we think the final cost was only £44 billion, and even the interim estimate was £69 billion. That is not just a big difference, but a really significant one in terms of the acceptability of the scheme. As I recall…”

“I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement. I welcome much of the statement’s content—that the Government are serious in their commitment to resetting our broken relationship with the European Union—but what the Liberal Democrats want is action. The European Union is our closest neighbour and largest tradi…”

“I think Lloyd has just asked my question. It was about when the evaluations will take place, but the permanent secretary has answered that.”

“You announced in December a change in the way that Ofgem is going to operate, Mr Pocklington. We are promised “stronger protections and improved customer service”. Can you expand a little on what differences consumers can expect to see?”

“The situation we were in in September and October 2022 was pretty much unprecedented in terms of those future estimates. I suppose you are saying that it was sort of impossible to predict.”