Speeches by Olney.

“I brought the transcript with me, just to be on the safe side.”

“In these renegotiations, will you be encouraging your contractors to complete the project at the early and cheaper end of the current estimate? That is the goal.”

“Finally, if you achieve the success that you are looking for in renegotiating contracts, what impact do you think that will have on bringing down the overall budget?”

“Inconsistencies and U-turns have become characteristic of this Government, but this is more than just a redirection of policy; this is a betrayal of Ukraine. This Government are abandoning our European ally in its moment of need by putting more money into the pockets of President Putin to fund his war machine. Last mon…”

“Can you tell me what you have successfully renegotiated so far, and can you put a number on the savings that you have made?”

“That quote of our exchange was from February last year—2025—but you are still renegotiating. Why is it taking so long?”

“I suppose I am still quite troubled by this. We did ask you the question at the Public Accounts Committee, in February last year, and you said with great confidence that it was going to happen. Now here we are, over a year later, and you still have great confidence that it is going to happen, but nothing has materialis…”

“Are you forecasting any change to the level of compliance as a result of the change?”

“Does that change introduce more cost for businesses?”

“This is the top-up payment where companies were paying less than 15%—”

“And then the new agreement and the way it will be calculated results in a reduction.”

“So it is two separate calculations.”

“We have received your letter to the Committee, particularly in response to the Committee’s recommendation—from some time ago, I think—that you should evaluate the child trust fund scheme to understand what it has achieved. More pressingly, we are concerned to know what is happening about the 46% of accounts that remain…”

“Ms Newbury, how is the new agreement from January this year likely to impact compliance with the pillar 2 rules?”

“What areas of good practice that the large business team have adopted are you expecting other areas of HMRC to adopt in due course?”

“Penny, given the good results from the large business team, what are you doing to share that learning with other teams in HMRC?”

“Another good segue. Pillar 2 is about complying with the OECD agreement to levy a minimum tax. What is HMRC doing to ensure there is sufficient support to those companies that will come under the pillar 2 regime to make sure they are compliant?”

“Thank you, Chair. Before we begin the main session, we want to ask a couple of questions about the loan charge. Mr Marks, we know that there are about 32,000 outstanding loan charge cases and that HMRC is spending about £31 million a year pursuing those outstanding cases. Can you tell us when you hope to resolve them?”

“There is no doubt about that, but shouldn’t you have started tracking some of those impacts already, given that some young people will already have claimed their matured fund?”

“Mr Athow, to what extent are businesses having to incur undue cost to comply?”