Speeches by Olney.

“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?”

“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?”

“Does that change introduce more cost for businesses?”

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

“What sort of timescales are we talking about here? How long do you think it will take before everyone is signed up to and using the new standards?”

“The debate surrounding a third runway at Heathrow has stretched over the past three decades. The Liberal Democrats have long stood by communities who oppose a third runway, arguing that the economic benefits are overstated and the environmental consequences are unavoidable. Although I have always opposed a third runway…”

“What specifically needs to happen in order for that to be achieved?”

“I understand about future legislation, policy change and so on, but presumably a baseline is needed, at which point you say, “Right, here we all are together, and we are going to move forward as one.” Let us separate out the fact that this is obviously not a fixed state, but at some point you will have to get to a poin…”

“Can you tell us a little more about what exactly you are doing to implement the functional standard in the people function?”

“How long will it take before everyone is using the same shared standard?”

“I understand that. I just want to highlight paragraph 2.14 in the Report, which says that four of the functions—finance, HR, grants and commercial—consolidate their existing standards into the NOVA system, which you were talking about. However, it says: “HR participated in the design process but did not work towards im…”

“Okay. So the Report’s findings that it wasn’t doing that are now being addressed?”

“I think so, yes.”

“What are the remaining obstacles to progress?”

“But it is not a resistance, and it is not that it is impossible?”

“That is something that is happening in the future—”

“Can you explain a little more why it is difficult? Is it that it is embedded within the processes and that it is hard to do, or is it just that there has not been the attention on it or the will to bring it together?”

“But is it correct to say that the people function decided not to implement a functional standard and that that is one of the reasons?”

“Mr Glass, there are obviously different levels of preparation to be onboarded to the shared services, but as of November 2025, the Government People Function, responsible for HR, is behind in all the clusters, excluding Overseas and Defence’s civilian HR capability. Why is it the Government People Function data so diff…”

“From now on, you will have future policy changes. Can there not be a standardised implementation?”