Speeches by Munt.

“Thank you, Daniel. Can I ask you please to write to the Chair at some point relatively shortly to explain exactly the situation across our county courts and maybe the other courts systems in terms of which places are completely inaccessible, which places you can get in through a back door, a side door, a staff door or …”

“What is your budget to do that this year?”

“Can you just quantify that figure of 23%?”

“Can I just pick up on another point? We have been talking about possession proceedings. As we understand it, the process of digitising those proceedings is being funded by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.”

“You have also talked about lessons learned. I wondered what lessons are translating into that particular piece of work. To clarify, is that digitisation process looking at what the Renters (Reform) Bill is going to look like? Is it looking at what is sitting on the books now or looking a little bit into the future?”

“That is great. What are the lessons that you have learned that might apply to that particular piece of work, where you have one Department funding the work in your Department on digitising possession proceedings?”

“I think that would be a good thing. Do you think so too, Chair?”

“That would be good. If I can roll back a bit, we have talked already about centralisation. I am not sure it has been elucidated very clearly, but one gets the sense that, if I were to make it vaguely pictorial, when we centralise things the people who were in the places where stuff was happening before lose their owner…”

“Yes, with the people who are doing that kind of work on a day-to-day basis.”

“I am really talking about the county court staff, who we have met, who are doing the day-to-day slog of getting this stuff into the system. Will it be tested with them?”

“That is good. Can I move to enforcement? That was one of the things that got binned in the reform programme, did it not?”

“That is slightly slack language, but you know what I mean.”

“Yes, that is right. It was descoped. We have had quite a reasonable amount of evidence about significant delays, particularly in possession claims, because of a lack of bailiffs. How are you going deal with modernising enforcement? I get a very great sense of the fact that, if there is no enforcement, everyone just goe…”

“Only yesterday we met with a group of people who really are at the sharp end: the solicitors, the barristers and the others who deal with this. They are unbelievably frustrated that they cannot phone somebody in a court. Do you really feel that the centralisation of your phone system and your call centre is a massive s…”

“As constituency MPs and people who are sitting on the Committee, people do not often send emails saying, “Do you know what? It is brilliant. Thank you so much.” They just do not. We are naturally going to hear the squeaky bits.”

“It is not really mine. It is everyone’s.”

“My blood is boiling as I listen to the stuff coming from Conservative Members. If they had read the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, they would recognise that there are hundreds of thousands of people alive today—people just like me, white girls—who suffered at the hands of white men who have got clean away…”

“In July 2023, my constituent Alison claimed a refund of overpaid tax that was mistakenly paid twice. In February 2024, she was told that her claim would be assessed by 20 March, in July 2024 she was told that it would be by 22 October, and in December she was told that she could not have a date but that the department …”

“T4. The Home Office states that it takes fraud in visa applications seriously, but I know of a case involving a man who came here on a spousal visa, was then arrested four times for domestic abuse, and left the family home in October ’23. All this is backed up by police reports and social worker documentation. In his s…”

“20. What recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of passenger rail performance.”