Speeches by Yang.

“Finally, what are your range of costings for removing both the two-child limit and the benefit cap?”

“Would you agree with Professor Stewart that we should see a more fundamental reform of the benefit system, so that we do not need to have this uprating conversation every few Treasury Committees?”

“We have just discussed the benefit cap and the impact that has on the poorest families. Dr Cribb, in the IFS evidence that we have received, there is a statement saying, “But the benefit cap would wipe out the gains”—of reversing the two-child limit—“for some children in the very poorest families.” That is talking abou…”

“So over time, the number of families affected by it will simply increase, unless it is changed in itself?”

“Does anyone else want to come in?”

“And the cap itself does not move automatically over time?”

“If the objective is to make sure that child poverty is lower at the end of this Parliament than the beginning, do any of those halfway houses get us there, Dr Cribb?”

“For example, yes.”

“There has been a lot of speculation about alternatives to scrapping the limit, including different ways of tapering or adjusting the limit, which would save small amounts of money in different ways, but they might reduce the impact. Do you want to speak to the viability of those alternatives and whether they are cost e…”

“Are you saying that although that inquiry was in 2017, when you were working there, the behaviour was from a historical period?”

“Given all the different research you have mentioned, have you found that there are different kinds of problem gambling in different parts of your industry?”

“Was it a different business from Entain, which owns that business now?”

“I acknowledge that you are stating that you believe the previous panel over-exaggerated the harms caused by gambling, but within the industry we have heard about horseracing, and betting at physical shops, and we have heard about online gambling. Do you see different kinds of harm in the different sectors, or do you ju…”

“You are both former employees of the gambling group Entain and were both working there in 2017 when it paid almost £600 million to settle an HMRC bribery inquiry. A number of the executives who served alongside you currently face criminal charges including bribery, fraud, cheating the public revenue and tax evasion. Ha…”

“Is your statement that because it is fun it does not cause social harm?”

“I will state that the 22% comes from adding up all of the different gambling and game-related duties together and dividing by the revenues. But we will leave that, as it is quite a technical conversation. Moving to Ms Hurst, we heard from the previous panel about the different harms from different parts of the gambling…”

“The different duties that you have just mentioned, such as the remote gaming duty and so on, are the taxes that are taken into account in this calculation. You are saying that there is a difference between the 22% effective rate, based on all those different gaming and gambling duties, and what you are claiming is the …”

“We heard from the previous panel how the effective average betting levy across the industry as a whole was 22% last year. The industry is exempted from VAT. UK corporation tax is 25%, and the industry is effectively paying less than that. Why is the industry paying so little?”

“Thank you, Mr Kenny. You have been very clear.”

“As somebody who has run a gambling company, do you think that other managers in the industry now would react in the way that you described? Would they be less likely to put on those products if taxes were higher?”