Speeches by Yang.

“Local government is responsible for many of the cross-cutting objectives within the Government’s missions. When it comes to cross-cutting issues such as social care and SEND, how do you decide what spending is allocated between, say, education, health and social care and local government?”

“Chief Secretary, I am going to ask a few questions about the process of the review itself. It is a long process, involving lots of discussion, internally and externally. I am sure that you have received many different submissions, including my own submission for my constituency. How would you make it a more enjoyable p…”

“I am looking forward to the next spending review, which I cannot wait to get into. How would you make that process even more collaborative? Ministers have talked about the fact that delivery requires co-operation, but the allocation of the funding envelope can still feel very adversarial. Joint funding bids are really …”

“Finally, the Chair mentioned in opening questions the lack of a spend-to-save culture at the Treasury. The economists who gave evidence to our panel last week also spoke about the problem of preventive spending getting lost between the cracks of different Departments. One example—SEND—is an issue very close to my heart…”

“What are the obstacles within the Treasury and its statutory agencies to getting that preventive thinking and the calculation of fiscal benefits mainstreamed, would you say?”

“To follow on from Mr Dean’s point on tax reliefs, many non-structural tax reliefs are meant to have the same kind of impact as other spending that would be departmental spending within the review—for example, R&D tax credits are meant to stimulate R&D, but we know very little about their actual impact on R&D. I appreci…”

“On SEND funding, the incoming head of the IFS told us last week that that was the area where the greatest unmet needs were opening up, particularly with projected future demand and the current funding available. Do you see that as an issue? Do you also see the increased devolution of funding responsibility to local cou…”

“How confident are you in the ability for reform to drive improvements in SEND, particularly when the education budget—taking out the free school meals policy—is flat in terms of spending rises?”

“Professor Lawrence, could you expand on your point that over the last few years the trend has gone in the wrong direction?”

“Very briefly on this point, Professor Wachter, you have created a test—the conditional demographic disparity test—to check for discrimination. It has been incorporated into, for example, Amazon’s toolkits. Do you see a role for regulators in encouraging or even requiring this kind of bias detection tool?”

“On that theme, have any members of the panel had discussions with the FCA or other financial regulators on tackling discrimination?”

“Professor Andreeva, you mentioned that some banks have been so frightened by the accusation of discrimination that they have stopped collecting data on protected characteristics, which means they cannot effectively monitor whether their outcomes are discriminatory. Do you see any role for the regulator in monitoring th…”

“Professor Andreeva, Professor Wachter mentioned redlining; have you come across any other examples of discrimination from the use of AI in financial services?”

“Thank you, Professor. I will return to our main theme of AI and financial services, and in particular on bias in AI. A lot of writing about AI risks focuses on medium or long-term risks that have not yet occurred, but Professor Andreeva and Professor Wachter have argued that the growing use of AI in decision making inc…”

“Professor Lawrence, I want to come back on your point about the ONS data. This Committee has heard from the ONS and interrogated the ONS about the problems with the labour force survey and other national statistics. There is currently a Cabinet Office investigation into the ONS. Do you have any advice for how the ONS c…”

“I would welcome you to visit our local tech and biotech companies in Reading.”

“I want to go back to the question about risk appetite. It seems to be something that many on this Committee are concerned about—that the National Wealth Fund will have a sufficient risk appetite, rather than simply delivering things the private sector could already deliver. How much of this comes down to institutional …”

“Is there a clear economic shield in the current policy for the National Wealth Fund, if it makes bad bets?”

“I want to go back to the theme that you raised, Mr Davidson, about the current layout being too complicated, with too many different inroads and not really a one-stop shop or portal that could make things simpler. From our panel of academics earlier, we heard about the importance of the National Wealth Fund institution…”

“I have a few questions on the theme of natural capital. One of the top questions I get when I go to primary school assemblies is about what the Government are doing to preserve nature. I also hear that from my constituents, who live by, walk along and enjoy the Thames and its various waterways. Mr Spiers, could you bre…”