Speeches by Yang.

“Would you want to share more information?”

“Are there other measures that would help reduce vacancy on high streets?”

“Mr Monaghan, is there anything that you might add to this question of getting rid of vacant shops?”

“We talked about box shifting, but I wonder whether there is an element of responsibility or blame-shifting among the different agencies that are involved in tackling high street evasion of taxes. We have just heard about how local authorities are involved and there is the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Gove…”

“Q11. Thames Water’s headquarters are local to my town of Reading, but it is their distant creditors who are really in charge. Investors should be rewarded for success, but they should pay for their failures. That is why I strongly welcome the Government’s objections to the current creditors deal. Under any deal or spec…”

“I appreciate the point about the progressiveness of the income tax regime, but I am speaking more to a sense of intergenerational unfairness. This cohort of young graduates have, from their perspective, done what their teachers and parents encouraged them to do in going to university and working hard, but are paying so…”

“In terms of the limited resource that the Treasury has to spend, there are different ways in which that could have been spent. For example, rather than capping the interest rate you could increase the thresholds or change the repayment rates. Was there a particular decision around interest rates that meant that you wan…”

“Specifically to have a greater contribution from general taxation rather than the individual?”

“We had a number of submissions from students who felt that the marginal tax rates they faced were particularly unfair. That is because they often make student repayments on top of everything else that somebody on the same income but of a different generation pays, and they can make that comparison in their workplaces. …”

“The question that motivates this inquiry is whether the student finance system is fair. We have had an overwhelming response from students and young people who have submitted to our inquiry saying that they do not believe it is fair. Baroness Smith, in April this year you describe the student loan system as “already un…”

“I will move on to the question of distributional effects and social mobility. We heard from previous panels and Sir Philip Augar, who recommended in his review that there should be a 50:50 split between the individual’s contribution to higher education and the state’s contribution through general taxation. Right now, f…”

“We heard from Universities UK, which gave quite a striking example of the social or public goods caused by people going through higher education. For example, if you are in an accident, the person who sews you back together again in the hospital will have a university degree. To an extent, like many public goods, going…”

“You mentioned that, in an ideal world, there are other changes that you would like to make. While it is very unlikely that the Treasury will see a sudden windfall from somewhere miraculous, in that scenario do you know what the next step you would like to take would be?”

“Can I read between the lines on what your next ideal step would be and say that you might consider plan 2 to be the most problematic cohort, which you would like to look at again? You singled out plan 2 in your answer.”

“Finally, Ms Rigby, we heard from many panellists earlier in this inquiry that they were concerned about the issue of intergenerational fairness and particularly that, during the previous Government, there were a series of changes to student loans, some of them retrospective, but all of which meant that the Treasury won…”

“As many people watching this inquiry may or may not know, changing the interest rate does not change the monthly repayments. Changing the interest rate does not directly change the living conditions of graduates paying the loans, but it does benefit the most well-off graduates who then repay the total loan. Was there a…”

“I am not asking for a three-decimal-point figure, but does the Treasury or the Department for Education have a sense of whether the current level of individual contribution is the right amount, too high or too low? What is the general sense of direction?”

“Ms Rigby, would you agree with Baroness Smith’s remarks?”

“I thank the Minister for her statement. Tomorrow, I will be bringing Thames Water’s management into Parliament to answer a simple question: what improvements will my constituents get in return for the increases in their bills? My constituents do not feel they are being treated fairly by Thames Water, and that makes it …”

“Ms Retter, you mentioned that the devil is in the details for the multilateral defence mechanism. Given that we will have Treasury Ministers coming to this Committee to answer our questions about defence spending, what are the most important details to iron out and what would you like to see from the MDM?”