Speeches by Ballinger.

“On the increase in funding for the Americas, is that for disaster response? What is the rationale for that?”

“So climate spending is increasing, while other areas are reducing. Is that the summary?”

“I have a couple of other security-related questions on ODA prioritisation. We heard earlier about the movement of the migration and conflict directorates into separate areas. I have heard anecdotally that the conflict part, despite moving to the humanitarian department, will be reducing in number, and some of the NGO p…”

“The Committee has been running an inquiry into disinformation, and over the past couple of months, we have visited a lot of countries in Eastern Europe and seen with our own eyes the scale of Russian influence, something that the Department knows well. We were a bit surprised to see the reduction in spending in the eas…”

“Thank you, Nick. The diplomatic network, and the work that officers in the FCDO are doing around this, is very good. I think there is a particular concern about civilian peacebuilding organisations that are working in areas that are maybe not the top priorities that you talked about, to prevent conflicts that might hap…”

“It is an ODA question as well, but I am happy to come back to it later.”

“Coming back to Russian influence and disinformation in eastern Europe, considering the FCDO’s commitment to confronting national security threats while supporting Ukraine and deepening security partnerships in eastern Europe, I was surprised to see a reduction in the support for the eastern European neighbourhood from …”

“Yes. The peacebuilding work and the on-the-ground, grassroots efforts are not quite as high profile as the conflicts in Ukraine and Sudan.”

“Absolutely. Finally, on the prioritisation of the development budgets—this may just be a quirk of the way things are calculated—I was a bit surprised that, while we are seeing reductions in eastern Europe and the middle east, there has been an increase in the Americas and the Indo-Pacific region, with a large increase …”

“The Ajax vehicle was ordered in 2014, and was due to be delivered in 2017. It has now been delivered eight years late, in a state of service that is completely unusable by our personnel. This is a catastrophic failure by MOD procurement. As we increase spending as we respond to the war in Ukraine, how is the Minister e…”

“Last week, I had the privilege of meeting a number of schools during UK Parliament Week, including Tenterfields academy, the Impact independent school and Leasowes high school in my constituency. I had some fantastic questions and really intelligent insights into democracy from those students. Leasowes high school had …”

“Yes.”

“The same question, Dr Zimmermann.”

“Thank you. Amanda, it was mentioned there that the legal services were a big missed opportunity. How has the agreement affected your sector, if at all?”

“Thank you and good afternoon. We have had an excellent panel looking at goods just now, but of course services trade with India is larger than goods and has been growing more quickly. The first question is: how does this trade agreement that we have affect services trade and which sectors stand to gain or lose the most…”

“Pankaj, do you think an investment treaty might be feasible? What benefits would that offer?”

“One of the challenges that we have at the moment is that there is no mutual recognition of professional qualifications between the UK and India. Is there scope for that agreement to build on the FTA and are there more sectoral agreements that the UK Government could make that would improve the situation? I will come to…”

“Finally, John, where should the UK be focusing if it does want to unlock greater access to financial services in India?”

“Thank you.”

“Thank you. Finally, Pankaj, the opposite side of that is a different version of sectors that have been opened up for Indian companies that are operating in the UK. How is that being received in India and what advantages are there for you?”