Speeches by Brewer.

“Cathy, in the last three years more than 400,000 children left school without receiving the HPV vaccine. What work are you doing to increase the take-up both in schools and for those who have already left school?”

“When was that rolled out?”

“Do you have sufficient resource to be able to do that? That is a lot of work in outreach, comms and building a digital consent system as well.”

“I am mindful of time, but I have a couple of quick follow-ups. Regarding the age limit of 25, is the vaccine not effective over 25 or are there other reasons why it is not given, apart from obviously in that one specific group you talked about?”

“So there is no dataset to compare it yet?”

“You talked a little about take-up. This really varies across the country; I can see in some areas it is really excellent and in other areas it is really low, such as right here in Westminster and just across the river in Lambeth. Is there a particular part of the system that is failing in some areas or is it multiple f…”

“T4. Children in receipt of funds from the adoption and special guardianship support fund often have significant mental health, wellbeing and educational needs. For many of these children, their individual therapy is the single biggest factor enabling them to continue at school. What assessment has the Minister made of …”

“18. What steps he is taking to help reduce household energy bills.”

“Almost 10% of people in my North East Hampshire constituency live in fuel poverty. I agree with the Minister that investing in renewable energy would help to tackle that, so how is she working with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to empower local authorities to develop renewable energy generat…”

“In Hampshire, we have a super-ageing population, so pension and post-retirement financial concerns are frequently raised in my North East Hampshire constituency casework. One of my constituents wrote to me to say: “I want my pension to be put to work delivering sustainable, long-term growth and prosperity that allows e…”

“Minister Thomas, what targeted support are the Government providing to female entrepreneurs in sectors where women are more likely to lead businesses, such as femtech, beauty or education?”

“We have heard in this Committee that one of the structural inequalities, particularly in the tech space, is that investors like to invest in fast-growing businesses, and that women are more likely to invest in businesses that are a bit less boom and bust and have slower growth but have better returns overall. We have a…”

“Okay, thank you. How do you ensure that viable female-led businesses have equal access to support and investment in male-dominated sectors like tech, AI, and financial services?”

“This is a slightly different follow-up question to the one I was going to ask. It is more of a comment on the structural inequalities that women face. We have heard so much in this inquiry about those and have met female entrepreneurs who will very readily share the structural inequalities including, for instance, the …”

“Coming back to the investment committees, and forgive me for labouring the point, but I just want to push back again on this point of not having any targets for the number of women on those committees. At the moment, what is the average size of a committee that is applying for funding?”

“It seems to me that money is a great incentive for behaviour change, and if you mandate, say, one woman on every committee as a bare minimum, you will very quickly accelerate the number of women on those committees because if they want the money, that is a condition. There is no shortage of talented women out there, so…”

“Is that 40% ringfenced, or is it just where it happens to sit at the moment?”

“I am just wondering why it is not 50%.”

“Do you think that the EHRC has it right at the moment or that its approach to equality law enforcement could change? If so, how?”

“What specific skills and experience can you draw on to inform your approach as equality law regulator and enforcer?”