Speeches by Coleman.

“I do not understand; that was not my question. My question was, you have a choice: you either follow the law or you do not follow the law; you do it because you feel it is the right thing to do or because your consumers ask you to do it. We have had a huge amount of evidence and I am very grateful for your evidence as …”

“Just taking Tesco’s profit alone, which is in the billions, do you think £180 million in healthy product innovation across the industry is enough? And we could take the other companies’ profits as well, if you want.”

“Just to come back to the previous question. I am very aware it is tough when Governments sometimes say, “Oh, we would like you to be nice,” when your competitor might not be as nice and why would you be the first prime mover before anyone else? Is that because there is too much voluntary requesting—why do you not, coul…”

“Thanks very much for coming, Kate and Jim. In your evidence, Kate, you explained that companies invested £180 million in healthier product innovation, which we all really welcome, but the industry has an annual turnover of £148 billion. Do you think this level of investment matches the scale of the public health challe…”

“It is the same as the pharmacists being able to have time to go off and train.”

“As a final point, to come back to the CPD question, what is the particular frustration that nurses feel when it comes to being able to move forward that needs to be addressed?”

“Have you any idea how to enable that to happen? Have you any idea how much you would need to expand the workforce to enable the flexibility to take place so the coverage is always there?”

“When you say flexible working, do you mean in terms of the hours worked or the types of jobs that are done?”

“It is not optional for the areas whether they do that.”

“I am going to come back to nursing briefly. What should be in the workforce plan?”

“Very briefly, what is your experience of ICBs? How attentive do you think they are to the needs of pharmacists, and how much time do they spend discussing that?”

“I am putting words in your mouth.”

“Are you saying that, as things stand at the moment, the job is a bit boring and that it could be made more interesting?”

“What is the biggest thing that we could do to encourage pharmacists to stay in the profession that does not involve spending a lot of money?”

“Would that cost more?”

“What would that mean in very specific terms?”

“I will focus on pharmacy and then come back to you. Cutting to the chase, Ms Doll, what would you like to see in the workforce plan?”

“That is very helpful. I am going to turn to nursing. We have a problem. One in four district nurses left the profession in the year to September 2024. Again, on retention, what would you like to see in the workforce plan?”

“I can see that, if you enable people to work less, you are going to need more GPs. Is there also something about requiring GPs not to do certain things and enabling patients to go, for example, directly to specialists more easily?”

“I will push you slightly, and then I would like to come to other witnesses. You are saying that you would sort out the problem of retention if we had more GPs. That is the No. 1 thing. Is there anything else that would not cost as much money?”