Speeches by Stephenson.

“For those seven organisations that you provide support to from the centre, how many people from the MOJ are involved, and how much does it cost?”

“You say that it is worth looking at. Is any work actively under way to look at it? I ask because in your response there are quite a few assumptions about what the savings might be. Is it not a valuable piece of work to do, so you know whether there would be savings and so you can balance value for money against levels …”

“Are you looking at international comparisons? Are there other countries that differentiate? If so, do they do it well and are there lessons we could learn?”

“My questions are for Farhad. How many small bodies do you have at the Ministry of Justice, and how do you support them to comply with the financial reporting arrangements?”

“That was very helpful, because you answered the question that I was going to ask. It seems that everyone is ahead of me, which is fantastic. A final question from me: if you are, in a more informal way, allowing a proportionate case-by-case approach for these small bodies, how confident are you in the centre that you a…”

“I thank the Minister for his response. A recent Yale University report ranked Mauritius last out of 131 states for stringency in relation to its marine protected areas, and a woeful 173th out of 180 for the protection of biodiversity. Mauritius has even admitted that it does not have the capacity to patrol the area, an…”

“6. What assessment she has made of whether the Mauritian Government are able to effectively protect Chagos’ marine environment.”

“I have some questions on capacity at the appeals stage. The Government’s commitment to clear the backlog has ended up shifting the pressure to the appeals stage. Ms Churchill, could you walk the Committee through the actions you are taking to improve judicial availability and capacity?”

“Following the curriculum review, will the Secretary of State outline how the Government will support teachers to deliver financial education in the constituency of Mid Bedfordshire and, of course, right across the country? Will financial education form part of initial teacher training?”

“From the recruitment that you have done, have you modelled what that does to the appeals backlog? For example, do you know where that backlog will be in a year or two?”

“Yes.”

“On the recruitment, it sounds like you have been reasonably successful in hiring more paid judges. In figure 6 of the NAO Report, we are told that one of the issues is poor incentives compared with competing tribunals. Have you had to do something differently to attract judges to these jobs, and away from competing tri…”

“The western world must remain united to keep us all safe from both Russia and China. Regrettably, we are far from united right now, and many of our constituents will be concerned about the risk to our country and critical infrastructure. At the same time as trying to reinvigorate our relationships with our NATO partner…”

“T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.”

“Would you be able to walk us through what implications you think there are for judges of the new asylum model?”

“One follow-up: if we were to fix all those limitations, how much more of this error and fraud do you think will be detectable, which of course would then limit the need for the Chancellor to raise taxes in the future?”

“I think it would be helpful if you gave some thought to that and maybe wrote to the Committee, because there could be some really practical recommendations that we could make, in terms of changing legislation, which would help you to bear down on error and fraud, and in turn reduce the burden on our constituents throug…”

“I am interested in asking some questions about the legislative framework; some of the responses to questions that Sarah asked piqued my interest. My constituents—all our constituents—would be horrified to know that in 2023, £55 billion to £81 billion of their hard-earned money was lost to fraud and error. They might al…”

“When the Prime Minister first announced digital ID, it was to stop illegal working. It took most of us about a minute to work out that that was total nonsense. Flapping in the wind, the Government are now desperately trying to sell the benefits of limiting liberty and freedom for all our constituents. One thing the Gov…”

“I am sure it would.”