Speeches by Dean.

“I guess what I am putting to you is: do you think this particular change to employer national insurance has potentially had an effect on youth unemployment, because it hits those industries that tend to employ young people in their first jobs?”

“Just to probe a little further on youth employment before I move on, it was not just the cost of the labour going up in ordinary terms—taxes and the minimum wage going up—but the threshold change, which particularly affected any business that employed a high number of people on low wages. Is that correct? Hospitality a…”

“House building in London this year is said to have collapsed. There were only 5,000 private sector starts in 2025. The Government has put quite a lot of emphasis on its growth strategy via this route, but it is quite a cyclical industry. It is not just the planning reforms that will affect this. Is that a concern for t…”

“Take the hospitals programme, for example, with lots of people in a long queue and the NHS Confederation saying, “Actually, maybe we need to look at PPP again.” Obviously, there is some political scarring from how it went in the past, but are you open-minded to that?”

“Chancellor, you just mentioned the potential for the private and public sectors to work together. I recently guested on a Public Accounts Committee session looking at public-private partnerships in delivering social infrastructure in the past and the lessons that can be learned from that. Will the Government learn the …”

“But those are the more obvious places to do it.”

“One of the things updated in the EFO was the immigration figures, and I think that was driven partly by the ONS revising its own figures because of a change in methodology. It shows that more people have been leaving Britain than we first thought, and that that is driving the overall lower net migration figures. Is tha…”

“I join you, Mr Speaker, in thanking Tom Goldsmith for his immense service. I also wish those celebrating this weekend a happy Holi. There are three events in my constituency this weekend, and I intend to get covered in colour. Moving on to the spring statement that we had this week, there were no policy announcements. …”

“Mr Noakes, what do you see as the main causes of financial exclusion, and what is your evaluation of the Government’s strategy so far?”

“I agree with the hon. Gentleman, who hits on one of the central points of this debate. We can continue to pour money into the operational side of the NHS, but if we do not get the capital expenditure right and improve the equipment, systems and buildings, we will always be pouring good money after bad. I know that PPP …”

“The hon. Gentleman highlights the complexity in putting together large capital projects. Funding is not often from one source. It is from multiple sources, and everybody providing the capital needs to have greater flexibility for the schemes to become deliverable, or the funds end up getting clawed back and put elsewhe…”

“My hon. Friend makes an excellent point: this is about not just buildings, but equipment and digital and technical infrastructure, all of which are crucial to getting the NHS to operate in the way it should. She also highlights how we need to upgrade ageing equipment to a very basic level, let alone take advantage of a…”

“I am grateful for the point my hon. Friend made, and I will come to make very similar points about the impact that maintenance backlogs are having. It is partly because of the slow payoff of capital investment that we are in this mess. The last Conservative Government completely undermined the NHS’s future by overpromi…”

“That’s what I said, yes.”

“My second question—both can come in with answers if you have them—is whether anything has changed in the Government’s approach since the start of the conversation around this strategy because of input from industry. Can you point to an example of a way that the Government have changed the outcome of the strategy from w…”

“That is the levy basis, but what about a carousel system whereby you take it in turns to take on people who would otherwise be priced out of insurance?”

“Just to push you on what the FCA said about the premium finance market study, it concluded that customers were not getting fair value. As soon as the FCA started commissioning this research, there was an impact on pricing, and you started to see firms adjust, probably because they feared there might be further action c…”

“We have two panels today, so can you answer the questions from your perspectives as a bank and building society? This is a broad one to kick off. I will start with you, Mr Singh. What do you view as the main causes of financial exclusion for your sector? Can you tell us what you think of the Government’s strategy?”

“Mr Singh, you said to start thinking about it. Are there things missing that the Government need to start thinking about sooner?”

“I want to ask specifically about an access to banking issue relating to economic abuse. You will know that male partners can withhold ID or have maybe damaged the credit history of their partners over time, and that can stop them from gaining access to bank accounts. There is a piece of research done by Surviving Econo…”