Speeches by Thomas.

“Aside from the evident, persistent and consistent failures in the Prime Minister’s integrity, does this issue not raise massive questions about the hold over the Government and those at the top of the Labour party by someone whose name has been a byword for sleaze for the last two or three decades?”

“Q With regard to skills, given the acute shortage and the growth of this industry, what do you propose to ensure that the public sector is adequately resourced, given what will undoubtedly be a very lucrative private sector appeal for that talent? Kanishka Narayan: This is a great question. There are two things on my m…”

“Q Are you able to quantify that in any way? Ian Hulme: At the moment, to give you a few broad numbers our teams are around 15 people, and we anticipate doubling that. In the future, with self-funding, we will be a bit more in control of our own destiny. It is a significant uplift from our perspective. Natalie Black: Th…”

“Q But would you like to see a Bill that goes further and has broader scope? Kanishka Narayan: As I have said, this legislative vehicle is focused on really high standards of rigour for essential services. I am very keen to ensure that, in the first instance, we are engaging with those companies through the cyber action…”

“Q Picking up on what Jen mentioned about FTSE and publicly traded companies being within scope, is there a view on ensuring g that privately owned companies of a particular scale are within scope, and if so, how will you determine that? Might it be based on things such as turnover or number of employees, or would it be…”

“Q Two questions: first, for a bit of context, could the witnesses give us an idea of the objectives of cyber-attacks? Are we seeing objectives based around disruption or around extortion, either monetary or for intellectual property? Perhaps we could have a perspective on whether that differs depending on the origin of…”

“Q Would the cyber-attacks on JLR and M&S that took place last year be in the scope of this Bill? Kanishka Narayan: I am shy of making comments on specific incidents, but as a broad brush, clearly the food supply or automotive manufacturing sectors are not directly in scope of the Bill, for reasons I am very much ha…”

“Q With regard to ransom payments and extortion attempts, what do you typically see? Is it for monetary gain or intellectual property data—what is the split? DCS Andrew Gould: That is another really good question. Generally, it is financial, but you will often get what is called the double dip, so there is the extractio…”

“Q For the avoidance of doubt, I will put on the record that I am a member of the IPAC caucus in this Parliament. Thank you for coming in to see us. You have spoken about the threats from hostile and adversarial states. Given the scope of what we are talking about, can you give us any insight on what comparable western …”

“Q What additional resources will you need in order to implement and enforce the requirements of the Bill? Ian Hulme: Again, to contrast the ICO’s position with that of other colleagues, we have a much larger sector, as it currently exists, and we will have a massively larger sector again in the future. We are also fund…”

“Q Do the witnesses have a view on the benchmarks that, at the moment, do not appear to sit behind the scale of incidents that must be reported? Do you have a view on the absence of any benchmarks and the impact that they may have on smaller firms, or on the risk of over-reporting? Stuart McKean: Under the designation o…”

“Q Do you think they should be within scope? Kanishka Narayan: Let me place the focus of this Bill in the global context. As we have heard, there is a range of legislative as well as non-legislative measures on cyber-security. It is deeply important that every organisation, whether in scope of the Bill or not, acts robu…”

“Q I have two questions. First, on the topic of cross-border control, how do you think we can get definition around the resilience obligations and how they apply to foreign-hosted systems, particularly given that your networks will be quite widespread? My second question is more broad. Given that you are all responsible…”

“Q How might we glean some clarity on that? Stuart McKean: It needs more detail, even if that is about providing some boundaries so that we have something to say, “If it is going to do the following, what is a ‘significant economic impact’?”. I would like to think that none of our services would have a significant econo…”

“The Prime Minister has failed to stand up for Britain’s interests. From what we have seen, he could not even make it across Beijing’s red carpet without being guided along the way. What did the Prime Minister expect to receive in return for approving the Chinese super-embassy, and did the Chinese give it to him?”

“T9. The Government have said that we should be bolstering our preparedness for war. Can the Minister tell us when the defence readiness Bill will be ready and when he expects it to gain Royal Assent?”

“Last May, Reform pushed leaflets through the doors of homes in Worcestershire that said that it would cut taxes, but this year, Reform-led Worcestershire county council has sought permission from the Government to increase council tax by a staggering 10%. Does the Leader of the House agree that that inflation-busting r…”

“The facts speak for themselves: the unemployment rate for those aged between 16 and 24 is 15.9%—that represents 700,000 people —and 946,000 young people aged between 16 and 24 are categorised as NEET. There has been an 11% drop in the number of job adverts in the 12 months between July 2024 and July 2025. Under this La…”

“The best welfare programme of all is a job; nothing else comes close, in terms of the earnings that people receive as recognition of and reward for their contribution, and the effect on their self-confidence. During this debate, we have not heard much, if anything, about incentives for people to take risks. Ultimately,…”

“This is another U-turn that does not go far enough, because as a result of the choices made by Labour, energy bills are up, taxes are up and confidence is down. That is corrosive, and it is having a particularly corrosive effect on cafés, restaurants, hotels and small retail outlets. Will the Minister announce broader …”