Speeches by McKinnell.

“That is helpful.”

“EMSAs?”

“What you are saying is very encouraging. The challenge is that it also feels a little bit nebulous. As you are explaining, it comes down to judgment, individual projects and having that flexibility. I can totally understand the advantage to that, but the flip side is that you could get to the end and achieve something …”

“A range of criteria over what period of time?”

“Okay. Going back to the question of criteria, which do you apply? The reason I am asking is that there are so many complex considerations here that clearly happen when these decisions are made. It would be helpful to understand what criteria are being applied, particularly for the loans and grants that are being given.”

“Yes, the affordability ratio. The question for members of the public who are watching is: are we prioritising quality over quantity or vice versa? I am interested in hearing a little more detail on the second of the criteria, which I realise I did not scribble down.”

“No, that’s fine.”

“What is the timeframe for that?”

“Can I slightly go back to the previous question, but in the context of what you are saying there? How do you know whether you are maximising the impact of this without clear targets? It is very hard to measure. Obviously you are saying that lots of good work is going on, with lots of people working hard and lots of sho…”

“Do you mind just explaining those two a little bit more?”

“What is the lifetime?”

“That is an incredibly broad set of aims that you are working to. What criteria will you use when you are deciding when or where to issue grants, loans and other financial support to projects?”

“Affordability of the project?”

“Sorry—this is getting into a lot of detail, and it is not really clarifying.”

“Just a bit more detail on how they are measured.”

“Could I just ask you to avoid acronyms? I think we had CPO as well, and people watching may not know what these things are.”

“It’s okay.”

“Okay; the benchmarks are really helpful.”

“What interventions do you feel have worked best so far in unlocking land? I suspect that this is for either Joanna or Alison.”

“Thank you. You are giving really thorough and quite reassuring responses, but I fear that this is incredibly complex. I appreciate that these things are not simple, but is there not a risk here? These homes need to be delivered locally by local contractors—local builders—and we could have such a complicated system that…”