Speeches by McKinnell.

“I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision for a fixed recoverable costs scheme to limit the costs that may be recovered in respect of certain cases of clinical negligence; to provide for regular review of the limits set by such a scheme; to amend the Law Reform (Personal Injuries) Act 1948…”

“I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. As co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for youth employment, I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement on these new measures. Members will know that Newcastle is home to the country’s best retail and hospitality offer, and I kno…”

“Okay; thank you. Aneen, I want to ask about the fraud defence team’s work and the 130 bespoke risk registers that you operate to. Some have severe and critical activity risks but have not been updated or acted on—some of them for up to five years, it says in the Report. Do you have a sense of how well those existing co…”

“Could you explain that? As I said, in the last four years, the figure is 48p in every pound. Can you explain what is being changed in order to improve that?”

“Are you confident that you have sufficient sight of what is happening throughout that chain of process in order to minimise the fraud risks? I appreciate that you have outlined what the policies are, but what is the reality on the ground? The indications are that there isn’t sufficient oversight, so how are you making …”

“I guess the question is whether they are working.”

“Okay; thank you. Jim, what are you doing to make sure that your commercial teams are increasing the counter-fraud savings and that we see an improvement on the 48p in the pound that is currently the trajectory?”

“I absolutely acknowledge that it is a real fact—it is noted very clearly in the Report—but it does not necessarily solve the underlying challenges of how we improve the situation. With respect, it does not feel like there is an acknowledgment of the scale of the challenge; that is my impression, having read the Report.…”

“Sorry; I think we need to be clear that the £1.34 appears to be a one-off, because there was a review of commercial leakage that brought about a one-off recovery. Putting that to one side, are you confident that, overall, we are going to see an increase on the 48p in the pound, which is already well below the £3 in the…”

“Are you confident that by next year we are going to see a significant increase on that 48p in the pound recovery?”

“Can I come back to your assessment of good progress? That is not the reflection that I took from the Report, so it would be really helpful to understand where you see good progress being made and how you are confident about your trajectory. From what I understand, the reason why there is a slight improvement on the 48p…”

“Good morning. I want to ask about a couple of the points the Chair highlighted in his opening comments. The Ministry of Defence is responsible for huge-scale contracts and billions of pounds of public money, and, clearly, counter-fraud initiatives could not be more important. As the Chair mentioned, the Treasury expect…”

“Thank you all for being here today. I have to say that it is quite unusual for this Committee to be looking at a success story and trying to extrapolate why, although, as ever, there will be challenge as to how we can do this even better in the future, right across Government, where we know much digital renewal needs t…”

“It is interesting to hear about the procurement process, because it sounds like it was a very thorough process and that although, as you acknowledge, it took longer, the results obviously speak for themselves. As well as the need to comply with all the legal requirements, there are also the security and commercial chal…”

“I was going to ask a slightly technical question. Did you encounter any challenges in taking that approach when it comes to the regulation around procurement? Were there challenges in getting the right balance between open communication with anyone who may be competing for a project, so that you get the best out of tha…”

“The overall message I am taking from your response is that there is an overarching clear vision, which seems to have come out very strongly. You have mentioned the things that you wanted to achieve: resilience, which you have mentioned a number of times, competition and innovation. Coming to the procurement process, wh…”

“That is really helpful, because one of the big frustrations you hear from small developers is that it can feel like a tick-box exercise with no tangible or discernible output at the end. That is reassuring to hear.”

“Has this proposal brought sufficient streamlining for developers of the interaction with regulators? We know that the Government are very ambitious about seeing more housing development, but is it sufficient to streamline that interaction, or do we need to do more?”

“Could I put a challenge in there? I appreciate that smaller developers may not have the capacity to deliver on the environmental requirements of undertaking a development, but there is a balance to strike if we are not to price them out of the market. Has that balance been struck correctly? Otherwise, only larger devel…”

“Philip, are there impacts from the Act on the Environment Agency’s obligations?”