Speeches by West.

“Q7. I thank the Prime Minister for his calm and authoritative leadership in international affairs. I also thank the UK missions abroad, who have enormous respect for the Prime Minister. May I ask him to put on record his thanks to the security, diplomatic and international aid workforce, who work day and night on behal…”

“What measures would you recommend to fix that?”

“Do you think that our system is prepared for that? Presumably that will add to more checks at the border.”

“You think that 2028 might be too late.”

“Do large online marketplaces such as Amazon, Shein and Temu contribute to the scale of high street tax evasion, Mr Monaghan?”

“This is a technical question for anyone on the panel who wants to pick it up. Existing debt with buy now, pay later will remain unregulated after July. When it comes to assessing the risk of consumer confusion over which bit of the debt has FOS protection and which does not, will there be training for the advisers on w…”

“Do the rest of the panel have anything to add?”

“On that point, is any monitoring going on through Citizens Advice around the impact of families with lots of children, because obviously, in April, the new benefit rules came into place? If you are in debt, that will not show up for several months. Over time, I think a lot of us in this room would like to see the end o…”

“Immigration has gone down by 84% under this Government, which is very pleasing to certain people electorally, but what is the impact on the average bricklayer, carpenter, or electrician, the people who have those basic skills? What is your analysis as an economist, Mr Vickerstaff?”

“Over a number of years, the apprenticeship levy, which is levied on large businesses, has been returning to the Treasury because it has not been spent. So is the figure of £625 million for construction skills packages enough? There has been a 23% drop in our colleges receiving teachers and linking in with big projects,…”

“What is the Minister’s assessment of the unemployment issues for graduates? Will he and the Treasury team pledge to consider carefully the evidence that the cross-party Treasury Committee took from thousands of graduates, and come up with a fairer system that equalises plans, so that the year in which graduates enrolle…”

“The infrastructure pipeline will require an estimated annual average workforce of between 621,000 and 697,000 over the next two years. Does the UK have this workforce already?”

“What is the role of immigration in solving this problem?”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd; thank you for stepping in to chair the debate. I congratulate my constituency neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for Southgate and Wood Green (Bambos Charalambous) on securing this debate. He has a long-standing commitment to human rights. He is right to emp…”

“On the resources for the OBR, does the OBR need more funding and resources? What is the role for Parliament and this sort of Committee in keeping an eye on the resources so that they are not too constrained, given the tension between the OBR and the Treasury, and the importance of the role?”

“In an ideal world, would the OBR have the resources to undertake its own detailed analysis of tax revenue and some of the tax changes? For example, has the OBR done an analysis of some of the measures that you just mentioned around inheritance tax and salary sacrifice?”

“What reassurances can the Secretary of State provide about basic customer services? For example, Turnpike Lane tube station in my constituency has been closed since last August, because Transport for London cannot reopen it owing to the leaks and other problems that Thames Water is far too incompetent to fix. Will toda…”

“For example, in terms of projections around future election results, I will never forget the day we came back into Parliament after Brexit. Regardless of what side you are on in the debate, nobody thought it was going to happen, and therefore there was no preparation. The OBR has an interface with other Government Depa…”

“Two years after the ballot in 2016, the report came out in 2018, which was very academic. Some shocks have an impact way before two years. I will just leave it there, perhaps for another Committee, but it is important that we can ask you, as the people in the field doing it every day, whether there would be enough of a…”

“I have a couple of final questions about intergenerational inequality. To what extent will inheritances ameliorate or enhance the problem of intergenerational inequality?”