Speeches by Maynard.

“It is the same country.”

“You mentioned economic security toolboxes. Let us be imaginative here. We have a big problem. There are some actions being taken. Let us say that in five years’ time we have got our act together and moved quickly. Who would like to have a crack at what needs to change and what that would look like? Let us be optimistic…”

“Sorry, I have to refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and the stake I held in BDA Partners, which I founded in 1996. Q122 Going back to this, thank you, Silvia. You have this wonderful database. Who else has access to it now? What I am worried about is that the OECD has this wonderf…”

“Wonderful. Thank you. What is your view on Chinese firms’ price advantage with regard to an undervaluation or otherwise of the renminbi?”

“And a mobile phone network.”

“Soumaya, would you like to give a comment on that?”

“Can I just jump in? With the WTO appellate body being effectively defunct, what is the solution to replace that? That has been the biggest tool that we have had over the last 30 or 40 years, but it is now completely dead. Is anyone doing the running as to how to replace that?”

“We have spent a lot of time talking about China’s strengths and our weaknesses. What about the opposite? What are its weaknesses? How much time are you thinking about that? Do you have any particular ideas around that?”

“What is in that economic toolbox and how do we get there? How do we use those tools? How do we develop those tools?”

“Silvia Gavornikova, thank you very much, to you and your colleagues, for all your work and for hosting us in January as well. We saw a chart that you showed us in January with regard to state subsidies, whether it is grants, income tax concessions or cheap loans. I have it in front of me. I was just wondering whether y…”

“Just following up on that, Aline, as a practitioner, what do you see as working badly with the NSIA? You move across various jurisdictions. Seeing other jurisdictions and what this or that country does well, how would you rank us and what recommendations would you make for improvement?”

“Flashing back to the 1980s, would the right hon. Member like to remind us when the Conservatives last balanced a budget?”

“I thank the Minister for his statement. We have learned today that this contract was awarded two and a half years ago. Capita had two and a half years to prepare for taking on the administration of the civil service scheme. As has been mentioned, the Public Accounts Committee warned in October that Capita was not ready…”

“Yes, I know.”

“Is the Minerals Security Partnership the one that is most active in trying to track down those supply chains and work out how they works? Is there anybody else out there who you particularly recommend?”

“In the UK Government, in terms of trying to wrangle the cats into some sort of bag, is DBT very active on this, or anybody? It is beyond the scale of the UK, so I am wondering how much the UK is trying to pool.”

“How much visibility do you have on the EU? The US is doing that thing, and the only other party that perhaps has sufficient scale might be the EU. It has RESourceEU. How much is it doing in terms of working out, “We have a risk in this mineral, this mineral and this mineral. We want to have refining and smelting somewh…”

“Martin, switching slightly to your interest in batteries, I was looking at something last night about CATL and BYD, and the $2 billion or something that they had just announced that they are putting into battery technology, and about the amazing 1,500 km that they had just announced—where is the UK, in terms of tech, w…”

“Thank you all for being here. I want to ask you about sovereignty and the relevance of focusing just on the UK or focusing on the UK and its allies. I am aware of various things. There is the G7 critical minerals action plan, the Minerals Security Partnership, RESourceEU, Pax Silica and all these things floating about.…”

“Just on that point about interdependency and limited capacity, it seems to be largely a failure of diplomacy and organisation at an international state level. You have a unitary state, China, and a whole load of other states who are getting whacked—“By the way, don’t whack me because that’s scary.” We are not co-ordina…”