Speeches by Maynard.

“Running with that, one part of economic security is a register of foreign-owned assets in the UK, which the last Government talked about a lot. I was hoping that—maybe not on the spot now, but perhaps in writing—you could say when this Government will commit to putting in the public domain a full register of properties…”

“Sorry to be late. I was in another Select Committee meeting and it overran, so apologies and thank you for having me. Going back to Beth’s point about more efficient trade with Europe in electricity, my understanding is that post Brexit one of the things was being outside the single day-ahead coupling system. What are …”

“In other very international lines of work, you would have conferences where you would all get together and talk shop. Do things like that exist? If it is taking years to get stuff, in some ways, that could be because you do not know each other that well.”

“You talked about English language and Russian language as two big blocks. Sticking with the Russian language side, that is obviously across several countries, not just Russia. Is it impossible to access, or can you access a lot of that to take things down in other states? Are there effective means of doing that, so tha…”

“Following up on that, if those barriers to entry keep dropping, which seems very probable, can you sketch out how this will look in five years, in terms of how you try to stay ahead? It sounds almost as if it is traditional policing: you are trying to identify who these people are and going after them, or is there much…”

“In terms of the Cyber Resilience Act and what the EU is up to there, what do you think the UK should do in response? Should we do something similar here, and where is that transfer of liability best located?”

“Does anyone else want to add anything?”

“Any other points of view on that?”

“Following up on Jamie’s comment about it being dependent on what the private sector tells the NCSE, or whoever it may be, people were talking earlier about mandatory reporting. I want your take on whether you think that should be regulated so that private companies have to report if there have been breaches.”

“What is your take on the Australian example and the pros and cons of that?”

“I am one of those people to whom the NCSC is new, so that is helpful. I am getting warm and fuzzy feelings, but in terms of risks and concerns, you have mentioned quite a few and they have been very interesting and useful. What have you not mentioned about where we are going in the future and what we need to be thinkin…”

“You touched earlier on the top of the tech stack. There is a lot of conversation about the small businesses, but can you talk about the largest big tech businesses in terms of how your relationship with those companies has evolved, how engaged they are in UK security and how interested they are in co-operating with you…”

“Heading towards crime, the numbers are really bad. There were 500,000 shoplifting offences reported in 2024. Based on the British Retail Consortium’s crime survey, the incidence tripled between 2021 and 2023. Jonny, what is behind this? What do you think about the Government’s activities to improve it?”

“Does that quarterly basis make sense for small businesses? It seems like a very big burden. It is great for HMRC, but it is not great for all these small business owners, who will have to do something every quarter that they did not have to do before.”

“My first question is to Brian. I am just trying to get my head around the Federation of Master Builders. I think you represent small and medium-sized businesses. Does that include Barratt, Taylor Wimpey, Persimmon, Bellway and Vistry?”

“Is there another trade body for them? How does it all fit together?”

“Maybe the public has some nostalgia about this. Where have all the small and medium-sized builders gone who were building houses? Has that just gone? Is it just because it is an incredibly unbalanced playing field? If so, why are they being squeezed out?”

“As an executive member of planning, very briefly, in a previous district council, I have felt the pain. You have national Government of whatever stripe, frankly, saying, “You have to build 1,000 houses this year; otherwise you are for the high jump”, along with a five-year housing land supply and everything else. In te…”

“Paul, you mentioned HMRC. If I think about Making Tax Digital for Income Tax, I have heard locally in Witney that businesses are really worried about this. It is going from 50 grand this year through to 20 grand or something like that in a couple of years. Quarterly reporting feels like an awfully big burden for a lot …”

“I appreciate the Minister’s words of support for the workers who are facing such horror and shock, and the Liberal Democrats will work hard to hold him to those words. I have two questions for him. The carbon border adjustment mechanism leaves UK refineries at a disadvantage when it comes to the trade in international …”