Speeches by Cane.

“You mention the new Independent Public Advocate. What role might they play, or is it too early to judge?”

“So the referral method would need those bodies to come together of their own volition, as it were, and decide whereas, if it were going through the Select Committee, this Committee would probably invite the relevant bodies to come and give evidence. Their concerns would then be on the public record and then this Commit…”

“Why not?”

“Would they recommend it to the Minister individually, or would they all have to agree to recommend it?”

“The Infected Blood Inquiry report recommends that if it appears to this Committee that there is sufficient concern to justify a public inquiry, we could recommend that there be one to an appropriate Minister. How impactful would that process be?”

“Whoever is deciding whether to have a public inquiry.”

“How do we get a mechanism that could judge that the bar of sufficient concern has been met?”

“If you do not think that that would be very impactful, what other mechanisms might be? I think you mentioned a referral method—how might that work?”

“This is perhaps a question mainly for Rosanna. There are often calls for a public inquiry and sometimes those are, frankly, more about pushing the item up the agenda, getting it heard and making sure that people are aware of the issue, so how would we put in place something that can actually tell the difference and ens…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. I congratulate the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Blake Stephenson) on securing this important debate. The delivery of quality rural healthcare has been neglected for too long. After years of chronic underfunding, and a pandemic from which many areas have not f…”

“I would like to go back to the sunk cost argument. Most commercial organisations, even if they had sunk costs, would charge them on if they had the opportunity.”

“Did the Cabinet Office at the time really think that in-house civil servants would do a worse job than Capita?”

“Does that consideration take into account the fact that there are very few suppliers, and that one of the lead suppliers does not have a great history?”

“Okay, thank you. Going back to the contract, I understand, and you have explained, why you continued with the contract even though you were concerned, but I wonder why Capita was ever in the running for the contract, given its history with the MOD pension scheme, the teachers’ pension scheme and quite a lot of private …”

“Did Capita talk to HMRC in the transfer process about how this was going to work and how it might impact?”

“Just as a minor note, one of my constituents who raised the issue of not being able to get on the portal got an email in reply saying, “This email address is not monitored. If you need to get back in touch with us, do it through the portal.” That seemed a bit rich, given that their complaint was that they could not get…”

“They are being told, when they ring up, to try again in mid-to-late March.”

“They have been through quite a lot of “try again” by this stage.”

“Thank you. On the wonderful portal, I think you said there are 120,000 people who still could not access it because of a specific issue; how certain are you that it is just that number, and that it is just that issue? I got a lot of complaints early on, and I still have someone who cannot access it.”

“Okay. I must pick up on the idea that it will be the end of June when everything is dealt with, and the implication that people waiting for transfer values and information for divorces are less urgent. Actually, if you have changed jobs you have a limited period in which you can transfer your pension, so you need to un…”