Speeches by Coghlan.

“Mr Walker, the Treasury has threatened mandation as a backstop to the accord. Can you explain what flexibility you would have under the accord that you would not have under mandation?”

“Mr Storah, would you like to comment on the mandation point?”

“Mr Ward, in terms of you not signing the accord, was part of the consideration due to concerns that you might breach your fiduciary duty to your investors, in that you are not maximising your return?”

“Is part of the issue the attractiveness of inflation-linked gilts to pension funds distracting them from potentially investing in UK assets?”

“Does the very fact that this accord exists send a poor signal about the attractiveness of the UK as an investment destination?”

“In the 2023-24 academic year, more than 1,800 SEND children in Surrey were out of school for more than a third of the time. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that promised schools are delivered? I think in particular of the Betchwood Vale academy SEND school in my constituency.”

“I was moved by the speech just made by the hon. Member for Dagenham and Rainham (Margaret Mullane) and heartened to hear about the effectiveness of SEND provision in Barking and Dagenham. It is so important that we have effective examples of that in the country—particularly at the moment, when the Government are consid…”

“I hear the heartbreaking stories from Barking and Dagenham about the huge demand for SEND provision and the difficulty in meeting it. In Surrey, we have similarly heartbreaking cases of children with autism who cannot move out of mainstream school because the capacity is not there. As a result, one of my constituents i…”

“This will be my final question. Nicholas, I am very interested in what you are saying. We heard from Professor Paolo Surico of the London Business School at the Treasury Committee last week. He said that, in theory, if the UK issued £20 billion a year in R&D bonds and invested that all in defence R&D on the DARPA model…”

“I am from the Treasury Committee. Nicholas, on your earlier point, the Treasury Committee has been looking a lot at how to use defence spending to boost economic growth. All the research I am seeing shows that, if you really want to do that, it has to be in the start-up and SME space. You need public R&D for basic rese…”

“Do the Government know if the US Government are still providing technical military intelligence support, such as electronic or imagery intelligence for Ukraine? If that were cut off by President Trump, would the Americans effectively restrict our British military technical intelligence support to Ukraine?”

“Chief Secretary, you are increasing the capital budget by £20 billion up to 2029-30, but just about half of that takes place next year. Why is the capital budget so front-loaded?”

“It is increasing from £131 billion to £151 billion in total, but of that £20 billion increase, £9 billion happens next year.”

“It is interesting that you said that was a disaster, because the No. 1 thing you can do to increase productivity is R&D. It is excellent that you are doing that in defence spending, but overall R&D is increasing by only 0.7% a year in real terms. How can you realistically expect productivity to improve?”

“But in the round, R&D is not materially increasing. Would you consider borrowing to increase R&D, given that R&D is generating growth, so in theory that should not raise the debt to GDP ratio?”

“Would it be outside the fiscal rules?”

“We heard earlier about HS2. You are spending roughly £7 billion a year investing in it. Last week, we heard from economists that the economic benefit of it is potentially negative, once the financing and capital costs are knocked off, because a railway is already there. By my calculations, we need to increase defence s…”

“The US is disengaging from Europe, and it is entirely conceivable that Russia could attack Estonia and test article 5 with “little green men” if there is a ceasefire in Ukraine, so why have the Government not committed to reaching their 3% defence spending target by the end of this Parliament?”

“Of course, I am delighted that you have increased defence R&D. Is that a very good way of increasing economic growth?”

“With any new technology you both destroy jobs and create them. For example, the car created the whole motorway services industry and tarmac roads. Is it too early to say whether AI is going to be net job creating or destroying, or we just do not know at this point?”