Speeches by Curtis.

“You knew how that press release was going to be interpreted, right? You knew that that press release was going to be interpreted as the big electoral check, and the big change that was made to our electoral system that way, “That has gone fine, no problems”. We did not know that at the time.”

“That is a lot of work to do in order to fix a problem in the system, which as one of the previous panel has said, did not really exist in the first place. I think that is not an unfair characterisation. The reason I phrased the previous question in the way that I did is because what many of us found interesting through…”

“I am going to focus on voter ID, unsurprisingly, and a few other bits. First, Mr Stanyon made some comments in the previous panel. He implied that you may share some of the views that he was bringing up at the time on the changes to the voter ID laws. Do you think that was a fair characterisation? Do you think you made…”

“A final question, if I may, Chair. Given that view—and given that I think that there is a lot of cynicism about a lot of the recommendations the Electoral Commission has made on this—how much trust do you think we should be giving to the Electoral Commission’s current view on voter ID rules?”

“Thank you for doing so. That is what many of us expect from independent organisations like yourself and would expect from the Electoral Commission if it also had the concerns that you mentioned. Parth, we heard in our inquiry recently at PACAC that the Electoral Commission recommended these changes in 2014 because of r…”

“We will ask them in a little bit, but I do not believe they came out and ever made those comments publicly that they had those concerns, did they?”

“Thank you. Peter, I think in late 2022 your organisation put out a press release saying that it was no longer realistic to successfully introduce voter ID in May 2023. A quote directly from you said, “We risk electors being deprived of their right to vote”. Do you think the Electoral Commission and the previous Governm…”

“Do you think that the previous Government and the Electoral Commission took those concerns seriously?”

“You would say negative.”

“A few questions, if that is okay. Lara, you talked there about the impact that you expect the voter ID laws to have had or will have on migrant communities. First, do you think the introduction of voter ID has had an overall positive or negative impact on the participation of migrant communities in British politics? Se…”

“Alongside other Members representing Milton Keynes, I attended the Chancellor’s speech last Wednesday and spoke to many companies, including those from the life sciences sector. There were two really important points that they wanted to make, after being reasonably pleased with what they heard from the Chancellor. The …”

“Somebody who works in my local jobcentre in Milton Keynes came to visit me last week and told me about his experiences. He currently has to conduct 10-minute appointments, and as a lot of that time is spent on admin, he is not able to give the necessary help and support to people who are desperate to find a job. Does m…”

“A quick question to Louise. One issue on more fiscal devolution brought up in the previous panel was on inequality between regions. The other issue, which we did not speak about before, was the idea of creating favourable tax arrangements over here which can move certain organisations in and lowering the overall tax ba…”

“I am Member of Parliament for Milton Keynes North.”

“I am Labour MP for Milton Keynes North and have never been a councillor.”

“I will just push back on this point slightly, because Will said something quite interesting at the start, which was that district councils are bigger than a lot of European comparisons and obviously what we are trying to create is even bigger than that. But is that not basically the point? The problem is not about this…”

“Lots of people bring up the size of 500,000. I come from a position of broadly agreeing with Tim. As far as I am aware, the 1.5 million for the combined authorities is not necessarily a statutory test like some other things are, so there will be flexibility around that. I cannot find it in my notes, but I assume that i…”

“A similar question to one we had earlier. Are there any other fiscal powers that would be appropriate to devolve to local or combined authorities in the White Paper? Do you want to start, Louise?”

“I did promise the Chair it would be a quick question.”

“Do you mind if I add to that as well? You have this taskforce for ending homelessness, which is going to be working cross-Department. Will that taskforce be looking into this alongside your colleagues in that other Department? On that strategy note that you discussed with us earlier, will you release your findings afte…”