Speeches by Kane.

“I want to talk about resources. How are you going to ensure that NISTA has the necessary resources and capacity to deliver its scope?”

“I want to turn to ask you about the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority, or NISTA, as we have been referring to it. I know we have referred to it earlier on, but, just to give a very clear statement here, how is NISTA going to improve the delivery of Government’s major projects?”

“Chair, I hope you will forgive me for carrying on a little bit on smaller projects. I know we are talking about big projects. One of the reasons that councils tend not to have that as an internal resource is that they do not need it all the time. They buy it in. There is an economic reason that they buy it in. When it …”

“AI will reduce the need for certain resources, but there is a need for a resource to evaluate and use the AI, to check that it is interacting with the Departments properly. Do you have the resource to do that? At the stage you are at with NISTA, it is an exciting time to be looking at AI and also evaluating it. You are…”

“The programme launch for this year’s Bloody Scotland—the country’s leading crime writing festival—took place at the Golden Lion hotel in Stirling. It is the 13th annual festival and this year includes events programmed by Scotland’s king of crime writing, Sir Ian Rankin, and takes place on the weekend of 12 to 14 Septe…”

“T5. United Auctions in my constituency has recently become the UK’s first employee-owned livestock auctioneer. Will the Secretary of State commit to doing more to encourage employee ownership models as a great option for rural businesses that want to thrive, attract new talent and remain rooted in the communities that …”

“For too many people, the belief that intelligence, hard work and perseverance will be rewarded no longer holds true. The ladder of opportunity that once allowed previous generations to climb to a better future is now harder to reach and sometimes even harder to ascend. This is not just a personal frustration; it is a s…”

“Q12. In Scotland, over 10,000 children are stuck in temporary accommodation, including many in my constituency. Too many families face soaring rents, long waiting lists and dwindling options. It is just one of so many policy failings—we are all losing count and losing patience—as public confidence in the SNP’s ability …”

“The SNP has cut mental health services across Scotland, while failing to recruit the necessary workforce in rural communities such as those in Stirling and Strathallan. What assessment has the Department made of how devolved mismanagement of mental health services is affecting outcomes for patients in rural Scotland?”

“I am going to push this ever so slightly, because as a Scottish MP—a devolved MP—I think your answer would give my colleagues from England great confidence that these conversations are going on between the right people and the right Departments, but from my perspective there is another level in that, which is the Scott…”

“Thank you. I note that the Highland RFCA was one of the two that was visited for this Report. There are challenges in supporting an estate and a process when the geographical scale of the highlands is such as it is. How do you address the challenges of dealing with an estate, and a process, that is incredibly spread ou…”

“My experience of dealing with contractors in the highlands is that they are used to dealing with the great distances, and that going between the first call in the morning and the second call can sometimes be 50, 60, 70, 80 or 100 miles. Certainly, the contractors that you encounter in the highlands do not see the geogr…”

“Thank you. I will just make the point, slightly tongue in cheek, that for hundreds of years, Stirling bridge has been the Army’s definition of the difference between the highlands and the lowlands, and you still have that, because my constituency is right in the middle, between the highlands and the lowlands. But it wo…”

“To follow up on that, with the different ranks of non-commissioned and commissioned officers, does that approach to getting geographical spread occur across all ranks of the armed forces, or do you find that you recruit officers from one part and NCOs from another? I am part of the armed forces parliamentary scheme—you…”

“The strategic defence review mentions working with the Department for Education, and you mentioned it there. To pick up on my earlier point, when it mentions the Department for Education, it means the Department for Education here, but this is devolved. Can you talk to me about how you are going to get these links to e…”

“I suppose what I am hearing—tell me if I am hearing this right—is that a potential barrier to a 30% increase in cadets will be the number of volunteers that exist to support them, so in order to achieve the 30% expansion, we also have to have a programme to expand the number of volunteers. Again, I think I heard from y…”

“In the NAO Report, paragraph 2.22 talks about what could be done to encourage employers “to support staff who are adult volunteers”. Let us park the 30% expansion for a minute and talk about the need to support the adult volunteers who run local cadet units. Are we supporting the process enough to find more of them?”

“The strategic defence review says, “Reconnecting Defence with society should be the starting point” for “a renewed focus on home defence…as part of a national conversation led by the Government on defence and security. This can be achieved in part through expanding Cadet Forces by 30% by 2030.” General Gordon, are the …”

“Obviously, schools are a devolved issue. Can you talk about the differences you may be seeing when it comes to approaching schools or recruiting cadets within a devolved landscape? Is the approach to the four home nations working the same?”

“Paragraph 2.8 of the Report says that “some SLA owners highlighted the lack of penalty or break clauses in the agreements, or that they were uncertain what the escalation mechanism was if RFCAs did not respond to performance concerns they had raised”. How do you manage poor performance, particularly if there are not an…”