Speeches by Egan.

“Thank you. Professor Ertl, what can Skills England learn from your organisation?”

“Mr Milburn, you have been out speaking to young people across the country. We are curious: what do young people tell you?”

“We did not get to talk much about housing and housing policy, but that has been a generational shift. We will all have seen the rise of people well into adulthood in house shares and the rise of the HMO. How do you think housing policy has an impact on youth employment and on education, training and opportunity?”

“I also wanted to ask about the regional variations that you are finding. Is it best to think of that in terms of geographical regions? I represent a constituency in Bristol that is half urban and half more suburban. I wonder if it is also about the type of places where people live, because I can definitely see the diff…”

“England has a high rate of skills mismatch. I was wondering what your thoughts were about that. Something that we are cognisant of on this Committee is the future of work—how those skills gaps might evolve over the coming decades.”

“Was there any understanding of why that was?”

“We have talked about future forecasting. We spoke about AI at the beginning and changes in the world of technology. I speak to a lot of people who are worried about what that means, mainly for their children and for future generations. There can be a feeling that this is an increasingly global world, so how is Britain …”

“Our Committee has been looking at the transition to pension age and the impact on older workers as the pension age increases. We took some evidence from people who are mostly 60-plus but not yet at retirement age about the challenges they face in terms of how to reskill if they need to change jobs. There is a gender dy…”

“Ministers will be aware that the charity sector is being exploited by extremists, with record amounts of money being pumped into British-based organisations with charitable status by our adversaries and hostile states. While these extremists often target Britain’s Jews, the threats go far beyond them—they do not stop w…”

“I am going to focus now on how we measure poverty. We have the newly developed deep poverty metric. I would like to ask each of the panel what you make of that, looking at the positive side but also the risks that come with it.”

“Sticking with the targets theme, I agree that you need to have that ambition and to be working against something, but should we not drill down a bit more? We have talked about poverty and its complexities, having targets and monitoring the strategy and the impact on different groups. When I go to schools in my constitu…”

“I want to focus on the Mayfield review. The Mayfield review charts a path to keeping Britain working, so I want to get your views on the extent to which that path is convincing.”

“I like that line: “coalition of the willing”.”

“That is interesting—thank you.”

“This is a question for Emily. You run the Employers for Carers and Carer Confident schemes. What lessons have you learned about the challenges and opportunities of working with different types of employers to improve work opportunities for carers?”

“Charles, do you think that the plans will help get the certified standard in Mayfield adopted by other types of employers?”

“Luckily a lot of the points that I was going to raise have been covered, because I wanted to ask about the barriers that impact young people from taking on more apprenticeships. If I ask the panel to be mindful about the point you were saying, Kate, around the entry level, level 2, level 3 apprenticeships—we talk about…”

“I want to ask a question that came up on the last panel, which was about the co-ordination of local demand with the supply of skills. Could you think about this in your respective areas, and with regard to how further education can help with that provision and what changes you may like to see within the further educati…”

“T5. Given the events in the middle east, can the Chancellor share with us what work is being done here and alongside our NATO allies and other partners to understand the economic consequences, people’s changing needs and the impact that has on Government spending when countries face times of conflict?”

“The targeting of RAF Akrotiri by Iranian proxies is a direct act of aggression against the United Kingdom. The Iranian regime have repeatedly shown their willingness to export terror internationally across multiple fronts. What steps is the Secretary of State taking with colleagues across Government to ensure Iran pose…”