Speeches by Jones.

“But we are trusting mayors in combined authorities by giving them the responsibility for a fund where they get to decide what they want to spend it on.”

“Combined authority mayors are accountable to their local scrutiny functions. They have to report back on their integrated settlement outcomes to MHCLG.”

“No, we have just given them the money based on the population they look after in their area. They get a flat rate and then a top-up based on the number of people they look after. We did that because we believe that enhanced intra-city transport is a way to unlock untapped growth in cities and city regions that currentl…”

“No, we are very committed to and respect the devolution of decisions to mayors in their place. Our new transport for city regions fund, where we have increased the amount of money going into these mayoral combined authorities, is based on the principles that we think are growth-enhancing from the Treasury—”

“Yes. We have come to a point of agreement that we are going to give it a go, but we have to work out with colleagues across Government what pilots we are going to do first.”

“No, I cannot. If they were to provide me with specific examples, I might be able to write to them. I will stress again that the place-based pilot is not something we have done yet, so we should write to you to tell you—”

“It will be for Departments to make the case for that. One of the great things that NISTA will be able to do for us in this co-ordination, including in the place-based pilot, is to flesh out our assessments of non-monetised benefit collaboratively in those places, among different types of bids. It is a pilot for a reaso…”

“We are not going to be reappraising previous business cases, but we will use the new approach in the Green Book for any resubmitted business cases or new business cases. You are right to focus on the role of BCR decisions in the past. We are obviously still doing BCR assessments, but we recognise the challenge that you…”

“There are a couple of key outcomes that have been broadly welcomed by stakeholders. The first is that we want to try to streamline and simplify this as much as possible. I think everybody holds the Green Book up as this kind of mystical deciding book somewhere in the Treasury, but it is just guidance that we need to fo…”

“The SNP position on defence spending is quite clear. The SNP tends to be quite anti-defence spending, especially on nuclear capabilities and facilities. But Scotland has an enormous role to play in our national security framework. We are putting enormous amounts of money into the Ministry of Defence to protect the coun…”

“The growth and city deals are an area where we work in partnership with the devolved Governments to deliver a particular economic output and benefit for a place. We use money directly from the UK Government, alongside money that the devolved Governments have, to invest in those areas. We want to be working hand in glov…”

“I am seeing Shona tomorrow for our regular finance inter-ministerial with devolved Government Finance Ministers. I am not entirely sure why she thinks she has been short changed given that it was the largest real-terms settlement since devolution began. From our perspective, the UK Government has given the Scottish Gov…”

“There is a point of agreement around the role of combined authorities, and supporting mayor-led combined authorities as an approach to devolution in England. We agreed on that on a cross-party basis. That is why we have kept them and are continuing with them. We are developing the models for delivery with combined auth…”

“The Office for Value for Money was purposefully set up as a temporary function. That does not mean that we are not going to learn any lessons from it. Obviously, the Treasury has its own admin budget targets, and we are thinking about how we reshape our own functions within the Treasury. One of the things that we have …”

“I do not know if we have done a particular study that we can publish.”

“The National Housing Bank will be an extension of Homes England. It needs to be set up, and people need to be brought in to run it. They will work like other public sector financial institutions: either they will have a mechanism for bids and requests from organisations, or people will come to them and ask them to help…”

“That is separate. The £39 billion is capital grant for the affordable housing programme, so that is just the Department spending money itself. The National Housing Bank is going to be financed with financial transactions capacity, which it will be able to use for debt or equity agreements with private sector partners i…”

“There are two things that we came to a point of agreement on in the spending review. One was the agreement on having a rate of CPI plus 1% over a 10-year period so that housing associations are able to borrow against their projected rental income in a way that allows them to build more properties. That has been an ask …”

“They will definitely tell us what they want to do, and we will need to approve that in the normal way. But we have not got to that stage yet.”

“It will be for Department to decide. We have given them their overall spending envelope for the affordable homes programme. They obviously set the parameters for which money can be drawn down from the programme. We have just extended the existing scheme design by another year, and then the Department itself will need t…”