Speeches by Davies.

“The Government’s industrial strategy rightly states that improving skills in the construction sector is essential to keeping our country building. In fact, on page 44, there is a commitment to invest “£625 million to train…60,000 more skilled workers”. It has been one year since publication, so how many more skilled wo…”

“I am grateful for the update on the Minister’s tiling skills, but I did not hear a number showing how he is making progress on the £625 million commitment. Perhaps he can write to me on how they are making progress. One of the existing schemes that supports training is the Construction Industry Training Board, but many…”

“As you say, it is clearly worded and it is agreed with the Department as well, so this is a factually accurate summary of the position.”

“I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement, and for coming to the House proactively this morning. I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and my former career in asset management. I very much welcome the Government’s recognition that industrial energy bills r…”

“Apologies.”

“It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair presiding over us, Mr Twigg. I am very grateful to the Government Whip for setting out the regulations. It is clear that this is a matter of great importance across Government, and it is an important matter for the Opposition, too. In fact, the regulations carry on work th…”

“Can the Minister clarify whether she has met any businesses since taking office in this specific industry, and not just relied on the 2023 piece of work?”

“In 2022, Grantham saw the opening of one of the country’s first community diagnostic centres; since then, more than 100,000 tests have been completed for the local population. Now, I want the same for the town of Bourne. Will the Minister meet me, so that I can make the case for a new community diagnostic centre in Bou…”

“The responsibility for that balance is with MHCLG, which is responsible for building. The central, joint team between my Department and the Treasury will provide advice, guidance and challenge to that process. For me, you do not get sustainable growth by threatening or risking life and limb in that way. That is why we …”

“Sorry—I am just working my way through your questions. If I look at the people in the Department, I do not have the stats in front of me, but a significant number of people have significant amounts of business experience. For example, on my board, one of the directors general was at a major corporate law firm for 30 ye…”

“We are working our way through that over this year. We gave an update on our work in October; we will give another update before the summer. This will already be happening with Departments across the top 16 regulators; all of them have already had a ministerial bilateral, and the work through on the growth goals and th…”

“They need to help their sectors flourish and grow. If you look at the work of the Civil Aviation Authority, which, when I worked in the Department for Transport, was led ably by Richard Moriarty, it obviously focuses on safety—that is an absolutely core role—but also on how new technologies can be introduced into that …”

“In terms of quantified numbers?”

“No. What we are doing and working on—”

“To build on what Jess said, there are different ways in which you can tackle this. The key point that you highlighted, Ms Dixon, is the complexity of this compared with how it can look—it can look very sensible from a Whitehall perspective, but you have to turn this around. I was very struck by the comments made today …”

“There was a collection of questions in there. Let me try to work my way through them all. Do I think that my Department has the capability and capacity to deliver on the growth agenda? That is probably not for me to say; I would say that you should go and speak to some businesses, and there will obviously be mixed view…”

“I am trying to think of the best way into that. Ultimately, yes, because there is always that sense of how you get the appropriateness of the regulation, which is absolutely critical. The key thing in a market economy is that we are not trying to take away all risk. If you speak to CityUK—as the Chair referenced—one of…”

“Let me come at this in another way and look at some of the reforms to the Competition and Markets Authority over the past year, and the complaints or concerns that a lot of businesses I spoke to had about the CMA back in 2023 or 2024. Obviously, people will complain about decisions when it goes against them. That is pa…”

“Yes.”

“Yes. That is exactly the benefit of having the integrated action plan reporting to the Chancellor and having the joint unit with officials from my team and from the Treasury. We set the strategy, which we agree through various governance within Government, and each Government Department has similar levels of responsibi…”