Speeches by Davies.

“They are for up to the end of the financial year.”

“Shall I come on to Windrush? Obviously, I had the opportunity to review the scheme when I came into the Department. When I stand back—the NAO Report set this out very clearly—the original mistake was opening the scheme before the case-working capacity was stood up. Right from the start, you understandably had an initia…”

“On the first point, about the scope and scale of the Post Office schemes, what surprised me when I came into the role in 2023 was the lack of grip on the data in the Post Office, which partly reflected the problems with the underlying Horizon scheme—the IT platform. Their ability to produce accurate estimates of the sc…”

“Claimants should be able to get redress within an acceptable timeframe, and obviously 1,200 days sounds completely unacceptable. I dug into specific cases; I am cautious about how much individual detail we can reveal in a public forum, but as I touched on, the longest cases will typically—not always, but typically—be w…”

“I will give you a couple of reflections from my time being responsible before I pass to Carl. As the report set out, these schemes are trying to do three things. They are trying to provide accurate redress for the individuals, so there is something about being specific; do it with a sense of speed and pace, given the i…”

“Yes, totally. The people who are applying to these schemes have suffered an incredible wrong—a horrific wrong. Quite rightly, we are not trustworthy in their eyes because of the failings of the state over those years. Large backlogs at early points just compound the sense of not taking this seriously. We have needed to…”

“I do not want to give you false assurances. I do not have a plan in place in terms of timelines and deadlines, but yes, I want to come back to you on exactly what we are doing. I see this not as a once-and-done thing; this is changing the way in which the Department needs to operate and the way in which officials think…”

“It means that within six weeks, typically—that is the backstop—you will have a named caseworker. There will be an initial review of the claim, and if there is strong evidence supporting an entitlement, you will have an initial payment of £10,000. You have a named person you can speak to, and I think that has made a dif…”

“I will touch on four things. The most important thing is scaling up the unit. We now have more than 250 people working in the unit. Combined with that, probably the biggest thing that has made a difference is having a single named caseworker. Rather than it being a black box, you have consistency of relationship. That …”

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

“I have heard similar concerns about the level of transparency in the system. I think it is fair to say that when the scheme was initially set up it was, as I mentioned, a bit of a black box: you would put your application in and, because of capacity issues in the team, it would often take over five months before the in…”

“Coming into the Home Office, I was struck that the Windrush scheme does not offer legal support. In the Post Office scheme there is extensive legal support, which I am sure Carl will want to touch on. I sat down with the team to understand the history and the policy decisions that had been made. Part of the original ge…”

“The Government’s strategic defence review recommended an increase in the Army Reserve by 20%, but at the very same time the Government are closing Grantham’s Prince William of Gloucester barracks, which trains 70% of all Army reservists in the country. Will the Minister review that decision so that we have the capacity…”

“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…”

“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…”

“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.”

“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?”