Speeches by Davies.

“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…”

“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…”

“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 …”

“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…”

“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…”

“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?”

“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…”

“Can I just bring that to life by referring to the decisions that the Government have made on the minimum wage? Increasing the minimum wage is a policy decision for Ministers. They said that they wanted to focus on the cost of administering the minimum wage—not the transfer from businesses to workers. That is what we me…”

“Yes, I am very happy to. Of course, we will crystallise a lot of this in the update that we have planned for before the summer recess.”

“In terms of quantified numbers?”

“That is definitely a risk. The main way in which we are focused there is through the use of things such as the sector councils, where we get some of the largest investors around the table with Ministers so that they can give feedback about what is making a difference and what is not. The feedback from what is happening…”

“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 …”

“Yes, I was really struck by your question. I hanker after a single model where you can put all the options in, score them all on a consistent basis and see the impact on GDP clearly. It goes back to your question at the start, Mr Lowe; the connection between some of the reforms we are doing and the ultimate GDP impact …”

“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 …”

“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…”