Speeches by Davies.

“We all want innovative British companies not just to start up in Britain, but to scale up in Britain, too. I welcome the Minister’s previous comments, and actually his enthusiasm, for our most innovative companies. However, he will know that the Chancellor’s decision to cut venture capital trust rate relief will be ver…”

“I am grateful to the Minister for that answer, but I asked specifically about VCT rate relief. The last time that rate relief was cut, under the last Labour Government, fundraising was cut by two thirds and it took a decade for that to recover in the sector. Specifically on VCT rate relief, which has been cut from 30% …”

“The Government’s strategic defence review rightly highlighted the important role of reservists across the country. I am very proud that Grantham’s Prince William of Gloucester barracks trains around 70% of all Army reservists in the country. Can we have a debate on the Government’s decision to close down Grantham’s bar…”

“The Report is very clear; we are quoting MoD staff who have that view. It is precisely worded in the Report, so I don’t think there is any dispute about that. This is a view from the assurance teams and the finance teams observing the culture they are working with.”

“Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker, not least for the promotion that you just gave me—I hope the Whips are listening. It is a genuine pleasure, even before the promotion, to respond to the debate on behalf of the official Opposition. I am grateful to all colleagues from across the House for what I think were pre…”

“I just wanted to mention, if Dave had not, the event we have lined up for April, where we have invited civil servants to understand more about the lessons here. It is also the only Report in my time that I have written to every permanent secretary about, with a copy of the Report, to draw it to their attention. I have …”

“I totally understand that the Minister might not have the information to hand right now, so will she commit to writing to me?”

“It is always a great pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Lewell. It is also a pleasure to see the Minister in her place. Alternative dispute resolution is intended to provide a low-cost, efficient alternative for resolving disputes between consumers and businesses. I thank the Minister for setting out what these regul…”

“Delivering the efficiency savings they have all been required to make. Of course, not only will having high-quality systems with good information help the audit to become more efficient, but they will be delivering better services at less cost to the taxpayer.”

“On AI, we are very clear that the way in which we do our audits will be radically different in just five years’ time from now. It is already changing. The reason that you can be confident that this is a real change is what our teams are telling us: we see the need for a different skills mix. When the practitioners are …”

“Sure. Why don’t we come back on that? We produced the Report that the Committee has used recently arguing for a reduction in the reporting requirements on small public bodies, because we think they have gone too far and bog down those small teams with things that are actually getting in the way of the core business. Eq…”

“That is the bulk of our work—it is two-thirds of our work, our staff and our budget. The bit that the PAC engages with more frequently is our value for money work, which I think fits your bill of something that is tightly specified and very carefully targeted to have maximum impact. That is about 22% of our budget and …”

“There is a lot in there. Let me talk about the NAO for a second, because the accountability framework is a bit different, of course. As you know, the bulk of the NAO’s work and staffing is focused on the financial audit of Government and public body accounts. That is not something that we choose a discretionary level o…”

“There is a formal answer to that. As the Committee knows, we are annually assessed in the same way as the big firms by the Financial Reporting Council as our regulator. There are public reports on the quality of our work and of course that is only possible if you have the right people with the right skills to do it. In…”

“That is what we are aiming to be—and given who we are, it is really important that we do that. You will have seen a table in our estimate document that sets out our cashable efficiency savings over the next three years. We have only included in there the ones where we are either already contracting for them or we have …”

“No, although there are good examples as well—hopefully we are one of those. I will just explain the shape of the budget for next year and why it looks as it does. Essentially, we are starting to see some of the fruits of the investment over the last few years—that is the big picture here. As the Committee knows, we hav…”

“Good morning, I am Gareth Davies, Comptroller and Auditor General.”

“The incentive is being able to give you a better account of their performance on efficiency and delivery. The audit is a by-product of that.”

“Exactly, and in that case, it sits alongside the Report on the website, and we signpost to where to find detail about how system works. There will be more of that, I suspect.”

“Constantly, because we want to make them as impactful as possible. It is not always about the format of the Report itself; it could be about how we make some of our findings available in other ways. We are definitely making greater use of webinars and in-person seminars for people in the field that we have audited, and…”