Speeches by Davies.

“No, and that is the point. We do not have the information audited. Clearly, the accounts have been produced in most—not all—cases, and of course councils will have been diligent in preparing those accounts. The principle that you can only really take assurance from these as a user of the accounts if they are properly a…”

“Just because writing off £1 billion is an extremely expensive thing to do immediately, isn’t it? You can see why that is unattractive. A lot of decisions in Government are essentially affordability versus value for money. It might be a poor value-for-money solution, but often the sad truth of some decisions is that it …”

“You will have to ask them; that is a question for Government, not for us.”

“Obviously, it is not the fault of local residents that their council has got into this situation and that it has unaudited or disclaimed accounts, so I guess I would say it is not fair to take it out on local residents. Clearly, in some cases, people are paying additional rates of council tax, for example, because of f…”

“No. They have an audit report from the external auditor on them, but they are the most heavily qualified they could be, in a sense, by saying, “We don’t have the information to give an opinion on these accounts.” Essentially, local taxpayers up and down the country are not getting basic assurance on how their council t…”

“I do not want to comment on individual cases. I referred earlier to an independent review in Woking. In some cases, it looks like there have been building concerns, and you can tell that from the way in which things are being reported, but there is a question there about why things were not then escalated faster. In ot…”

“It needs to restore the status of external audit in local government as a service in which people who do it take pride and it achieves the basic objectives of any external audit, which is robust, high-quality, timely assurance. The year end for local authorities is 31 March. By the autumn at the latest, there should be…”

“We know that the Energy Secretary is against airport expansion unless it is in Doncaster, and we know that many Labour MPs are against airport expansion unless it is in Pakistan. To be fair, at least the Chancellor wants airport expansion actually in this country, but at the same time she is jacking up air passenger du…”

“I rise on behalf of the official Opposition to support Lords amendments 1B, 5B, 8B and 21B. It feels like only last week that we were all here, but it is clear that our colleagues in the other place feel as strongly as the Opposition do about these amendments, as they have returned them to us with a similar aim once ag…”

“My right hon. Friend has raised that matter at every single opportunity that he has been afforded, and he is right to stand up not just for St Barnabas, but for all hospices. However, I have to say that St Barnabas holds a particular place in the hearts of people in Lincolnshire. I know, as a Lincolnshire Member of Par…”

“It is rare that questions come with a musical accompaniment, but the right hon. Gentleman’s mobile ringtone made for a great effect. None the less, his point is the right one, which is that, whether it was intended or not, the rationale for the Bill is to “protect”—in the Government’s words—public services. I could say…”

“Absolutely. To be fair, I do not think the profound impact of this tax is appreciated by Labour Front Benchers. The hon. Lady has pointed out yet another area in which it will have an impact—tax on education. I could talk about the impact on universities as well.”

“That is right, and it is an important point, because the decisions made by this Government are having such a profound impact on people in the real economy. I simply say to the British public that if they are unhappy with the decisions being made, they have to change the people making them. [Interruption.] Unbelievably,…”

“I remind the House that inflation has already gone from 2% to 3% under this Labour Government, and in fact, the OBR scored the Hallowe’en Budget as inflationary. The hon. Gentleman is right that when these tax rises hit, they will be passed on through higher prices. I hope that that will not put pressure on inflation, …”

“I will make some progress, if the hon. Gentleman will allow me, and then give way. This tax, purely and simply, is a financial penalty on 940,000 businesses—that is how I look at it. The analysis shows that it is going to cost businesses an average of £26,000 per year per employer. Not content with ruining farmers’ fut…”

“Yes, it is. My right hon. Friend is exactly right; the Government are giving a small amount with one hand and taking a larger amount with the other, but the bottom line is that it is all taxpayers’ money. It is a double tax on those people who now face the brunt of this tax increase.”

“The problem with that intervention is that the chairman of GB Energy himself disagrees about the number of jobs that it will supposedly be creating. I have set out clearly some of the things that we would do differently, and the different choices we would make from the choices this Labour Government are making. When we…”

“To answer simply, I do not think the Government did that assessment before announcing this tax rise, but with plummeting business confidence, declining economic growth and forecasts for economic growth that are consistently downgraded, the profound impact on businesses and growth—as I was saying—is clear for all to see…”

“If the hon. Gentleman looks back at the record of proceedings on earlier stages of the Bill, he will see that we voted against it. If he looks at our record in government, he will see that we cut national insurance for 29 million people across the country. As I have said so many times in this place, why are we not deba…”

“I rise on behalf of the official Opposition in support of Lords amendments 1 to 4, 8, 10, 14 and 21. Before I dive into the detail, I want to get a little nostalgic. One year and six days ago, I opened Second Reading of the National Insurance Contributions (Reduction in Rates) Act 2024, which cut national insurance for…”