Speeches by Baldwin.

“I will go back to Mr Threlfall, if I may, just on the governance question, because the economic and fiscal outlook from our friends at the OBR noted that the new debt measure that the Chancellor is using creates incentives for the Government to invest through loans and equity injections rather than through direct spend…”

“Do the things I listed make it a credible investment platform for your members?”

“What changes to governance would you want to see? I cannot see, with the current arrangements, how you can avoid that risk of it becoming a Treasury slush fund. Does anyone else want to come in on this particular topic? Mr Cummings, with your expertise on governance, would you like to see some changes in governance?”

“Fair enough. In terms of governance, I want to ask the panel about some of the recent announcements that the National Wealth Fund has made. There has been the closure of the Grangemouth refinery, yet we hear the National Wealth Fund is putting £200 million into initiatives around Grangemouth. There has been the situati…”

“Would you call them out then for having made these new investments—the ones I mentioned are all new—that sound more like the sort of thing you would expect from the Environment Agency?”

“We do not seem to have anyone co-investing.”

“That is going to be helpful for the chair of the National Wealth Fund as they go and find a new chief executive. Mr Cummings, I was very struck by the comparison that you made right at the beginning with the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund. The Norwegian sovereign wealth fund is a genuine wealth fund, is it not, where …”

“It is a misnomer to convince the British public that this is an actual wealth fund. This is the Government borrowing at the Government’s borrowing rate and then investing alongside, at a 3:1 ratio, in projects to hopefully make us wealthier and to make the debt go down. It is not directly a wealth fund.”

“It is proper wealth as well.”

“For the same reasons that we opposed clause 3 on enforcement, we would like to divide the Committee on clause 6. Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.”

“What a welcome moment, Ms Vaz—my colleague from the Liberal Democrats, the hon. Member for Chippenham, supports the rationale behind the amendments. The swelling in support for our amendments gives me a welcome opportunity to test the opinion of the Committee on each of them. Question put, That the amendment be made.”

“On a point of order, Ms Vaz. I seek clarification: are not the remaining amendments in the group to clause 12?”

“On the surface, clause 11 looks like just an interpretation clause, but there is one provision about which I would like a little elaboration from the Minister. An online marketplace is defined as “a service or feature of a service on…a website or part of a website…a mobile application, or…any other platform by means of…”

“Given that the Minister just admitted that the Government had to amend the clause in the other place because of its extensive Henry VIII powers, and that some remain in the clause, we would like to divide the Committee. Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.”

“So we will not be taking decisions on them now, but I would like to reserve the right to ask the Committee’s opinion later.”

“Once again, the amendments would remove Henry VIII powers and make regulations subject to the affirmative procedure. Amendment 10 relates to the amendment or repealing, in consequence of the Bill, of provisions made by the Gun Barrel Proof Acts 1868 to 1978. We want to prevent regulations made under the Bill from amend…”

“I beg to move amendment 10, in clause 10, page 10, line 24, leave out subsection (2). This amendment would prevent regulations under this Act from amending provisions made by primary legislation.”

“I seek your guidance, Sir John, as there were a number of amendments that pertained to clause 2 in the first few groupings on which the Committee could divide. Should we do that now?”

“Again, I think we are in relevant authority territory here. We are talking about imposing fees in respect of any costs, and there are certainly some issues to note for the record. On the collection and recovery of payments, I spoke strongly earlier about fines and the interest payable on outstanding payments and so on.…”

“We have not tabled any amendments to clause 7. My earlier point about the vague wording of “relevant authority” also applies to this clause, but the Minister has set out why information sharing under these provisions is necessary. We can see the rationale for that, so we do not intend to oppose or seek to amend the cla…”