Speeches by Norman.

“Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?”

“It is famously true that our present Prime Minister gets 100 times more animated and passionate about the performance of his football club every weekend than he does about trivial details of social, economic or foreign policy, and still more so when it comes to defeating the enemy from Manchester. So one would have to …”

“You have introduced a KPI in relation to casework, because you were worried about it not running fast enough. Which are the other KPIs that you are not meeting at the moment?”

“That is extremely helpful. The clarification there is that spring is actually spring—please inform the Treasury. Spring is spring; we like that very much. It will be March. One would have a worry that if you were operating at roughly 1,000 a month, it would take 16 months from now, and therefore well into the end of th…”

“It sounds like my caseload in my constituency.”

“That is very helpful. You talked about principal applicants, but what is the status of the non-principal applicants? How many are there and what timetable is associated with them?”

“Even if that was the rough, or even somewhat generous, interpretation of the last five months, you think it will be going much faster from now, and it has to in order to hit the March deadline? Witnesses indicated assent.”

“So the number has been revised down by 1,000?”

“Eight hundred to 1,000 is the kind of number you are gesturing to for the last six months, if you have done 5,000 in that period.”

“That would be very helpful. To pick up General Ben’s point, it would help us if you could comment privately on the wait for grant now, and the factors affecting that. To follow up on your point, Minister, are all aspects of the programme compliant with the KPIs that have been set?”

“Can you comment for a second, General Ben, on the composition of the last 16,000? Obviously, you could have all the tough nuts being left to the last minute, or they could have been cracked early and it could be relatively smooth sailing. How is that working?”

“You will have a sense, though, because you will have been sampling and you will know what the breakdown of application types is, won’t you?”

“Just to be clear, as an operational matter, there is no suggestion that any pressure is being applied to deny cases that would otherwise receive grants.”

“You are content that the procedure is still as robust, if not more robust, than it started out being.”

“General Ben, which of the KPIs are you not meeting at the moment?”

“In terms of any KPIs that have been published in relation to the scheme.”

“Sixteen thousand?”

“Mr Wilson, in view of what the Minister has just said about the generosity of the scheme and the availability of it now, compared with some of the alternatives, could you comment on the number you have given, which is that the remaining 17,000 applications will be processed by spring of next year? At the moment, how ma…”

“You have been at 800 a month for the last six months.”

“Could you name some so that we have them on the record and we know which ones to look at and think about, and which you are thinking about?”