Speeches by Norman.

“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.”

“Stop for a second, Minister. I am talking to the major general because I want him to give me an operational answer to the question of what KPIs are not being met.”

“Sixteen thousand?”

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

“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.”

“Top of the morning to you, Mr Speaker. Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?”

“I thank the Leader of the House very much for announcing the business, and I welcome all colleagues back to the House. I am sure that the whole House will wish to join me in congratulating His Majesty the King not only on the Gracious Speech yesterday, but on his glorious triumph in the United States of America, in par…”

“I apologise if I missed bits of that—I had to be at another Committee briefly. To pick up on that, a Cabinet Office SRO-led model would enable problems such as competition between Departments, unclear responsibilities and what you might call either overlaps or empire building. Presumably, those kinds of behaviours that…”

“No one wants responsibility or they all want all of the responsibility.”

“Were you aware that it would be quite convenient if the report that you put in was able to support closing the resettlement schemes and lifting the injunction?”

“When you think about accountability, how would that clarity of purpose relate to Ministers?”

“I have some experience of that, as a viewer.”

“Okay. I am just trying to get clear what is happening. You said you gave some emerging findings to colleagues at the MOD. Were they reviewed by Ministers?”

“How long was it after officials at a lower level heard about the breach that the information was communicated upward to private offices and Ministers?”

“So every word of that report was written either by you or personally approved by you?”

“No—and you are also flying the flag for responsible leadership in the civil service.”

“Okay. Were you given any kind of steer or expectation alongside the terms of reference for the work that you were doing?”

“Yes—thank you. Can we just go on for a second? Given what you know, and what Mr Lincoln knows, imagine that we had the same crisis tomorrow, or something similar: a resettlement scheme needs to be set up in very short order. What do you now know that would make things different from what was done at the time, and how s…”

“Well, there had been a fiasco at the Foreign Office, so you can see why they might have thought, “We have got to step forward and actually lead”.”

“Obviously it was convenient, as it proved, and you were to some extent aware of that—I think that is what you just said. It did not necessarily shade your judgment, but you were aware of that.”