Speeches by Reid.

“How do you think children can be best supported to navigate the internet safely? Do you think the Online Safety Act—given that may be too left field—is sufficient in protecting children from extremism?”

“As the chair of the all-party parliamentary group against antisemitism, I know that with British Jewish communities facing an unprecedented rise in antisemitic attacks and hatred of Jews being spread with impunity online, many Jews are fearful that the events in Birmingham are just the first step towards excluding them…”

“Do you think the problems are intrinsic, or can a far better system be designed that does not have those problems?”

“That is very clear; thank you. You have mentioned eVisas quite a few times, and you have talked about people being locked out of work because the system had broken down or whatever. Are there other impacts on individuals using eVisas, beyond the examples you have already given?”

“Do you think there is any policy area in which digital ID would be justifiable to help to enforce the law?”

“I want to focus on linking the digital ID to the right to work. You have been clear on your fundamental concerns and, I suppose, areas of principle that you disagree with. Do you have any specific concerns about linking it to the right to work?”

“Do you think they should?”

“Lastly, just moving on to Scotland, this national inquiry affects only England and Wales. We know that victims go cross-border. Have you heard from the Scottish Government? Have you had any correspondence about Scotland and the extent to which Scotland can be involved in evidence gathering, whether or not it is involve…”

“Just to follow up on Robbie’s point about the local inquiries, are you able to commit to them? Oldham, in particular, has been asking for this. Will they be involved in those national inquiries which were committed to back in November?”

“Finally, do you feel that sufficient funding has been allocated, not just for this inquiry but for the other inquiries that have been committed to by the Government? Southport is one but I cannot remember the third one.”

“But it has been a target since this new Government came in following the election last year. Do you think it is reasonable? It is not a loaded question. It could be very complex; you have lots of partners that you need to consult. Should it take this long? It has been 16 or 17 months, and we have not yet seen a publish…”

“You have buy-in from the agencies and other Government Departments, so is it going to be across Government?”

“Moving on to group-based child sexual exploitation and the national inquiry, can you give us an update on the inquiry and talk about what the problems are and why it is taking so long to appoint a chair?”

“I am going to turn to violence against women and girls. We have already addressed much of what I was going to ask, but just to clarify that I have this clear, you have given us two bits of information in relation to that. First, there is an agreed definition which is going to align with agencies across Government on vi…”

“When should we expect a chair to be announced?”

“With regard to police and police data, is that the definition that is going to be used when we are assessing the commitment from Government about halving violence against women and girls?”

“It is ultimately quite straightforward. Is that definition going to be used when we are measuring the Government’s commitment to halving violence against women and girls? There has been a lot of discussion about how you define that and therefore how you measure that. Are you saying that the official Government definiti…”

“We are clear that a strategy has not been published for the violence against women and girls or the knife crime targets. We are 16 or 17 months into this Parliament. Do you think it is reasonable that we have not yet seen a published strategy for how we are going to get there on these targets? If not, why is it taking …”

“We have talked a lot about learning lessons from the past, to make sure we are more agile and accountable. It is fair to say that the lack of implementation of those recommendations is a huge unmitigated failure, given that none of them had been looked at or implemented until very recently. If we are going to improve t…”

“Just to follow up on what Paul was saying, the diagnosis is not really new, is it? That lack of accountability and transparency is something we have heard quite a lot of over the last two decades. What I am trying to get a sense of is what is different this time so that we and the public do not feel that it is just som…”