Speeches by Powell.

“My final question is in terms of that second part. Do you think that there is a case for professionalised staff to support scrutiny committees, so like we would have in a Select Committee here, but having dedicated staff capacity and training to do that?”

“To follow up on Chris’s point, for London we have the Greater London Authority Act from 1999. I understand that the focus has been on filling in the map, but it starts to feel like the London deal looks less ambitious than a lot of the more recent deals. When will we have a proper look at the right balance between the …”

“T7. I warmly welcome the massive sanctions package announced yesterday by the Government, but does the Foreign Secretary agree that China should be taking a significantly more proactive role in preventing its companies from supplying Russia’s military?”

“Some of our witnesses throughout this inquiry have talked about the concerns around scrutiny. It builds a little bit on what we were just talking about with the consensus-based model for mayoral combined authorities. What steps are you planning to take to strengthen scrutiny? What is your vision for what good scrutiny …”

“In terms of between-election citizen engagement, as you get to a bigger unit one concern is that it becomes harder to have some of that direct citizen engagement. Are you thinking about ways of encouraging public participation in policy development and citizen oversight between elections?”

“I am Joe Powell, Labour MP for Kensington and Bayswater.”

“I thank my hon. Friend for his private Member’s Bill, which I wholeheartedly support. On the subject of evidence, pilots are increasingly being undertaken, such as the one in the “Swiped” documentary that was referenced earlier. I met 70 parents at All Saints Catholic college in my constituency two weeks ago to discuss…”

“T9. In recent years, the UK has slid down the international league table on tackling corruption. Given the threat of corruption to our democracy, economy and national security, will the Minister say whether the Government intend to publish a new comprehensive anti-corruption strategy?”

“It was, in fact, a Conservative Secretary of State who forced fare rises on Transport for London in exchange for covid emergency funding. What steps will my right hon. Friend take to put TfL on a better footing in the future, including backing great projects such as the one in my constituency to upgrade and provide ste…”

“I am Joe Powell, MP for Kensington and Bayswater.”

“I want to have a quick discussion on business rates. How do you assess the current system, the problems within it and the changes that the Chancellor has announced?”

“I have a quick follow-up for Tony. The accountability point is very interesting. If you were to fully devolve business rates and council tax, it comes back to the inequality point that we were talking about earlier, but that could, presumably, be a way of improving accountability.”

“The devastation in Gaza needs a strong international coalition focused on reconstruction, humanitarian aid and a pathway to a negotiated two-state solution with a viable Palestinian state, not speculation about handing over territory and forced displacement. On humanitarian aid, two pieces of legislation have now come …”

“I thank my co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on anti-corruption and responsible tax, where we talk about this a lot. Exhibit A is the UK public register of company ownership—when introduced, we were told that there would be all sorts of capital flight and that people would not come here to buy properties an…”

“I completely agree. Without transparency, we cannot follow the money. We have some prominent examples of properties owned by sanctioned oligarchs that came into the sanctions regime only after investigations uncovered those assets. Keeping the anonymous trust option available, without the requirement to declare the tru…”

“I thank the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury for his response, and I thank all hon. Members who have spoken for their contributions. This has been a productive and constructive debate. There has been a lot of agreement on the problem. We heard the tax case very strongly, particularly from the hon. Members for Strang…”

“I beg to move, That this House has considered tax transparency in the Overseas Territories. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Turner. Having worked on anti-corruption, open government and transparency issues for more than a decade, I am often asked why such issues matter when there are so many pressing…”

“If I am allowed to.”

“I will start with Duncan to try to get a sense of the scale of the challenge. Currently, what do we know and not know about where money is coming from to political parties?”

“Have you done any internal assessment with your staff of any chilling effect that that statement has had or noticed anything that has happened differently?”