Speeches by Glen.

“I was going to ask that question specifically. The Prime Minister is reportedly going to focus on disposable income, but if you increase from 8% on a ratchet to about 10%, 12% or 13%—where Australia is—that will have an impact on disposable income. Is he wrong to do that? We have a direct conflict here, between a fixin…”

“I am not sure that is still the mission.”

“Thank you. Mr Celic, could you tell us what your members are saying? This is a topic that again has been discussed for most of the last five years. Do you think progress is being made? Is there a risk that we are once again avoiding some difficult challenges? We have one bad conduct thing, and there is always a call fo…”

“In some of our conversations previously, some of your members were probably the most assertive about wanting a primary objective. In the end, the Government at the time settled for a secondary objective. Would you like to describe where your members are now in terms of what they think needs to happen to realise the obj…”

“So what do we need to do to stop that? Your commentary is not in dispute; I am sure your colleagues this morning would share it. I understand that in your report you put a number of recommendations about 10-year horizons, clarity and all the rest of it. That means resisting some of the calls to intervene and give compe…”

“Can we focus in on the growth and competitiveness objective? As I see it, the previous Government legislated to institutionalise, in our country, a secondary growth objective for the regulator. At the same time, there is a call for higher standards of consumer care. When I was the Minister in this area, I always felt t…”

“I think it would be worth going back to the original question, because this is the core issue you face as representatives of the industry.”

“They do not trust themselves.”

“That is a massive consumer detriment at the moment, isn’t it?”

“Isn’t the reality that the poorest consumers have a lack of pathways? Mr McAteer suggests that that is because the banks and financial institutions are not using the opportunities of AI to create products and pathways, but consumers are losing growth in their cash, if they put it in equities. More than that, they are g…”

“After year one.”

“In reality, a step change in the level of financial knowledge and awareness among the poorest in our society will not happen immediately. I am not saying that there are not things that can be done—I think we could all find a way of doing that. However, notwithstanding the point about not doing enough research, if peopl…”

“If Wiltshire embraces the opportunity to join Dorset and Somerset in an elected mayoral authority, will there be local elections all-out in Wiltshire next spring?”

“ May I ask you about the incidence, value and revenues of business roll-over relief, where individuals sell a business asset, buy land and defer CGT? That is commonly seen as how wealthy non-farmers have created the mechanism to avoid tax. Essentially, there is revenue forgone consequential on that activity. Surel…”

“ A guest appearance for you, Jim!”

“ I think there is some sort of misunderstanding because it was my recollection that after Covid, additional resources were made available—£100 million—so that you could pursue fraud cases. You then have the £1.16 billion out of the circa £5 billion you estimated that was fraud. You will obviously—as you dutifully …”

“ We now have a Covid fraud commissioner. In essence, that runs counter to that professional judgment around shutting it down, because there was a law of diminishing returns. That is why we stopped doing it in the previous Government.”

“ What I am trying to get at is that your professional judgment was to curtail those activities. Like all fraud, you are never going to say, “No, never,” but no resources have been allocated to it. That was based on your judgment of the likelihood of diminishing returns.”

“ Ministers did.”

“ I’d expect that you’ve got everything that you asked for.”