Speeches by Glen.

“May I commend to the Secretary of State the role of Ploughshare, which is used to deal with the increasing commercialisation of opportunities at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down, in my constituency? In the context of the Ministry’s holistic review, which is now under way, will he undertake t…”

“My right hon. Friend and I have been Treasury colleagues. Officials often put forward this reform in the run-up to fiscal events, and she, like me, has resisted them. Will she reflect on the fact that significant landowners will have sophisticated tax planning regimes in place, that a large number of very small hobby f…”

“I welcome what the right hon. Gentleman is saying about mental health, but may I take him back to what he said about the Environment Agency? There is concern about the arbitration over whether Natural England or the Environment Agency has authority. South of Salisbury, in the Avon valley, there is a massive issue. The …”

“Mission boards.”

“We have some great champions for that on the Committee.”

“Thank you.”

“Can I ask Mr Macfarlane about the mechanisms for accountability for expenditure? I recall numerous times when, in the run-up to any fiscal event, there was another call for extra resources for the NHS—probably absolutely necessary—but there was never a mechanism to assess the productivity of that investment and to hold…”

“Can I ask you, permanent secretary, about the interaction with the OBR? Did anything change in the interaction between Treasury and OBR officials in the run-up to the March fiscal event? Was it any different from anything previously?”

“I do not want this to be an act of self-justification, because I was not there earlier this year, but up to 12 November last year, I was Chief Secretary to the Treasury and I was familiar with an ongoing process of having pressures that one was carrying. Numerous meetings were held, and it was a question of budgets tha…”

“But that would not have happened routinely outside of the preparation for a fiscal event. It was just that that was the business of a Chief Secretary and a Chancellor.”

“Beyond the theatre of politics, what we saw was politicians of both parties, in good faith, dealing with officials and taking advice as best we could. When we were dealing with those pressures the previous summer, we settled on the workforces, and we asked those workforces—I remember having those conversations, Departm…”

“That first weekend—so there was £22 billion on that first weekend.”

“Okay. Has that document been fully published?”

“And you maintain, Chancellor, that none of that number could have been managed through decisions made by the Chancellor in terms of departmental trade-offs and underspends?”

“But you also made additional choices that caused additional pressures during that period in July.”

“As you will be advised in subsequent years, the choreography of when you settle is part of the process of resolution. If you settle one by one, you create a dynamic to those resolutions. It is not unreasonable to have two back, and then to hold them back until you have the others.”

“Thank you for those answers.”

“Can I ask about the tax view you have about competitiveness and tax? If you add up the increases in national insurance, the retention of the corporation tax rate, the changes to CGT and other changes to business property relief, you have obviously put a lot of emphasis on the distributional impact of it. But is there a…”

“No new taxes—no additional taxes?”

“So you don’t rule out additional taxes, then.”