Speeches by Grady.

“Ms Miller, we expect £22 billion headroom in 2029-30 against a target for the current account to be in balance. How confident are you that that will be met?”

“Dr Beck-Friis, Ms Miller has described an Augustinian current account policy, where we pay off and move into surplus, but not yet. It is always a few years ahead. Is there a point that you can identify where we actually need to move into current account surplus, or else we will move from fragile, as you have described …”

“I have not heard that one before.”

“What if we do not move towards that path over the next two years?”

“Professor Kitty Stewart and Kerris Cooper of the LSE found that children from low-income households do less well in life due to low income, not due to other factors. Does it necessarily follow that, first, reducing child poverty helps children do better in life, and, secondly, removing the two-child limit and addressin…”

“I just have a quick follow-up for Ms Miller. You mentioned changes in tax and so on. Another reason why people say some of these leaks may occur is to fly kites and take soundings. Does that not point to another wider point? The way that we do tax policy in Britain needs a thorough rethink so that things get consulted …”

“On a moral ground, as an MP with high levels of child poverty in the seat, I agree.”

“You are both doing very well at not giving me much by way of confidence—maybe I can ask someone else. This might be my last question. We have been talking since the OBR came into being about the forecasts of meeting a current account surplus and paying down the national debt. This is a serious issue because of the amou…”

“Professor Miles, you have explained that the leaks and endless speculation about this Budget, which seem to have been a lot greater than for any Budget that I remember, were not helpful. You have focused in particular on confidence in the process and confidence in the OBR, with different views being cast on the OBR, bu…”

“How confident are you, Professor Miles, that these backloaded events will take place, and we will hit this headroom and this balanced current account?”

“Just reflecting on the OBR since it came into being and the fact that we have had several elections, the latest we can have an election is mid-August 2029. The year before that is when one would expect an election. All this is backloaded into years of higher political risk. Against that background, and coming back to m…”

“I welcome the much higher headroom, but commentators point out that it is based on significant backloading, with savings of £24 billion in the final two years. Much of the tax—almost three quarters—is forecast to arrive after April 2029. We have also got the transfer of SEND provision from local government to central G…”

“So it damaged growth, all other things being equal, even in a small sense.”

“Some people are buying it on a speculative basis and, I suspect, trading more frequently. We need to explore whether things are needed to protect younger consumers from speculation in this area, in the same way as we have the GAMSTOP mechanism.”

“I have a quick question for Mr Pond. I see you chair the advisory board for the Money and Mental Health policy institute. A couple of weeks ago we were talking about online gambling and the serious harms that arise from it, particularly among young men aged 18 to 26. We have heard some evidence today about 18-year-olds…”

“We can spend all our time talking about all the stuff over here—meme coins—and thinking about regulating that, whereas we need to be getting on with creating a framework for all the good stuff over here.”

“Another way of putting it is that all the noise about random tokens and meme coins risks damaging all the great stuff that can happen on the other side.”

“We need to step back here for a moment. There are huge opportunities in blockchain technology for making the wholesale markets more efficient and tokenising investments such as large bonds. There are all sorts of things I read about on a daily basis that are very exciting. Then we have this opportunity to speculate in …”

“I would not wish to fall out, but I think that you could open up a SIPP or an ISA as an 18-year-old and get access to an investment trust that invests in private equity with limited checks.”

“I know. The next question is this: if you were advising an 18-year-old and they had a modest amount of money to invest, what percentage would you suggest they invest in bitcoin?”