Speeches by Grady.

“The normal course in these events would be that you would sign some form of compromise agreement, and that would include the agreed statement about the departure. When was that compromise agreement agreed? Was it last Friday, or was it before?”

“There is concern among staff in August, September and October, but this comes to your awareness only in October. Have I understood that correctly?”

“Are you confident that the preceding data, having got to this position in October, was reliable?”

“The data comes in in August. You get to know in October. In retrospect, should it have come to your attention earlier, given the materiality of what followed?”

“That is very helpful context, but, as a more direct, Aberdonian-style question, the board looks at this in October 2023, but the issue comes to light in August 2023. My first yes/no question would be this: before August 2023, were there material concerns within the ONS about this survey?”

“I just want to follow up on one thing as someone with an interest in devolved statistics. Is the political will, and the will of the devolved Governments, all there to have these harmonised statistics, or is it patchy?”

“In August 2023, there is real concern.”

“In summary, what I take from that is that this really crystallised as an issue in October and not before.”

“Good morning, Sir Ian. The publication of the labour market data was suspended in October 2023, when the responses dropped to a level that made it unreliable. Did that come as a surprise to you?”

“I am mindful that we have quite a lot of questions to cover today.”

“My final question is completely unrelated to international matters. The FPC has an outstanding recommendation that the Pensions Regulator should have the remit to take into account financial stability considerations on a continuing basis. Has this been acted on?”

“Dame Colette, when we were talking about the international situation, what that leads to on those big risks such as climate change and potentially cyber is a situation where it becomes much more difficult to work with people we must work with to manage the very many risks that you identify in this wonderful report, whi…”

“I, too, wish Wales luck in the Six Nations, but I wish Scotland more luck. Scotland, like Wales, is set to benefit from significant tax incentives and investment, under the UK Government’s freeports scheme. Does the Secretary of State agree that the scheme offers an excellent opportunity for economic growth?”

“I wonder whether we should give the Governor a rest.”

“2. What recent discussions she has had with Cabinet colleagues on increasing economic growth in Wales.”

“Dame Colette or Ms Oakes might be willing to help me with some questions on geopolitical tensions. Paragraph 2.2 of the report, under “Geopolitical and global fragmentation risks”, says, “Heightened geopolitical tensions pose a significant risk to financial stability”. Has this become more or less predictable since Nov…”

“Out of interest, how does the Bank go about assessing this? It has become a lot more unpredictable and there is probably a fairly short supply of true experts in this field. How does the Bank assess this risk?”

“That is a very important thread, Dame Colette, and my colleague, Mr Glen, will pick up on some of those themes in a moment. With this ever more complicated background, how does the Bank keep under review whether it is assessing these risks in the right way or whether there are better ways of assessing these risks?”

“Would you be able to shed any light on why this has not been acted on?”

“Do you have any form of timetable that takes you to, say, completing the work at the end of 2025 and the Minister making a decision in January 2026, or am I being a little bit impatient?”