Speeches by Lamont.

“Do you think previous systems were better understood?”

“How well understood are the current standards systems, both within the local council and more widely with the public?”

“Q7. The Scottish press is full of stories about the plot by Scottish Labour MPs to bring down the Prime Minister. One Scottish Labour MP said he is terrible, another Scottish Labour MP said the handling of the Budget had been incompetent, and yet another Scottish Labour MP predicted that Scottish Labour will be slaught…”

“Sadly, some of the victims of grooming gangs are also pre-devolution as well.”

“That would be very helpful. Obviously bits of it are devolved, but it is a bit like the infected blood inquiry, given the UK-wide ramifications.”

“That is helpful. As you may know, I take the view that grooming gangs operate, sadly, across the whole of the UK, and that borders are no obstacle. I have been calling for the UK Government inquiry to extend across the whole United Kingdom, because the Scottish Government thus far are refusing this. There is no constit…”

“The Home Office has announced a new inquiry into the grooming gangs scandal. My understanding, from what you have just told us, is that it is over to each Department to run that inquiry. Is there any oversight or involvement from your team during that process, when the inquiry is getting set up or running?”

“That is very helpful. I will move on to a separate point, which hopefully we can find some agreement on. As you will know, the Scottish Government have a policy of Scottish independence within the European Union. During my time as a Minister, we spent hours trying to stop the Scottish Government using the UK Government…”

“They operate in a different part of the market from the catching, as you will understand.”

“Right. So fishing was not part of that trade-off, despite what the industry is saying about it.”

“I am slightly confused. On the one hand, you are talking about trade-offs in the context of fishing, but on the other hand you are saying—”

“As I said, there are industry bodies that take a different view. Given what the Scottish Government have said, how did that fit into how you developed the UK Government’s negotiating position? Where was the starting point? Was it that you spoke to all the devolved nations in relation to fishing, the Scottish Government…”

“On fishing, and the new EU-UK relationship, the Scottish Government described it as a “great betrayal of our fishing fleet”, which was backed up by the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, the Scottish White Fish Producers Association and many other industry bodies, so it is important to recognise that there is not always …”

“I want to go a little further into the relationship with the devolved Administrations. Minister, you said in June that the Government are “committed to ensuring that UK Departments, the devolved governments, the UK Mission to the EU, and the Northern Ireland Executive Office continue to work together to determine a sha…”

“I get that, but you also said the service was in distress, and by any measure—certainly by my measure—that would suggest that there was something going wrong with it long before the first week in January.”

“Lastly from me, is there going to be some sort of analysis of what has gone wrong here? It strikes me that we cannot have a scenario where an organisation that is providing a very important service is defined as being in distress for a period of years, with no action. I accept that it goes across different Governments,…”

“Supposing you had some other consequential payment to make, dependent on your pension coming through, is there provision for the consequential loss that people might find themselves in because of that payment not coming through?”

“Are you budgeting for 8,000 people claiming up to the maximum £10,000, potentially?”

“How much in total is the hardship fund that has been put in place, and how many people would you define to be in hardship now?”

“Does the scale of the backlog being greater than expected mean issues with the Capita contract now? Are they now saying, “This is not what we signed up to.”?”