Speeches by Reynolds.

“My hon. Friend makes some very good points about the fact that while nearly every major market has policies of this kind, ours operates in a different way from how the French, for example, proceeded with theirs. I agree that the major failing of the former Prime Minister’s speech was to keep this policy in place, but c…”

“Yes. In the conversations we had with representatives of Stellantis, they raised every aspect of the previous Government’s policy, including the flexibilities, the ability to cap and trade and some of the allowances, and what they would mean for the bottom line. I take those concerns seriously, which is why I am willin…”

“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her question as well, and echo the sentiments I expressed to her constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Luton South and South Bedfordshire (Rachel Hopkins). This whole decision is regrettable, but its timing is particularly regrettable. As I said in my statement, since…”

“That is the single most dishonest statement I have ever heard in my time in this House.”

“I believe our intention is to present it to the Lords first. I do not have that timescale to hand, but I agree. You see some of this in the big corporate failures, and it reminds you of the core case. It is important to say that audit reform is not an insurance policy against corporate failure; it is about the transpar…”

“Yes, absolutely. I strongly agree on the case for this. There has been a really welcome coalition in Parliament in previous years that we need to continue on this. I do not have that information to hand, but I can write to the Committee.”

“I have absolutely no hesitation in saying that the UK is and will be one of the very best places to invest your money going forward. We should look at the stability that comes from the general election result; our openness to Europe and the rest of the world at a time when too much of the world is retreating into isola…”

“First of all, the history of this Committee is a really recognised and prestigious one in terms of the contribution it has made to the public debate in these areas. The fact that you can draw threads from Committee reports in the past to some of this Government’s agenda tells you something very positive indeed. First, …”

“The Chancellor and I are strong friends and allies, so we were able to have a conversation about some of the challenges that we faced as a new Government relatively early on in office. Just looking at this Department, for instance, and the things that were attributed to that Treasury reserve that was overspent—Post Off…”

“No.”

“There is no platform that we could stand on as a country unless those foundations were fixed. I have said before, on national television, that I recognise that for a lot of businesses this is difficult. To be frank, I feel a sense of anger that what we inherited was not a position where the commitments of the previous …”

“I am not fully aware of that proposal for the gambling industry, so I cannot comment on the specifics of it. What the Chancellor was saying at the CBI yesterday was to make clear that that need to fix the foundations is a one-time deal. There will not be a further ask of the business community comparable to what we had…”

“In terms of the position that you have articulated, the figures speak for themselves. Services have done better than goods since we left the European Union. Within services, you arguably see a distinction between services such as advertising or management consultancy, and, for example, financial services, which have mo…”

“As a country and as an economy, we are too big and too important to outsource the regulation of any part of our economy to another body. If you want that to be setting the rules, you have to be part of the organisation that sets the rules. There are sectors where there is no economic or business demand for or interest …”

“Trade is an absolutely proven way to make a practical, tangible and positive impact on the economy. We are an extremely globally oriented, trade-intensive economy—much more trade-intensive than some comparable G7 members. We have to understand not just how we approach the issues of trade; the global trading environment…”

“I always wanted the trade strategy to follow the industrial strategy. After 2016, a lot of trade policy discussions in Parliament, maybe for understandable reasons, were done through the lens of leaving the customs union, and almost a sense of quantity and of equality. CPTPP is a good agreement and is a good place for …”

“Maybe for this Committee, I would be tempted to do a sneak preview. I want it to be hard-headed and practical, not boosterish and not pretending that the UK is going to dominate every market across the world—the kind of thing where, if you are in business, you look at it and say, “This is real. This is helpful. This lo…”

“After a period of significant inflation, £1 trillion is a bit less than it was a few years ago. We will publish the metrics as part of that. That will be part of the answer. Fundamentally, I want more UK SMEs exporting.”

“I would not necessarily want to reveal this at this stage, Chair, but, if your focus is on quality over quantity, I am not necessarily sure that a percentage of our trade being covered by FTAs tells you a great deal. You could cover them with quite poor FTAs if you did not negotiate them well enough or you went for pac…”

“You would have to wait until the strategy is published for the targets within it, but it is helpful, in an esteemed group of colleagues such as this, to have a practical conversation about what is a genuine measure of our success in this area. Some of the most important trading relationships, such as those with the Gul…”