Speeches by Edwards.

“You have talked a lot about the trade-offs that you have to make with the Ministerial Code, and you have particularly spoken about developments in social media and how the pace of things has increased. Given the conversation that we have been having this morning, would you consider making a recommendation to the Prime …”

“If you had a lot of major Government policy being announced and some of it, unfortunately, due to those trade-offs and timetable pressures, needed to come through a written ministerial statement, would you still consider that the Ministerial Code had been met?”

“You have talked a little bit about the distinction between what are and are not the most important Government policies. Do you have criteria for how you determine that?”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Edward, and I thank the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin) for securing this really important debate. We all know that too many children are being failed by a system that is under-resourced and facing unprecedented demand. Policy failures over many years ha…”

“So there is a properly recruited chair for that risk and audit committee; it was somebody who was interim and then you have made them permanent.”

“You have previously expressed concerns about the way in which the Cabinet Office fails to appoint non-executive directors. Am I right in thinking that there has not been a risk and assurance NED on the board since May 2024?”

“So you have only had an introductory meeting with the current Minister. How regularly do you anticipate meeting that Minister?”

“More broadly, what impact do you think some vacancies have had in terms of the oversight of the ONS and the other parts of the organisation?”

“In terms of the Cabinet Office, do you find that they have a good grasp of the organisation and the requirements of operating in that statistic space compared to, say, some of your other stakeholders, such as Treasury or the Bank of England?”

“A final question from me. Hypothetically, if you had concerns about the performance of the national statistician, is it your understanding that you would have the power as chair to remove them?”

“Some things that you have been discussing raised concerns about people in the senior leadership team at the time and perhaps the effectiveness of the board and the sub-committees—particularly the risk committee—underneath it. We have had a couple of reviews—the Devereux Review is one—of the ONS recently, but neither ha…”

“That is helpful. Obviously it is appropriate to have somebody independent come in, but what was your view as chair? It would certainly be my understanding that you would be able to gauge cultural and performance issues yourself through your discussions, particularly in board. What were your views around those particula…”

“Just a final question from me if I may. Obviously I want to look forward, but would you agree that those sustained failures that we have seen under the ONS also represent a failure in the board’s oversight?”

“I will direct a question to Sir Robert Chote. Given the problems that we have been discussing this morning already—some of which have been described as systemic—do you think that you as chair and the UKSA board have been effective in your oversight of ONS?”

“Just on the management information point that you made, something that we have heard is that the papers that were going to the board were quite thin and repetitive. Would you agree with that assessment?”

“Over the last five or six years that we are looking at here, would you say that the management information that you were receiving was painting an overly rosy picture and that that did not enable you as a board to tackle some early warning signs that things were starting to go wrong?”

“A final question from me, Chair. Just thinking back to the Greensill scandal, for instance, obviously some of the criticism levelled at David Cameron was after the two-year period. Do you think the two-year period is appropriate, or should it be reviewed?”

“Thank you, that is helpful. Government are about priorities and about getting the desired outcomes. Would it be safe to say then that in your view, rather than establishing the commission, the Government should be focused on getting those outcomes, some of which you have discussed today, by other avenues, i.e. not prim…”

“I am just going back to John’s questions around workload. Back in 2020 when you had your pre-appointment hearing, you discussed the various success metrics by which you would judge your term. You had a number of those, but one was about the system becoming more self-regulatory in that people would not be applying for p…”

“Do you think the self-regulatory system has worked for civil servants, and do you have any comment on how effective the Cabinet Office has been in making sure there is a broad understanding about the system in Whitehall?”