Speeches by Hatton.

“ Why don’t you warn people, Sir Jim? Why do you not warn my constituents when they have been waiting in excess of an hour that that is going to happen, rather than doing it with no clear information? It is really infuriating.”

“ Urgently.”

“ That is not the same. At 65 minutes, you could go, “By the way, in five minutes’ time, if we haven’t got back to you, we are going to hang up.” People deserve to know. It is so frustrating if you work, if you have childcare or if you have other responsibilities. It is a really appalling way to treat customers.”

“ My final question is very short, so it would be good to have a very short answer. Do you think that these relief schemes provide good value for money for the British taxpayer?”

“ That is like going into a restaurant to make a dinner reservation and the maître d’ turns around to say, “Oh, absolutely jam-packed yesterday, you couldn’t have found a free table for love nor money”—but I am not here yesterday; I am here today to make a reservation and have dinner. If they can do it, s…”

“ It is a generic information base—that is what you are saying—so if it is in the morning, this is what it tends to be like in the morning, and if it is in the afternoon, this is what it tends to be like in the afternoon. That begs the question of why you have any system at all, if you already know how busy you wil…”

“ But they do not know anything, because you hang up on them after 70 minutes and do not tell them that you are going to do it, so they are left in the dark.”

“ Let me take us back to earlier this year. I have two press releases published by HMRC in front of me. One was on 19 March and the second was the day after, on 20 March. On the 19th, you said basically you were going to shut down a large proportion of your phone line services for a big chunk of the year. Unde…”

“ When that went out on 19 March, did you think, “This is going to go down badly with the public”?”

“ If there was a high degree of scepticism, why did you do it anyway? Obviously, that scepticism was proved to be accurate, because a day later, the whole thing sort of collapsed.”

“ Did you ask for additional resources?”

“ I appreciate that the benefit of hindsight is a marvellous thing, but as chief executive, do you not think that actually a more urgent and pressing demand for additional resources would have been a wiser approach, rather than taking us all up the hill with this first press release, saying, “We are going to shut d…”

“ Would you blame Ministers for not heeding your calls, then?”

“ So do you think, following the advice that you, Sir Jim, gave to the Minister, that they made the wrong decision?”

“I thank my hon. Friend for making such an eloquent speech. The point he makes is really important: in rural and coastal communities, testing services and public health awareness can often feel particularly remote. Looking at how we use primary care, particularly community hospitals and GP surgeries, will be essential t…”

“I beg to move, That this House recognises the impact of Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) on the publication of stories in the public interest; acknowledges that most cases of SLAPPs do not reach the courts, but are blocked or changed at an earlier, unseen stage; further recognises the importance…”

“I want to wind up the debate by thanking the many Members on both sides of the House for their thoughtful and constructive contributions. I thank the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice), my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell), the hon. Member for Tiverton and Minehead (Rachel…”

“That would be very helpful, because if that is one of the things that is stopping us getting schools open and additional places, it is quite a minor barrier. I do not expect you to have at your fingertips the specific example I referred to of the Osprey Quay school, but the note given to me said it was about a lease, a…”

“It is just that point around how we make sure that the small barriers do not get in the way of a much bigger piece of delivery.”

“One of the points that stuck out for me in the NAO Report was around this idea of insufficient capacity. It does go on to talk about what is being done to grow the number of places and the number of standalone schools as well. Would you be able to perhaps set out in a bit more detail what is actually going on to build …”