Speeches by McEvoy.

“Yes. What is the largest category of issue in this space, which you are describing.”

“The only reason I am smiling is that they were the questions that I had pre-empted. I wanted to ask you about your regulatory framework and whether you had mirrored it, because you are not regulated, but we will leave that. You have talked about that. On the risk appetite, then, can you give us some examples of what yo…”

“I am guesting from the Treasury Committee, where we talk non-stop about this risk versus stability point. That was my top question to you, actually, Mr Flint. What is your boundary? As the National Wealth Fund is growing and you are getting an expanded mandate to align with the industrial strategy, what is the risk ver…”

“I want to move on a bit and probe some of the concerns that are out there publicly. There has been reporting that AI algorithms based on trends in social media networks can amplify false messages and misleading information. How concerned are you about that influence seeping into trading decisions and your role as a reg…”

“Moving on to AI, the Government are pushing forward with AI growth zones. The Committee has heard, and I am sure that everyone in the room is aware, that AI has great potential to tackle the productivity problems that we have in the UK. Mr Woods, what is your assessment of the impact of the increased adoption of AI, pa…”

“I was going to ask a follow-up question to that point about pipeline investments and the security that these organisations with a lot of capital to invest are looking for, as well as the role of the National Wealth Fund in derisking some of those opportunities. I wanted to know, Mr Godfrey, your view on the tension bet…”

“On that point specifically, do you have the skills internally in your organisation to understand this? We talked about the skill gap and how few people understand the engineering of it. Do you have the skills? Do you need any more? Are you hiring people with this expertise?”

“There is a body of work going on at the moment that I am quite interested in around the marketing and identification of bot accounts on social media. Yuval Harari has come up and spoken about this, and said that you should brand bots now and take action to do that, so that, where there are fake accounts that are drivin…”

“I have just two more questions on that point. Can you tell us a bit more about the social media impact on this run on the bank, and what happened?”

“My colleague Bobby Dean is going to come on to that.”

“That is reassuring. To all of you individually: where would you place yourself, both professionally and personally, on the scale of extreme sceptic to zealous advocate in terms of the impact of generative AI on financial stability?”

“That is a very interesting example. I do not know whether you were all in the room, but we heard from the mayors on the previous panel about the layering of the industrial strategy key sectors. There are eight key sectors and because they are what I term “mega-mayors” they are in line for the full devolution packages. …”

“In terms of the data of a savings product, we heard evidence that, in 2019-20, 8% of people who had used the product to save for their first home continued to use it for a savings product. That has fallen to only 1% of people in 2024-25. What is your analysis of whether it is fit for purpose as a savings product? Do yo…”

“Just to be clear—because I know shouting numbers at you is not helpful—it is a steady decline from 2020 in terms of people reusing it, as it was intended, to continue saving. It is quite stark, going from 8% to 1%. We have seen a cost of living crisis and lots of other changes. Do you think there is a likeliness that i…”

“It is particularly interesting. If the idea is to create a habit and people have bought their first home, you would expect to see an uptick, even if there was a gap of a couple of years when had people bought their new home, rather than a really stark decline. We did hear evidence as well about it potentially being a g…”

“Do you think it was potentially a compensation from the last Government for changes to the state pension age?”

“As a final question on this, with the £500 million that is going into this product, we have heard evidence that as a retirement savings product there is a desperate need. One in five people who are self-employed are saving for retirement. Is this the best this Government can do, Minister? Looking at the evidence that y…”

“Can I just come in on the question around who this is for? We know the intention when it was set up, but currently, if you have £5,000 spare that you want to save for later life and you are happy to put it in until 60, and your eyes are open about the penalty charge, is this the best return you can get for that £5,000?”

“Welcome, Ms Webster, from sunny Darlington, where you are my constituent, and working at the Darlington Economic Campus. It is great to see you here. We have heard a lot about the intended purpose. What is the intended purpose of the LISA as a retirement savings product?”

“In terms of your data and your analysis of people who are incurring the charge, in 2022-23 £75 million was made in incurring charges from people who had saved and then had to withdraw early. Are they people who have been saving for their first home and had to withdraw before buying it, or are they people who were using…”