Speeches by McEvoy.

“First, I would like to say that, as the MP for Darlington, I applaud your advocacy for higher wages.”

“It is a wonderful place.”

“Thank you for advocating for my hard-working constituents, who do deserve higher wages. On the point of the impact of the problems with the LFS, I and the Committee are concerned about the wider impact that this has on other really crucial surveys that are used to work out things like GDP. We have the living costs and …”

“Are there any datasets out there that you would like to get your hands on? There are existing datasets. We talked about the private sector operating, and a bit about polling companies. If you had a magic wand, given that we have a mission-led Government that are trying to work cross-departmentally, are there any datase…”

“Sorry, it is the annual survey of hours and earnings. There were always concerns among those of us who worked with low-paid workers that they were sometimes underrepresented. Certainly, low-paid self-employed people were underrepresented, as were trades. Is ASHE a concern of yours in general? Has it been impacted by th…”

“In my previous life, I did quite a lot of work with the ASHE dataset, which I loved. It is a fantastic bit of work.”

“But you are confident that, as it stands, that data is reliable.”

“That is what we are trying to get at, if you are saying something that is very different to what we have heard from everybody else.”

“Members of the Monetary Policy Committee have highlighted to us that seasonally adjusted data on flows in and out of employment are still suspended due to problems with weighting. Is that still the case? Does that not affect what we are talking about on this point of analysing inactivity?”

“I would be very interested. Before we move on to the next set of questions, forgive me, but how can you be so absolutely confident that this dataset is correct, when the larger points around the data that you have highlighted have been such a problem and we have been downgraded to “in development” as a statistical reso…”

“I take your point on businesses and regulating businesses in this Parliament. I know my colleague, Bobby Dean, will come on to this a bit more, but I suppose we as a Committee are concerned about taxpayer-funded services as well, essential services where taxpayers’ money—often these people themselves—have paid into a p…”

“Good morning. This Government have made it really clear that AI and digitisation of public services is an essential lever for growth. The Prime Minister said that we will increase the public sector compute, the engine of AI power, by at least a factor of 20. The Committee heard from the Exchequer Secretary to the Treas…”

“Is there anything you can share with us about the responses or anything you have found from that so far? What is the general feeling?”

“It is interesting in the landscape that we are operating in at the moment. The Government are really committed to investing in AI and in the tech companies and then rolling it out throughout our public services. With that in mind, Minister, how do you think the Government want the payments market, at a national level b…”

“That is really interesting. You mentioned consumers, which is a big part of the inquiry that we are doing and the report that we are doing on the point around acceptance of cash, but you also mentioned choice. They are the two things that keep coming up from the witnesses that we speak to. We are specifically intereste…”

“Is there anything you want to share with us about the financial inclusion strategy that might apply to the people that we have heard giving evidence: the more isolated groups, people with learning difficulties, people who are fleeing domestic abuse, and certainly older people who might not feel confident with online ba…”

“Because of the powerful testimony that we have heard over the course of this inquiry, it would be remiss of us not to stress the point of the need for cash, especially for those fleeing very abusive domestic abuse situations. Minister, we appreciate you are new to post. We are all on board with hurtling toward digitisa…”

“It sounds to me from both of your responses—forgive me if this is too direct—that you think that, in the balance of growth and progress, a cashless society might fall naturally in place with that. Would you agree with that statement?”

“Thank you, Minister, for that answer and I will download the app. I am glad that you mentioned digital exclusion. It is a big issue facing many people across the country. The House of Lords in January 2024 published a report on digital exclusion that said that 5 million employed people cannot complete essential digital…”

“This was prompted by what Mr York-Smith said then. It is ringfenced spend. How much is it?”