Speeches by McEvoy.

“Good morning, everyone. I want to probe on your agents and the pay survey specifically before I move on to my next question. With your pay survey, how comprehensively does it cover low‑paid sectors that are quite hard to reach but that will be positively impacted by the actions taken in the Budget around investment in …”

“Moving on to mortgages, we saw last week that, although the interest rate has come down, the mortgage rate has actually gone up for a lot of the big lenders on the two-year fixed-term mortgages. That is going to have a huge consequence for my constituents in Darlington and all our constituents across the country, who a…”

“It is so refreshing to see a Labour Secretary of State take action on profiteering in our local authorities. I have been calling for such action, because in my constituency the average cost of an independent residential placement has increased by 65% in the last five years. Despite that, our Labour-led council continue…”

“Thank you, Mr Macfarlane, for outlining that it is not predetermined by the Budget how businesses implement their NICs rises. I think some of the forecasting has seemed as if that is predetermined, but it is not. In my previous role, I spent time working with brilliant businesses that go further than the Government min…”

“Chancellor, I want to say congratulations on your 800-year-old glass ceiling smashing. It was absolutely brilliant and, from all the other maths women and girls, I say well done. It is brilliant to have you here. My question is more broadly about the impact that the Budget will have on constituents like mine in Darling…”

“To follow up on that, you mentioned women in the labour market, and Yuan Yang mentioned getting people back to work. We know that a lot of women are forced out of work to do childcare, and the SEND crisis is forcing a lot of mums to stay at home. In what sort of timeframe might you expect some of these people to be bac…”

“Mr Smewing, forgive my ignorance, but were there not effective evaluation matrixes before this Government came in?”

“So it does not just go into a filing cabinet after the meeting.”

“Does anybody else want to offer a different view?”

“Good afternoon. Does the Chancellor have the right priority in terms of substantially increasing public investment finance by borrowing? Given that the UK ranks last among the G7 in terms of business investment, would it have made more sense to focus on boosting business investment or is the balance right? That is to a…”

“I have plenty to come.”

“My question has been answered, so we can move on.”

“Those factors absolutely will impact it. In your opinion, is it necessary that they will lead to the reduction in wages and in the wage growth one specifically?”

“Sorry, Chair.”

“Is the consensus of the panel that it is not enough to stem some of the problems that we have coming down the line, or would you have liked to have seen a bigger increase for the NHS in this Budget?”

“Yes, the other, wider things counteracting to make the economy better and more stable, the cost of living going down, people being better off in general, that sort of thing.”

“Are there any other ways that you think that that could be absorbed? An increase in productivity in the workforce might affect some of the overheads they have factored in before, such as sickness, absenteeism and things like that. In the round of the Budget, if it was only this isolated increase but with the wider pack…”

“Health received £22 billion in day-to-day spending for both this year and next. Do you think that it is possible for the Department of Health and Social Care to be able to find ways to spend this money efficiently?”

“Did anybody else on the panel have anything else they wanted to add on that?”

“To go to my line of questioning, do you not envisage that there is any possibility, in your expert opinions, that these changes could also be offset by some of the investment in getting people back to work, having fewer sickness payments being made by employers and seeing more customers having pounds in their pockets a…”