Speeches by McEvoy.

“I am just interested in what level of condition it is. I totally appreciate that it is to do with the likeliness that you would incur medical treatment while you were abroad, but there are certain things that you might disclose in your travel insurance application that would not naturally incur needing medical assistan…”

“Moving on to mental health, we know that 8.7 million people, or 15% of the population, were prescribed antidepressants in the UK in 2023-24. Does taking antidepressants incur a premium on travel insurance from Aviva?”

“Is that the same for other conditions? Say you had a heart bypass two years ago. I am just interested in which bit, when you are not unwell, you are still paying a premium for. I understand that, if you are very unwell and need to travel, that is a different thing and a higher risk, but, if you are no longer unwell and…”

“Two years after the all-clear, you would not be expecting to pay a premium for having cancer. Is that right?”

“Let us take another scenario. Say I have breast cancer and am given the all-clear. My family decides, “Congratulations, a holiday is in order. We are off to Tenerife”. Am I going to be paying more, because I have had breast cancer and have been given the all-clear, than if I had never had breast cancer?”

“That is fine. Mr Hargreaves?”

“That is absolutely fine. Mr Ward, you do not do travel insurance.”

“We are going to move on to travel insurance, just to understand a bit more about the risk factors and how they are taken into account. Maggie’s, which is a cancer charity, has recently been in the news, talking about the fact that cancer patients are paying a huge premium to go on holiday and go travelling. There was o…”

“Has that gone up since last year’s Mansion House speech?”

“Could I just follow up on that point? You have £120 billion invested in the UK at the moment. Is that right?”

“It is interesting that you should raise that, because there have been things in the news about how entry-level graduate jobs are going to really be impacted. A lot of the administrative roles that people do when they come out of university are going be impacted by that productivity gain.”

“So far you have not had any red flags or anything that has come up from the models where you have thought, “Oh my goodness, if we had let that go, loads of people would not be able to get the insurance”.”

“Are the ethics team busy? Is it a position where they are just sitting there thinking, “Oh, there aren’t any problems”? Give us some flavour of the things that are cropping up.”

“Does the Chief Secretary agree that without the fiscal rules we would not have seen four interest rate cuts, which have benefited thousands of constituents across the country?”

“Which one?”

“We heard a couple of weeks ago about the reforms to the Green Book. The Treasury reforms to the Green Book are going to be, among other things, introducing place-based pilots to see how we get more investment rooted in place. I am pitching, for anyone who is listening, to put Darlington as one of those place-based pilo…”

“Is it a job or a gig?”

“I have one final question, and I know I have taken a lot of your time. There were challenges with the UK Infrastructure Bank. In my area, in the north-east, in Darlington, we are part of the Tees Valley and we know that £107 million went to South Bank Quay development at Teesworks in Teesside. What was the learning fro…”

“Have you explored the model of doing funding rounds, so that it is a bit more transparent? We heard quite a lot of criticism about lots of different bodies that people can go to for advice. They are not sure exactly which door to go through. We will obviously ask the Government Minister about this, but what about the r…”

“That is fine. That was a very comprehensive answer. I am interested in the changes to the Green Book, Lord Livermore. How might the place-based approach impact some of the decisions being made? How might the National Wealth Fund play a role in the changes to the Green Book and the benefits that places such as Darlingto…”