Speeches by Campbell-Savours.

“It is an interesting day for us to hear about No. 10 slowing down appointments, Chair.”

“This is a question possibly for the Baroness or Mr Madden. It relates to public appointments. The Commissioner for Public Appointments has highlighted that timeliness is an issue with public appointments, and the Government have set an expectation that the appointments process will be completed within three or four mon…”

“We can look forward to the new CPA updating us on the delays in October?”

“You anticipated before that there might be a question about a particular candidate. Perhaps you could update us on that process and explain what the problems have been?”

“Lessons learnt. At what point does this Committee ask the question, “Where are we with these improvements?” At what point do you anticipate that we will see a change? The concern previously raised to this Committee was that the process was taking so long that good candidates were walking away from the process because w…”

“Section 10 of the Political Parties and Elections Act 2009 amended the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 so that, in addition to already needing to be on the electoral register, a donor would need to be domiciled in the UK for tax purposes. However, section 10 required a statutory instrument to acti…”

“I appreciate the speed at which the Government are working, and understand that local authorities will have a role in how the money is distributed. However, in the absence of detail, many people are doing a back-of-a-fag-packet calculation. Can the Minister reassure them that we are committing enough money to make a re…”

“I welcome these reforms. However, on the issue of accountability, despite years of failure documented in multiple inspection reports by the coroner and the Care Quality Commission, the integrated care board has not yet removed the contract from Cockermouth’s Castlegate and Derwent partnership. What else do Ministers be…”

“I have one more question, Chair, and I think this is a different approach. I think that throughout this there has been consensus that people want to see a reduction in wasteful arm’s length bodies and more accountability, but there are some arm’s length bodies that perhaps have been set up for a more wholesome purpose,…”

“Thank you, Chair. I must admit that at times this inquiry has sometimes felt a bit hypothetical. We start with the landscape, but we have often not drilled down. I feel that right now we have a witness who has looked into some of that detail. The ambition in looking at this of the Government you were a Minister for was…”

“I just wondered whether there was any sense that perhaps that was making it difficult to bring people back in-house.”

“Earlier, the issue of pay did come up. I understand that one allure of creating an arm’s length body that carries out functions that may be carried out elsewhere is the ability to go outside the civil service pay structure. To what extent was that an impediment to taking functions back in-house? Have you any recollecti…”

“It is one of the issues, isn’t it, that arm’s length bodies are perhaps paying what are closer to market wages, especially when the arm’s length bodies are carrying out technical functions?”

“Saving money.”

“Thank you.”

“Could something be done to strengthen their independence and to move them further away from political control?”

“Apologies, Madam Deputy Speaker; I am obviously out of practice on interventions. Is the hon. Lady aware of that convention?”

“I will take the hon. Member’s word for it that those Humble Addresses did not contain those words, but if you take, for example, the Humble Address on Lebedev’s appointment to the House of Lords in 2022, it did not have to contain those words for the Conservative Government to use national security grounds not to provi…”

“Do you have a similar view to Ms Wright, in terms of what that investigating body might look like as a committee of lay members? Should it be at a national level or could it be at a regional level?”

“The Ethics and Integrity Commission has said it sees a role in helping these codes develop. Is there value in a national body like that doing this? What value do you think it can add? How could it work more closely with local government to help?”