Speeches by Caliskan.

“Can I ask you about the four key capabilities that the NAO Report specifically identifies? You have spoken about some of them already, including, as we have just discussed, dealing with particular demands, and also the need to take a whole-system approach. I wonder if you might be able to talk about how the four will b…”

“That is a helpful answer. My only other challenge back would be, in a climate where more agility is required for individual Departments, are you not, in a way, giving them a get-out clause by saying, “Don’t worry about making sure that your core teams are agile enough to be able to deal with things? We will always have…”

“That is why I am asking the question. Moments of crisis, emergencies, or things that you could not plan for, by their very nature, should not happen often. One might misinterpret the increase in numbers of the core team that you are talking about, as Departments just not planning for what should be predictable events, …”

“I want to ask a question or two on the back of the questions that you have asked. I am trying to understand if Government Departments are asking for this resource in moments of crisis, so to speak, or if it is part of their core planning.”

“Finally, please can you say something about the restructure of the estates management department specifically? I am trying to get a sense of whether that happening prompted the governance focus, or vice versa. Often these things are interlinked. What has the impact been of the restructure of the estates management depa…”

“Procurement?”

“That is really helpful. I have a final question specifically on property leases. The FCDO spends around £160 million—I think that is annually, or at least it did in 2023-24—on property leases. I want to understand and get some assurances that the capital spend that might be associated with purchasing is weighed against…”

“Are you referring to property consolidation?”

“That is helpful, thank you. My follow-up question was going to be on governance and oversight, because there is a governance and oversight element to this, as well. There are operational decisions that have to be taken on the ground, but there is also a role for FCDO centrally. Can anything in particular be done to imp…”

“An opportunity to deliver better value for money?”

“I would like to ask a few questions on the FCDO’s understanding of the overall costs of the overseas estate. As the Report sets out, the FCDO divides its overseas estate funding between estates funding—things like the purchasing of properties—and maintenance funding. Both categories require revenue and capital funding.…”

“I thank the panel members for your time. I want to build on the conversation that other Committee members have opened up about maintenance and lessons learned. It is not really acceptable that the FCDO has not had a coherent strategy. For the purposes of reflection—the point of this Committee is to understand how thing…”

“The FCDO’s overseas posts have long been responsible for managing their own operations, in terms of maintenance and looking after the estates, but the NAO Report outlines that the majority of respondents to the survey found it difficult to deliver preventive maintenance, which meant that they had to do more reactive ma…”

“So the FCDO, since before the last Report—I think the NAO Report was in 2010—and over the past 15 years, has had a problem with data. You didn’t know the quality of the estate and you didn’t have some quite basic information. There was a question about not being able to monitor, once you got that information, whether t…”

“I just want to understand what was happening, and what the intention is, going forward, a bit more. That is in the context in which I want to ask: how have you been working with overseas posts to ensure that they are managing their estates to a required standard? As you have set out already, there are different challen…”

“Isn’t the big risk that you have the data, you set out the guidance, but those who are responsible for maintaining the estate locally are just not doing it? What action do you take, or can you take, if posts and those responsible for those parts of the estate are not able to manage them effectively?”

“So you know how much money is going out to posts, but you do not know what they are spending—or is it that you do not know what they are spending it on?”

“I understand that is a relatively small amount of money when we compare it to bigger budgets, but we are still talking about hundreds of millions of pounds. Very important budgets across Government that are to be cut, or have been cut, are far smaller amounts. For MPs, our constituents will be saying, “Actually, a rela…”

“I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision about the evaluation of training about special educational needs and disabilities in initial teacher education; to require training about special education needs and disabilities for certain persons working in schools as part of their continuing pr…”

“As a member of the cross-party UK delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, I have had the opportunity to meet Ukrainian Members of Parliament, who make the powerful case for continuing support from NATO allies. It has become clear in recent months that other countries in the region—Poland and the Baltic states of…”