Speeches by Kyle.

“I have not decided yet, is the truth. I sat on that Committee and enjoyed seeing you over the table there, but I have not yet made a decision as to what is the best forum. As you will know, we have adapted a few of the forums over the last year and a half. In every iteration and adaptation I have seen, it has moved to …”

“First, let me reinforce or strengthen your question by saying that it is JLR’s responsibility. It is a private company with a private supply chain, and I have done a great deal on behalf of this country to stand behind JLR and enable it to stand behind its supply chain.”

“Again, I do not know when we are going to start that, but it is in my inbox.”

“I want to be blunt with you: no, I cannot give you that date. As I said, there are real stand-out priorities that I have got to throw myself into to make them a reality; otherwise, some of the real strident priorities that we have been talking about, including the Employment Rights Bill, will simply start to drift. We …”

“You can imagine my priorities at the moment; let me be really clear about this. I have to get the legislation through, as it is not through yet. I have to get the consultations under way, reconciled, out there and delivered so that we can start moving forward with a modern economy and the modern relationships fit for t…”

“Nice try! But you know full well that I am not the arbiter of these conversations. These are decisions that employees, people working in workplaces and employers need to take among themselves. Let me take one step back and address this with a slightly more holistic view. When you read our plan “Make Work Pay”, you see …”

“I have constantly been worried, in all the actions that I have taken since day one in this job, which was when I was first briefed. The cyber-attack occurred just a couple of days before I took office, so I was briefed on it on day one, but I then needed to understand the extent of the challenge in order to build an ap…”

“First, let me take the opportunity to say directly to those companies that I see, I listen, and I am very aware of the stress in the supply chain for JLR, even now that production has resumed and is still scaling up—I am very aware of it. There have already been conversations this week from my Department trying to get …”

“Again, zero-hours contracts and how those are rolled out are, by definition of the legislation, to be subject to consultation. But as I said, the spirit of the “Make Work Pay” commitment and the legislation will be delivered. We will outlaw exploitative zero-hours contracts. Ambiguity needs to be ironed out of the legi…”

“The answer is yes, of course, I intend to implement the Bill in full, and carry on the herculean work of Mr Madders. In order to do so, I need to get it through ping-pong. As you know, the Bill has now cleared the House of Commons again. By now, after two rounds of ping-pong, nobody should be in any doubt about my inte…”

“Thank you; there is an awful lot in there. The first thing is, yes—and this comes from the Prime Minister down, not just from me—the importance of adhering to the spirit as well as the policies of the industrial strategy is something that the Prime Minister reinforces at Cabinet. Regarding Budget conversations, I am no…”

“Brace yourself!”

“I am happy to do so. Mr Maynard used the word “playing”. I can assure you we are not playing at anything here. These are issues we take extraordinarily seriously. We are not playing in area of this, particularly not with time. If there are issues that I need to be aware of, I will. I consider myself referred in the man…”

“Implementing it—getting cracking with it. You have already seen some of the responses that we have had, with the regulatory reforms and others. You have seen how we have responded and put the industrial strategy into action, including the JLR response. The response to and support for the automotive sector was laid out …”

“Right now, I am adhering to all the advice that is given to me. Again, it is under constant review. If there is further information that you believe that the FCDO should know to inform their advice to me, please let them know. I will reiterate on the back of this Committee hearing that there is an expectation that the …”

“I refer to my first answer, because it is extremely important that I am clear. We are doing everything we can to ensure that British arms are not ending up in that situation. Secondly, you are correct that my Department is responsible for arms export controls. As Secretary of State, I am legally responsible for that. Y…”

“I understand that, but Mr Maynard did just say British arms.”

“Let me be clear. You mentioned British arms sales.”

“That is certainly not the case now. In fact, we are looking quite carefully at the work. What I do not want to do is to overburden the Regulatory Innovation Office from the outset. It is doing incredible work and upscaling its work rapidly. David is doing a phenomenal job. It started with a pilot in four areas, which w…”

“Again, you are completely talking my language at the moment—in fact, you are pushing my buttons—because this is something that I am zealous about in public and in the Department. We need to tackle the specific challenges within the regulatory environment of each regulator, but increasingly the issue that you have ident…”