Speeches by Kyle.

“As I said, we inherited a situation where our country and economy is locked in this cycle of low growth and high taxation. It has also had a long period in which we have not had a fundamental rethink of the way in which we regulate the economy and planning is undertaken, so some of these fundamentals of the environment…”

“Thank you, Chair. It is a privilege to be here—thank you very much for inviting us. This was a Committee I sat on myself for six years.”

“I need to be clear for the record, because there have also been allegations that British arms have made their way there. Certainly, to my knowledge, those reports are not correct; they are not British armaments that have made their way there. That is my primary concern and the thing I have most agency over. When it com…”

“Of course—I know it is. This is a matter that I care extremely deeply about, as does every person in this room, because of the seriousness of it. You will know that, for a period of my life, I was an aid worker and I worked in very challenging situations, so this is a lifelong issue and interest for me. First, you quit…”

“You are very welcome to pass a list over, and I will read it privately and act on it where I see the need, because I do care very deeply about this. Some Departments are regulatory-heavy, and there are lots of reasons why that happens. In my view, regulation appears like sediment—layer after layer, with Government afte…”

“We are doing everything that is creatively possible to unlock further progress. As I said, there are singular, big issues, such as defence, on which we are negotiating at the moment. With each step forward, we have unlocked goodwill that stands us in good stead in other areas and future negotiations. We started from a …”

“You are amazing at getting a million things into a very short sentence, Chair. There are certain outstanding singular issues for which we are negotiating at the moment. With the EU, they are singular negotiations, because it depends on which bit of the Commission we are negotiating with. Even just this morning, I met t…”

“I wouldn’t say that, tempting though it is for me to do so.”

“The EU’s goes live in January. We are right in the process of designing our programme now. What we want is synergy between the two. We are looking very closely at that. When you look at the standards that we have already achieved, you can see where the synergy lies. What business really wants to see is synergy we can t…”

“I would frame it as we want to fully explore our potential as an economy and country outside the European Union, while strengthening our relationship and fully exploring the potential that exists with the European Union. I do not believe that we have touched the sides on either of those. I will just say to you, Mr Mayn…”

“All our regulators are independent of Government; they make their own decisions. I am happy, on behalf of my Department, to make representations if there is specific evidence from the Committee that you think the CMA should be looking at, and I am sure they will get back to you with specific reasons as to why or why no…”

“We have already unlocked over 30 market access barriers that were there as a result of the terrible Brexit deal that was struck. That is worth over £11 billion. That is not the end of the road or the sum of our ambitions as a Government. We want to go much further. As you know, we are negotiating on a range of differen…”

“It is a good question. My Department is leading alongside DSIT. When it comes to who is ultimately responsible, I would say that at the moment DSIT is taking the lead on the tech prosperity deal. It was DSIT that negotiated the deal and played the leadership role in it. If that changes, we will inform you. The tech pro…”

“You have already seen, in the couple of weeks I have been in this job, that we have hit the ground running in our Department. As I said in answer to Ms Griffiths’ question, we have undertaken £240 million-worth of deregulation or regulatory reforms just in the first few weeks.[2] The thing that surprised me about this …”

“I am not waiting for Ambassador Greer to be here; I met Ambassador Greer in Washington on the second day I was in this job, so I did not waste any time in getting stuck into these issues. The relationship between our two departments and our two offices, as I said, is iterative. I pay tribute also to Varun at No. 10, an…”

“It is my belief that DCMS is responsible for that issue in terms of its relationship with that market and the input that it would put into the regulators to monitor it. I believe that there is legislation, or certainly action or policy responses, coming from DCMS to tackle some of the ticketing issues.”

“I honestly don’t know. The conversations we are having are extremely functional and very purposeful, so when I read that, it is not reflective of the relationship that we have.”

“Yes, I will look very closely—I think you would have assumed that I am already looking very closely, and my Department is in touch with Aston Martin and other manufacturers on this precise issue. On the second part of your question, I am asked a lot in the media about our expectations of what the next round of negotiat…”

“The headline deal itself is very clearly a win for British manufacturers. I’m afraid I do not accept the idea that it is not. It not only presents opportunities but includes protections, particularly for the British automotive industry, with over 40,000 jobs protected from that deal. Some areas of implementation are st…”

“In the conversations that I have had with the chair and the chief executive and within my Department, I think we are getting that balance about right at the moment. If there are specific areas of—”