Speeches by Lamb.

“What do you understand by the term “individual ministerial responsibility”?”

“If you know you have done wrong in the role and you are about to be found out, you are best off to resign because you will get a severance payment?”

“The point here—and there is obviously a very specific case that comes to mind at the moment around this—is we still teach students this as being a fundamental part of the ministerial role. And I cannot think of a single occasion in the last decade and a half, at least, where any Minister has resigned from their role on…”

“The term that I have heard used throughout my time doing two degrees in politics is “individual ministerial responsibility” but I am happy to take any term within that.”

“The premise of individual ministerial responsibility is that Ministers are responsible for everything that happens in their Department, regardless of whether or not they are directly involved.”

“That would mean that the only context that the severance payment might be required to be repaid would be for a breach around those rules?”

“You do; great.”

“In terms of that time limit, you said that where someone is making consistent efforts to make a difference, very often you will encourage people to try to make sure they use the full process available before coming to the PHSO in order to reduce the burden on you. However, if 12 months really is the timeline, maybe we …”

“Just on that last point—while accepting that there is likely to be a sampling issue as people will be more inclined to respond if they are upset—in the survey the overwhelming majority of respondents waited very long periods of time for their cases to be concluded. I am wondering if the perception difference might have…”

“I am really just inquiring as to whether there might be a methodological explanation for the difference in terms of timings, but I fully accept the point around meticulousness. Turning to my actual question, during the course of our inquiry, issues with interpretation and communication of the 12-month time limit for ac…”

“It is maybe a public awareness campaign as well.”

“Exploring that further, in terms of the guidance itself, do you set out the reasons why the 12-month time limit makes sense—as you have just done here—and make the circumstances in which discretion may be exercised very clear?”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. This issue has been on my radar for a very long time. I used to be the leader of the local authority in Crawley, and we have been aware for many years that the capacity limitations that are coming on the line will be so severe that they will gum up the entire n…”

“9. What assessment he has made of the potential merits of allowing greater use of evidence from automated enforcement technology in trials.”

“The Government are to be commended for the largest ever investment in police technology, including facial recognition to catch serious offenders, and a drone squad to crack down on waste crime. However, the rules around admissibility of some high-tech evidence, such as the six-month crime rule, are holding back enforce…”

“Under the current system, regardless of how much pressure is brought to bear on the Government, if the Government are determined not to have an inquiry, nothing can be done to force them to have one, outside perhaps a judicial review into that decision. Do you think that there is any answer to that problem?”

“It has been argued that specialist agencies often have better knowledge of their policy area than their sponsor Department. Has that been your observation? If so, how can that knowledge be retained as we do away with some of these structures?”

“You were relocating the powers as opposed to the strategy.”

“While the triennial reviews are gone, you are still supposed to have a tailored review for each arm’s length body within each parliamentary Session, which I suppose, given how short some of them have been, has not necessarily happened. Another three years has passed since your independent report. Are the new tailored r…”

“Given that your view is that there is an aberration—you said that, within the restraints that you were operating, you were able to resolve as many of these as you felt able to resolve, and a look through the list suggests that around a quarter were permanently shut down and the rest were merged or retained in some othe…”