Speeches by Lamb.

“I guess the question is around wider ministerial involvement in future cases. The Prime Minister was not technically the decision maker in this, but I think a member of the general public would come to the assumption that he may well have influence on the process were he to choose to exercise it, despite not being the …”

“The point that you highlighted of an area that was not a technical breach but was still a problem—the process of having a candidate whose application was submitted by invitation, it would appear, after the closure of the process—took place under the last Government. Is that correct?”

“Thank you very much. The Prime Minister has written to the independent adviser to acknowledge his error in having any involvement in the appointment process of Mr Kogan, but there has been little discussion of that within your report. Given the Prime Minister’s intense interest and involvement in the football industry,…”

“Within the pack we have a timetable for appointment. Can I run through a very quick, simple list of questions to put this on the record, given the tone of the last few sets of questions? The campaign for this role began in April 2024. That is correct, is it not?”

“Yes.”

“It began under the previous Government. Mr Kogan’s late application, on which he was assisted in getting it in past the deadline, took place under the last Government. Mr Kogan was shortlisted under the last Government. The appointment process was then delayed because the civil service did not want to take a decision t…”

“On donations or cash income, when we talk about donations to the leadership campaigns for the Prime Minister and Secretary of State, there is not a final figure on what the Prime Minister’s general election leadership campaign costs, but the figures suggest it is in the order of about £1 million, that the leadership co…”

“It may well be donations to another party, but the reality is that if we were sitting down here and trying on paper today to recreate everyone who donated to our campaigns we could not do it to that level of specificity. The idea that that is an unusual thing, well, perhaps Luke Taylor has talents in this area beyond t…”

“You are entirely correct to point out that the process was not followed, but your comment earlier that the impression from this process is that if you bung a Minister a few quid you are going to get on to a shortlist does not recognise the fact that this man was already on the shortlist prior to the change of Governmen…”

“Which did not happen in this case, Chair. This was the Opposition, which was given money, and they were not in government at the time in relation to this role, although I absolutely sit with how the reporting of this might well suggest that, and I think some of the conversation we have had in this session today would a…”

“There were already delays at that stage, and we had already had not an ideal process followed at that point.”

“Does my hon. Friend agree that while it is good news that the Government have now proposed national minimum standards, her new clause represents the other part of the Casey review’s recommendations, without which the House would have failed to act on the licensing requirements specified in the review?”

“I thank my right hon. Friend for his efforts to move these provisions forward. I will relay the key points of our agreement on this issue. The key challenge is that since the Deregulation Act 2015, we have a system in which councils no longer know who is operating in their area, on what basis they are operating, and wh…”

“I thank the Minister for his response. I have several residents who have been waiting almost a year for a refund from the Home Office. Given the dramatic improvements that we have seen in asylum application processing in the last year, can I trust that the Minister will put the same zeal into ensuring that the other Ho…”

“8. What steps she has taken to tackle delays in the payment of refunds by her Department.”

“T5. Crawley has the worst air quality in Sussex, yet under the previous Government, a new incinerator on the town’s border was approved; the town will be directly in its plume. In the context of incinerators, will the Minister set out how we can enhance air quality, and will the Government consider a moratorium on the …”

“I spent my entire period of academia focused on the UK constitution and was a big believer that we had a document here and a way of working that seemed uniquely suited to the nature of our country. Unfortunately, the following 15 years have raised a number of questions about that: first, the willingness of Prime Minist…”

“Would a greater central policy involvement be of help?”

“Is it the sponsoring Department that is overwhelmingly more involved in your bodies than those central policy Departments, at present?”

“Sometimes, Chair, it is useful to probe if there are reasons why something might be the case, but yes.”