Speeches by Blake.

“I want to pick up on free school meals and SEN, before coming on to capital. Some local authorities, particularly in London, have already been making the choice to spend on either universal free school meals or adding to free school meals. Dr Tetlow, have you been able to make any assessment of what funding will be fre…”

“I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision about the definition of qualifying tenants for the purposes of claiming a right to manage; to reduce the proportion of qualifying tenants required to give notice of a claim to acquire a right to manage; to establish a duty on freeholders to assist …”

“I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his support for our task today and for raising that important case. Despite Mr Lai’s being told that his trial would last only 80 days, today marks the 1,630th day of his detention. Every day that he is detained, his health deteriorates further and his family rightly worry about his…”

“I beg to move, That this House has considered the detention of Jimmy Lai and other political prisoners internationally. It is a real honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Western. I speak today on behalf of my constituent Jimmy Lai, who has been detained abroad since December 2020. Mr Lai was on trial for alleged of…”

“I welcome my hon. Friend’s intervention; later in my remarks, I will come on to using all possible levers to secure Mr Lai’s freedom. When Sebastien is at home, he is my constituent—a man deeply concerned about his father’s welfare. That is the position in which I speak to the Chamber today: as a Member of Parliament s…”

“I thank all the participants in the debate: the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) for raising the case that he did; the right hon. and learned Member for Fareham and Waterlooville (Suella Braverman) for highlighting the injustice; my hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshir…”

“I declare an interest: I am a member of the House of Commons Commission, which has nominated me as a member of the independent complaints and grievance scheme advisory group, so I am a member of the group that we are discussing. When I was first elected, I attended the training on the ICGS, along with my colleagues fro…”

“The spending review says that there will be a report from the Office for Value for Money on temporary accommodation and the terrible waste of money going into poorly procured temporary accommodation. Some 90,000 children live in temporary accommodation in London. Does the Chancellor agree that the £39 billion for new, …”

“Will the hon. Member give way?”

“My hon. Friend said we have not confronted how the planning system is broken. Does he agree that we have not heard enough about how many children are homeless this evening and will be in the months ahead because we are not grappling with the housing crisis, and that we cannot do that until we address the infrastructure…”

“I am really moved by what the hon. Gentleman is talking about. Many of us will have had similar experiences. We have been hearing so much about the importance of local decision making. I cannot help but think if only there had been the necessary investment in skills in the planning team who made the decision and determ…”

“You take a bespoke approach to what the overall risk is.”

“In terms of inputs, you have more people and better technology. Are there any others that could improve productivity?”

“It would be really helpful if you would consider having a look at the potential additional income from joint investigations and that data-sharing agreement with Westminster City Council.”

“To me, this is quite a high-risk situation. Every person on the street is seeing what cannot be a functioning business. It would seem to me that there is a real potential to close some of the tax gap, but there is a concern that the scale of potential additional income is not enough for HMRC. How does your enforcement …”

“It would be really helpful to have those inputs to productivity written up and sent to the Committee, if you could write back to us. I have some more ideas for closing the tax gap. I represent an area with a number of candy stores. Westminster City Council has done really great work in driving down the business rates g…”

“I was curious as to why the investment in 500 additional compliance staff to increase collection of tax due is not having a consequence until 2026-27, according to table 3.1. The additional income is relatively small. It is £50 million and it is not until 2026-27. Why is that?”

“It is that productivity bit that I am really interested in. Can you unpack that for us?”

“The rate or pace at which the debt is paid back is one input of productivity. That is what the Chair was inquiring about. Are you concerned that the productivity of individual officers is too low? Are you working on the basis that there is a fixed productivity equation for an individual person and you are just trying t…”

“What analysis was provided to the Treasury in terms of the consequence of each individual investment measure? How were you able to come up with the figure of an additional £45 million in 2024-25 for the additional debt management capacity?”