Speeches by Smith.

“That is powerful.”

“I thank the Minister for that reassurance and for outlining that there are further abilities to recover funds. Particularly in recoveries from organisations, does that include the seizure of assets should that be necessary? A lot of organisations might be asset rich but cash poor. If we seek to retrieve money on behalf…”

“I have a few requests for clarification about this group of clauses. The point that my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire made about clause 63 and wanting to avoid double jeopardy makes complete sense, but it raises a question—forgive me if this is covered somewhere else, perhaps in other l…”

“I could probably have intervened on my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire, but he was in full flow at the time and I did not want to put him off. I have a clarification question on the meaning of the bank. Is the Minister looking to ensure that things such as the National Savings and Invest…”

“I have some queries about clause 17 and the provisions on recovery from bank accounts. My comments apply to clause 38 as well, but I will speak specifically to clause 17. Earlier, the Minister mentioned that some of the powers for direct deductions and deductions from earnings are used more widely across the DWP, parti…”

“Further to a similar online petition that is approaching 1,000 signatures, I present this petition of over 100 constituents from Newton Ferrers and Noss Mayo who rely on Newton Ferrers pharmacy, which is owned and run by Esi Kumurdzi. My constituents are deeply concerned about the future of this vital pharmacy, which i…”

“I thank the Minister for those points, but I seek a bit more clarification. There are references to “the Minister” in clause 3, and I want to be clear about this, because we talked a lot about the code of practice during the evidence session on Tuesday. Is the Minister saying that the code of practice will have referen…”

“Of the 500 or so that the Minister has just explained will have to pay inheritance tax, does he have any idea what number are small businesses, compared with the large estates that he seeks to challenge in the legislation?”

“Does my right hon. Friend agree that the myriad Labour attacks on family businesses will have a huge impact on businesses like Vospers vehicle franchise in my constituency? Founded in 1946, it employs 600 people but faces a £1.4 million increase in national insurance contributions and a future business property relief …”

“Q I will ask one question in a second, but I wanted to come back on the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire made about the code of practice. The Minister has said that each time in our scrutiny we get to a point in the Bill that relates to a bit of the code of practice, he will…”

“Particularly in relation to bank account details and information on spending, and that sort of thing, which you just used as an example. Jasleen Chaggar: On the eligibility verification measures—what we are calling the bank spying powers—we are recommending that they be removed in their entirety. They really are unprec…”

“Q Thank you, Chair, and thank you, gentlemen. We have heard quite a lot of concerns already this afternoon about the potential disproportionate impact on disabled people. It would be good to hear from you as disability campaigners—because we have kind of heard people talking on your behalf so far—about how you think th…”

“Q The Bill is sort of a move on from the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill, which was introduced by the last Government. I know that the Information Commissioner had some concerns about the Bill’s previous iteration, and he has said that those concerns have roughly been addressed in this new Bill. Are you si…”

“Thank you.”

“Q This is possibly a slightly nuanced question, but there has been a lot of talk about the authorised officer role. To my mind, when you go from the Minister to the authorised officer, that feels like quite a big jump in title. It might be quite a small thing but, from your experience at the PSFA, does that terminology…”

“Q On eligibility verification, the Government have said that the final decision will always be made by a human. There is an aim to automate some things, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but do you feel reassured by the human element at the end of the process, so that people are not adversely affected by automation…”

“Q You will have heard our previous questions. We talked about the cost-benefit analysis for businesses in the private sector. In your Justice work, what is your assessment of the proportionality of that measures in the Bill that, in essence, tell financial institutions that they have to share that information with the …”

“Q We see that there has been a lack of robust assessment of business costs so far. The Government have been unable to say what the cost to the banks will be. Do you have any concerns about the costs or the other impacts on businesses in the sectors? I suppose the flip question of that is: do you think there should be i…”

“Q Interestingly, one of the previous witnesses talked about powers that other countries have but we do not, which potentially would do exactly what you have just described. Are there any countries already doing something along the lines of what you just suggested it would be helpful for us to look at—perhaps not for th…”

“Q Given what you just said about the nature of the data that is already collected, could we avoid the fraud in the first place by sharing a lot of that information? If cross-departmental working is tightened up, might there be opportunities to flag fraud as soon as it starts to happen? John Smart: Absolutely. There are…”