Speeches by Smith.

“What is your role in ensuring that individual local authorities take opportunities to develop and deliver sufficient schemes to increase active travel in their area? I suppose you can flip it on its head. How can they best get what they need to do what they want to deliver in their local area through you?”

“Where you have local authorities that have lower ratings, what do you do specifically to help them improve?”

“How have capability ratings for local authorities influenced your decision making?”

“That then leads me really well into the question that I was supposed to ask. How have capability ratings for local authorities influenced ATE’s decision making? What are you doing to assist local authorities with low ratings?”

“On the back of what you said about the percentage of funding that you have compared to Highways England, do you think there would be value in an equivalent of National Highways for cycling so that there is almost an equal footing?”

“Sorry. Following Alex’s question, particularly on the urban fringe and boundary issue, how do you seek actively to work where there is a changing responsibility? I am thinking of one brilliant example. One local authority has a brilliantly laid cycle path that becomes the responsibility of another where it turns into a…”

“If you want a good example, I would be very happy to welcome you to my constituency, because we have been working for years on trying to get everyone joined up. We have some good examples of what needs to change and what has worked well.”

“What levers do you have at your disposal? It sounds like you are having some chats among the different organisations, but what levers do you actually have for achieving that reform? I am interested in one specific thing. Obviously, there are the four railway operators that have come back into the Department that have a…”

“Two-year mortgages have hit 5%, borrowing is billions of pounds above forecast and retail sales have slumped. Does the Prime Minister still believe that the Chancellor is doing a good job?”

“Do you think that shadow GBR is an effective model for driving reform of the railway?”

“Are there any additional powers that you feel you might need? It is one of these things where you have a short timeframe to get to grips with what needs to change. Do you have enough powers within that for what you are trying to achieve to deliver that?”

“Forgive me if I should already know this. How will DfT Operator interact with Great British Railways once it is completed? Do they remain two completely separate organisations, or are they the same thing?”

“On the whole idea of regionalisation and devolution, it strikes me that there is a potential fly in the ointment, which is that the devolution for the non-existing mayoral combined authorities, which are the ones that always get mentioned in this Committee and are the big cities, do not reflect the devolution packages …”

“Arguably, with local government reorganisation, those counties are not going to exist in the same form. Finally, are you talking to MHCLG? Is it a key stakeholder? Ultimately, the model of local government that we currently have is not what it is envisaged to look like in 18 months. Those stakeholders and decision-make…”

“Great.”

“T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.”

“T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.”

“Gables, an animal rescue charity in my constituency that I met before Christmas, and the Devon Mental Health Alliance have shared the negative impacts the increase to employers’ national insurance contributions will have on their service delivery. For Gables, it is a £22,000 increase to its costs. For DMHA, it decrease…”

“Gables, an animal rescue charity in my constituency that I met before Christmas, and the Devon Mental Health Alliance have shared the negative impacts the increase to employers’ national insurance contributions will have on their service delivery. For Gables, it is a £22,000 increase to its costs. For DMHA, it decrease…”

“I welcome today’s announcement; it is great to see some progress. I will not cover what has been said about the legal powers, but I am interested in the funding. When I led a commission in Plymouth, the money to pay for it came from the local authority’s in-year budget. I appreciate the £7 million in total that has bee…”