Speeches by Baker.

“Post-legislative scrutiny is a valuable process but only if it is done properly and actually acted upon; I could not agree with you more, Mr Rich. Have you had any discussions with the current Government about changes to lobbying rules in light of that process and the predecessor Committee’s report?”

“The Bill addresses fundamental flaws in our current mental health legislation in relation to the rights of people with learning disabilities and autistic people. I will focus my comments on new clauses 32 and 33, which I have tabled. They are also about vital rights within our mental health legislation and relate close…”

“Professor Lievesley recommended that, in a future spending round, the Treasury should ensure that funding is available to support harmonisation, but this money does not appear to be made available. We heard in a recent session that the ONS has withdrawn funding previously used to harmonise UK data in favour of addressi…”

“Were there any particular issues caused by the Scottish census taking place in a different year from the English census?”

“It is very sad. In the longer term, if we want to fix this issue, it will take funding. Are there any other further steps that should be taken?”

“Were there any Administrations that you found to be particularly resistant to harmonisation?”

“Good afternoon, Sir Ian. As a Scottish MP, I am particularly interested in the issue of harmonising the collection and production of data across the UK with the devolved Administrations. As a former principal of the great University of Aberdeen, you will have a particular perspective on this from your experience over t…”

“Can the Minister assure me that, along with the huge defence contracts that this Government have already secured for shipyards in Scotland, this strategy will also offer great opportunities for fabrication yards, including at Methil in my constituency? It was saved from closure by Labour Ministers, and its brilliant wo…”

“That is very helpful. Thank you very much.”

“Finally from me, on written statements, I think you responded substantively to this point in your answers to Charlotte Cane. But can you see no situation where it would be satisfactory for a major policy to be announced via a written statement? I was in Holyrood for 12 years. Quite often, SNP Ministers would issue a wr…”

“It is always a clear-cut call, then, when analysing and assessing what level of importance a policy announcement has—whether it would be a satisfactory process to announce it to the House or not.”

“The Government recently protected Opposition time by providing a business of the House motion to allow for statements. Would you like to see more of that?”

“Good morning, Mr Norman. I would like to ask you about the balance between time in the Chamber for statements and other business of Parliament. When the Leader of the House came to Committee, one of the defences made by the Government regarding this issue is that there have been so many ministerial statements in the Se…”

“Thank you, Simon. Good morning. My questions are also on how we can have effective accountability of Ministers in terms of parliamentary scrutiny. The Ministerial Code, of course, has a role in that too. You said that you take the Ministerial Code and the principles set out in chapter 9.1, in particular, very seriously…”

“As you said, the Independent Adviser has told us that he does not view it as falling under his remit to assess whether there has been a breach of the principle set out in chapter 9.1 that “the most important announcements of government policy should be made in the first instance in Parliament.” Who should therefore det…”

“But in terms of chapter 9.1 specifically, Mr Speaker has raised concerns directly with this Committee. It is obviously something he takes very seriously and is worried about, so would you accept that there have been breaches of the principles set out in 9.1 in this Session?”

“In principle, do you think it should be the Prime Minister or Parliament that decides whether Ministers are failing to honour their obligations to the House, given that there may well be differences of view on this issue between Government and Parliament?”

“Does my hon. Friend agree that the Chancellor’s excellent spending review for Scotland, which sets out record funding for the Scottish Government, means that SNP Ministers are ideally placed to offer the agricultural sector in Scotland a multi-year funding settlement, and that that is exactly what they should now do?”

“In effect, what does the decision to close the programme mean in practice for government analysts and external researchers who had hoped to link anonymised datasets to improve policy outcomes?”

“This was published in March 2023, so some time ago. The most common themes in analysis of the transcribed conversations were comments on governance and decision-making structures widely seen as ineffective in setting and communicating strategic priorities, with a resulting lack of strategic clarity contributing to over…”