Speeches by Quigley.

“I warmly welcome the Government’s plans to ban social media for under-16s. However, when it comes to content promoting eating disorders, the risks do not simply disappear at 16. The eating disorder charity, Beat, recently pushed ChatGPT to stop generating restrictive meal plans altogether, which it did, so it is possib…”

“When the bid failed, were they given the reasons why it failed?”

“We talk a lot about evidence. Are we collecting evidence of what has happened to patients who have been abroad? I am struggling. It feels like we are doing the same thing every day and expecting a different answer the following morning; no one is taking their foot off the brake. Correct me, Chair, if I am wrong, but it…”

“What was the answer?”

“How did you make the decision in this case? What level was not met?”

“4. What steps she is taking to help remove dangerous content from social media platforms.”

“Is this a self-imposed handbrake based on a system that has always existed, or is there something I am not understanding?”

“So the bidders had that framework in front of them. They knew what you wanted.”

“Would you say France, Germany and Australia have healthcare systems that are good, average or below average compared to the NHS?”

“We know that women who are victims of FGM travel to places like France and Germany for reconstructive surgery. Are we saying they do not know what they are doing, or we do not understand what they are doing with that surgery, or we do not agree with the surgery? I am struggling to understand why a healthcare system in …”

“Is the NHS having to manage patients who have been abroad for surgery and come back? What is that looking like? Are there additional procedures?”

“If you had a magic wand, going back to this process, what would you have done differently in these applications?”

“How would you explain to a victim of FGM who is looking at places like France and Germany why we are so far behind in terms of time?”

“You went through a process of bids and you say it went to the committee and it did not meet the threshold of high-quality research. How do you assess that threshold? Are there metrics? Is it inputs or outputs? It just seems like a process that is guaranteed to fail.”

“Thank you for that. Do you think this Committee would need any expertise in particular? Would there be something like the Sir Brian test to say, “This has met a threshold for inquiry”? The danger is that we would all identify a series of emails and we might say, “Yes, we’ve all got 40 on this particular subject,” but M…”

“Committees already bring issues to Ministers, and I think that the Chair of this Committee has done a very good job of doing that.”

“Only a fiver? Crikey, it is not the 1960s. Sir Brian, are you suggesting a different approach from the current one? That is not a trick question, but do you feel that the current system of just highlighting issues to Ministers is insufficient?”

“You have further recommended that this Committee consider recommending to Ministers that an inquiry be held if there is sufficient concern to justify one. How do you think this Committee could make the assessment that there is sufficient concern? What do we need to be capable of seeing?”

“Thank you for that. It is a concern of ours that we miss a Horizon or an infected blood scandal because so much information comes before this Committee. I suppose it is a question of what guardrails you can put in place to say, “Look, it does not really matter what the Department is telling you, this is a serious issue…”

“I must confess that Opposition days are beginning to feel a little bit like groundhog day. A party that largely sat on its hands during some of the most significant and difficult challenges is now returning to tell us where this Government are going wrong, and doing so with all the fervour of a party that has never hel…”