Speeches by Lowe.

“Does that include these wretched gates and everything else that has gone in? Is that all included or is that on top?”

“Lastly, on the £1.5 million a week that you are spending on what I think you called refurb—”

“It will be helpful if you could explain the responsibilities of accounting officers, the Treasury and the Government Finance Function in this process. I think it would be useful to know what part you all play.”

“It must have cost tens of millions to do all the wretched gates that hold me up coming out of Parliament now. Who actually signed off on that?”

“The gates you put on the outside—who signed all that off?”

“But when I talk to Members of both Houses, they tell me that nobody was consulted about it. This Committee made the decision to do it, but most MPs and Lords had no idea it was happening.”

“When we look at figure 1, we see the situation is varied: pre covid, 76% of public accounts were meeting the summer deadline, but that then dropped to 42%; currently, it sits at 64%. Is that acceptable?”

“Good, because I hope we can all agree that timely and accurate accounts are the genesis of any form of stability and of people being held to account for failure.”

“I must confess that I am quite bemused about this whole thing. I want to ask a few questions—ostensibly about cost, although I think that cost is pretty irrelevant at this stage. Is the objective of this exercise to basically do necessary repairs to the UNESCO heritage building, or is it to provide better accommodation…”

“Morning, James. Do you subscribe to the view that the state should be as accountable to the taxpayer as the taxpayer is to the state? Do you start from that premise?”

“Thank you for your example, Gareth, but I think labelling is a different issue from regulation. I would argue that you deregulate for growth; you do not regulate for growth. The NAO rightly sets out that regulators are primarily set up to correct market failures and to protect consumers, the public and the environment.…”

“Good afternoon, everybody. If you will indulge me, I want to understand the genesis of the name “Regulating for growth”. Who actually came up with that? Rachel Reeves irritates me when she spreads it around the Chamber liberally, so who actually thought that that was a sensible name?”

“I am glad you clarified that; I was going to double-check that.”

“This is, I think, the 10th plan to effectively reduce regulatory burden and increase growth. Hopefully we will not need an 11th, but I can’t quite see how we aren’t going to need it.”

“This is my final question, because I can feel that the Chairman is itching. Are you looking to help the financial sector or, to Clive’s point, the building sector? What sectors are you looking to achieve benefit for, above all else?”

“We have to get at the answer to this.”

“Right, me again for round 2. This one is probably for you, Jim, given that both of us have had a career in the City [Interruption.] Dear me, that’s my wretched watch. As you and I probably know and understand, which not everybody will, in the financial services markets of 2000, London was the most vibrant capital marke…”

“I have no more questions, Geoffrey.”

“Okay. I am still not clear, but over what time are you looking for them to deliver this? What is your timeframe for delivery? I am not clear on the definition, but assuming they are—I am far from certain they are—what is the timeframe over which you want this delivered? If you do not know the objectives, they cannot de…”

“So how do they judge whether they have been successful or not?”