Speeches by Carling.

“I beg to move, That this House has considered the impact of import standards on the agricultural sector. I am delighted to have secured today’s debate. I am very grateful to all colleagues who signed my application, and to the Backbench Business Committee for granting time. I am happy to take interventions during my sp…”

“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for highlighting the biosecurity aspect of this issue. My farmers, too, have been significantly impacted by foot and mouth disease in the past, and I know how important an issue that is. She puts her point on the record. I was talking about potential arguments around food prices. Researc…”

“I am glad to have a couple of minutes to wind up after what has been an incredibly valuable debate that has covered a whole range of topics. I start, of course, with the hon. Member for Bridlington and The Wolds (Charlie Dewhirst), who, I think, agrees with me—there were various bits of discussion there. I referred exc…”

“Okay. What is the key issue with the sponsorship teams? Is it the level of seniority and expertise? Is it a question of resourcing? How could we improve the sponsorship teams?”

“Is there essentially a need for clearer definitions of things like “operationally independent”, and some of the other terms that we are seeing?”

“You talked quite a lot in your evidence about the duplication—“man marking” is the term you used—of ALB functions by Departments. What do you think the solution is to that? Is the correct answer always to close the ALB, or is it to find some other way?”

“That is a problem. Do you think there is enough clarity around the respective roles of Departments and ALBs? Do Departments really know what sponsorship should look like and all the functions that they should be carrying out?”

“If it was 250, that would be fewer than the number of ALBs, right? You would have less than one person sponsoring each one.”

“That is helpful, and I agree. How effective would you say departmental oversight is at the moment of the public bodies they cover? What are the key issues with that? Do you want to add anything more?”

“That is a useful couple of ideas to think through. In some of the evidence we have seen, you commented on a shortage of resource in the Cabinet Office and the teams that examine ALBs. I put a similar query to a senior civil servant at the Committee’s last session, and the response was essentially that they feel the Cab…”

“Sure. The guidance is vague, but the Cabinet Office and the Treasury can both veto the establishment of new ALBs, so why is there still so much inconsistency? Could any other safeguards be put in place that are more effective than what we have right now?”

“You flagged inconsistency in the ways that ALBs are established, with those that perform similar functions often having different status or classification, and often different governance arrangements. Is that mostly a legacy problem? Or is it still happening with new public bodies?”

“Do we know enough, then, about the public bodies we have? If we do not, how do we improve that? For example, should the Cabinet Office collect and publish information around all public bodies—despite some of the issues you just touched on—rather than just ALBs?”

“Thank you; that is really helpful. Some of the issues you have touched on around accountability are very much things we have found in some of our inquiries, particularly on the ONS and otherwise. As you also touched on, there are around 300 arms’ length bodies, but there are broader classification issues, as your writt…”

“Thank you very much, Chair—it is a great honour. Joe, can you start by summarising the current public bodies landscape as you see it?”

“Q12. In September, a National Secular Society report highlighted alarming numbers of extremist religious organisations in the UK from various faith traditions expressing hideous views about women, including promoting female genital mutilation and denying the existence of marital rape. Many of these are registered as ch…”

“Thank you. That is really helpful. It is useful to recognise, as it does not always happen, that a lot of those savings do not necessarily come from headcount reductions. It is useful to have that point on the record. You have anticipated my next set of questions about the strategic workforce plan. We were originally t…”

“I have some questions mostly around civil service workforce. The spending review included cuts of 16% to administrative budgets across Government by 2030. What reduction in civil service headcount is that likely to entail? How many civil servants are we looking at having by the end of that period?”

“That is helpful. Finally on this topic, before I move on to something else briefly, is there a sense of how many voluntary exits and voluntary and compulsory redundancies we have had through these schemes, particularly in 2025?”

“That is really helpful.”