Speeches by Edwards.

“Sabina, do you have any thoughts about what changes the UK might have to make to meet the standard that the US may expect us to do?”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy) and the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice) on securing this important debate. I am delighted to join my parliamentary colleagues in celebrating the new agreement that our Gov…”

“Let me put another question that picks up on the point that you just made: we have heard very useful information from Boston Consulting Group, which has looked at the estimates for how much capital investment will be needed in various sectors—between £363 billion and £583 billion in additional capital to meet the growt…”

“To pick up on that point, when you came to the Committee in 2022, Paul, you said that the funding specifically had paled in comparison with other rivals. Does that remain your view, and if so, why?”

“That’s great—that is one of our strengths. You have given us some really good examples. Are there other things the Government could be doing? You said that money might be a bit of a challenge; what other things could the Government do to help with the competitiveness side?”

“I will do my best.”

“Chris and Zeki, could you describe a bit more the types of threat that we face and how over the last few years those threats from a cyber-security perspective have transformed or morphed? Are we able to chart the change? Where have we been? Where are we now? And where might we be going?”

“We have seen quite a lot in the news recently about the vulnerability of companies, particularly in the food sector. People are obviously falling foul of this; they may have been trying very hard not to, but it has happened. What do you think about the National Cyber Security Centre’s guidance? Is it good enough? Is it…”

“Do you think that there needs to be a much greater focus at board level as well? Ideally, you would have somebody with that expertise, but we know that this is an evolving, highly digitalised economy, and there are fewer and fewer people to go around as it becomes more important. What could be done to strengthen oversi…”

“Finally, on this level of risk—and the increased risk we are seeing, with many more companies becoming quite public victims—there are reports that some insurers are viewing cyber threats in the same way they view terrorism: that is, they will not insure if there is a breach and an obvious resulting detriment. What do y…”

“Do you think that the Government could be playing any more of a role in this area? Obviously, I am sure they could be providing certain amounts of support within the supply chains, as you mentioned, but is there anything in particular that you could cite that the Government could do more of in the light of that?”

“I want to build on the challenges around supply chains. I will ask the whole panel to comment on this. We know that supply chains are vulnerable. How do you monitor the situation across that? Does that sit with your board, or with some person within the company who has that responsibility? How do you manage the monitor…”

“Potentially, defence is naturally slightly more alive to that type of risk. Trevor, what do you think about the monitoring success?”

“Henrik, do you want to comment?”

“Did anybody else want to add anything to that before I move on?”

“Can the Minister share with me, as chair of the reconstituted all-party parliamentary group on pensions and growth, any plans for how counties that are outside mayoral authorities, such as Staffordshire, could benefit from pension reforms to encourage more investment in the UK, to support infrastructure, jobs and local…”

“15. What steps she is taking to help increase returns on investment from pension savings.”

“LightSpeed Broadband has been installing infrastructure across my constituency. Disgracefully, it has falsely claimed in communications, including written letters to my constituents, that during a meeting I signed off on its works. That is a gross misrepresentation of the meeting I held with the company to raise compla…”

“We are very pleased to hear it.”

“Thank you very much for coming. Secretary of State, we heard last month on this Committee that the energy prices that businesses pay are 60% higher than the EU average and in some cases twice as much. We have heard that from steel. We have heard from Nissan that their Sunderland plant pays more for its energy than any …”