Speeches by Hall.

“Finally, has the Department looked at the effect of the cancellation on tackling regional inequalities, particularly in the smaller towns in north-west England?”

“That feels a bit like a sticking plaster, or a second-best option. You have the London to Birmingham option, and the phase 2 option is some extra, longer trains. It does not seem to tackle the issue.”

“There are fewer seats on those trains though, aren’t there? And there are infrastructure problems around the station sizes and the platforms.”

“Is Northern Powerhouse Rail still viable following the cancellation of HS2 phase 2?”

“I want to focus on phase 2, but from a growth perspective, how much value will phase 1 on its own provide the UK economy compared with including phases 2a and 2b? Has that been considered?”

“I know that with local authorities, there might be additional roles that they think the team could offer—for instance, support with funding applications. Is there a dialogue going on between the team itself and local authorities to see what the right level of support is?”

“On 14 June 2017, the country watched in horror as images of the fire engulfing Grenfell Tower emerged. I felt it in the pit of my stomach as the true scale of the devastation and loss of life became apparent. This tragedy should never have happened. I will call it out for what it is: a national scandal. I hope that the…”

“Hello. I want to look at the 2022 rough sleeping strategy in a bit more detail—[Interruption.]”

“I want to look at the 2022 rough sleeping strategy and the cross-departmental activity between Government and the homeless sector. My question is to Penny—you knew this was coming. What is the evidence that your rough sleeping strategy is helping to focus activity across Government and within the homelessness sector?”

“I am interested in what we learn from that work. To what extent was there data sharing and monitoring systems? Was that shared across Departments? How often was progress tracked, and what was the frequency of the identification of emerging trends and where things were not working ahead of time? How frequently was that …”

“Did that capture the wider determinants, such as health, mental health and benefits issues? How interactive was it? You said you published the data; that is great, but are local authorities able to use that data, for example to home in on their specific patches?”

“How might your rough sleeping strategy inform a wider strategy on homelessness?”

“How useful is the data? Is it real-time information that different Departments can draw upon and react accordingly, or is there a bit of a lag from when the data is published?”

“Is there anything that you think did not work in the last strategy that you will not do next time, as we look to shape and improve it going forward?”

“I would like to go back to the homelessness advice and support team and the kind of role that it has. Given the rising trend in using B&Bs, how successfully is this team supporting local authorities to move away from B&Bs? How effective is it in doing that? What kind of support is there? If a local authority comes to y…”

“Where are they based? Are they based centrally and then sent out to the various areas where they are needed, or are they embedded in regions?”

“So they understand their areas?”

“Yes, so the team goes in when this is triggered, but if it keeps happening—”

“Exactly.”

“What about best practice examples? Does sharing best practice between local authorities happen quite a lot?”