Speeches by Olney.

“According to reports in both the Financial Times and The Times, the Government have asked supermarket retailers to reduce the price of essential food items, such as milk, bread and eggs. The chief executive officer of Marks & Spencer has described the proposals as “completely preposterous”. Can the Secretary of Sta…”

“The Government announced their intention in the industrial strategy to use their procurement power to shape markets for innovation in the longer term. Tech start-ups in my constituency complain that the process of getting Government contracts is slow, risk-averse and structurally biased in its financial viability tests…”

“Steelmaking is of vital strategic importance to the UK. We rely on steel for essential parts of our national infrastructure, including in defence, transport, clean energy generation, and advanced manufacturing. Steelmaking creates tens of thousands of highly skilled jobs across the country, helping to power our economy…”

“I brought the transcript with me, just to be on the safe side.”

“In these renegotiations, will you be encouraging your contractors to complete the project at the early and cheaper end of the current estimate? That is the goal.”

“Q13. I am sure the Prime Minister will join me in congratulating the 54 Liberal Democrats who won all 54 seats on Richmond upon Thames council at the recent local elections, but does he agree that the first-past-the-post system that produced this result does not give our communities the representation that they voted f…”

“That quote of our exchange was from February last year—2025—but you are still renegotiating. Why is it taking so long?”

“I am still a little bemused that you made that statement to me in February last year, and you are now saying that what was required to achieve some of these savings only just happened yesterday. Why were you so confident last year that you were going to be able to renegotiate these contracts?”

“I suppose I am still quite troubled by this. We did ask you the question at the Public Accounts Committee, in February last year, and you said with great confidence that it was going to happen. Now here we are, over a year later, and you still have great confidence that it is going to happen, but nothing has materialis…”

“Inconsistencies and U-turns have become characteristic of this Government, but this is more than just a redirection of policy; this is a betrayal of Ukraine. This Government are abandoning our European ally in its moment of need by putting more money into the pockets of President Putin to fund his war machine. Last mon…”

“Can you tell me what you have successfully renegotiated so far, and can you put a number on the savings that you have made?”

“Finally, if you achieve the success that you are looking for in renegotiating contracts, what impact do you think that will have on bringing down the overall budget?”

“I am guesting today from the Public Accounts Committee, which, as you probably know, has looked at the development of HS2 on many occasions over the last few years. Mr Wild, you came before the Committee in February last year, and we had an exchange at that time about contracts. You assured the Public Accounts Committe…”

“So it is two separate calculations.”

“Are these side-by-side computations, or is this new one replacing the other one?”

“Ms Newbury, how is the new agreement from January this year likely to impact compliance with the pillar 2 rules?”

“Another good segue. Pillar 2 is about complying with the OECD agreement to levy a minimum tax. What is HMRC doing to ensure there is sufficient support to those companies that will come under the pillar 2 regime to make sure they are compliant?”

“Mr Athow, to what extent are businesses having to incur undue cost to comply?”

“This is the top-up payment where companies were paying less than 15%—”

“There is no doubt about that, but shouldn’t you have started tracking some of those impacts already, given that some young people will already have claimed their matured fund?”