Speeches by Olney.

“So it is two separate calculations.”

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

“And then the new agreement and the way it will be calculated results in a reduction.”

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

“Five years from now?”

“Thank you, Chair. Before we begin the main session, we want to ask a couple of questions about the loan charge. Mr Marks, we know that there are about 32,000 outstanding loan charge cases and that HMRC is spending about £31 million a year pursuing those outstanding cases. Can you tell us when you hope to resolve them?”

“Does that change introduce more cost for businesses?”

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

“What areas of good practice that the large business team have adopted are you expecting other areas of HMRC to adopt in due course?”

“Understood. Secondly, the PAC recommendation was that HMRC should be looking at what has been achieved as a result of the child trust fund, so it is a little bit broader than what you have said your investigation will be looking at.”

“The debate surrounding a third runway at Heathrow has stretched over the past three decades. The Liberal Democrats have long stood by communities who oppose a third runway, arguing that the economic benefits are overstated and the environmental consequences are unavoidable. Although I have always opposed a third runway…”

“I have a final question, Mr Glass. How are you going to ensure that your function is not going to hold up the implementation of the overall shared services project any further?”

“Can you tell us a little more about what exactly you are doing to implement the functional standard in the people function?”

“Okay. So the Report’s findings that it wasn’t doing that are now being addressed?”

“I understand about future legislation, policy change and so on, but presumably a baseline is needed, at which point you say, “Right, here we all are together, and we are going to move forward as one.” Let us separate out the fact that this is obviously not a fixed state, but at some point you will have to get to a poin…”

“From now on, you will have future policy changes. Can there not be a standardised implementation?”

“What are the remaining obstacles to progress?”

“That is something that is happening in the future—”

“I understand that. I just want to highlight paragraph 2.14 in the Report, which says that four of the functions—finance, HR, grants and commercial—consolidate their existing standards into the NOVA system, which you were talking about. However, it says: “HR participated in the design process but did not work towards im…”

“How long will it take before everyone is using the same shared standard?”