Speeches by Olney.

“I look forward to the hon. Lady’s further comments, but as I said, the psychiatrists were very clear that they did not believe that this was a sufficient safeguard, and we should acknowledge that. I was unable to put my question to Alex Ruck Keene KC during the oral evidence session, but he kindly agreed to give furthe…”

“Yes, that is exactly what I am aiming to do. The hon. Member makes an excellent point. There is a wide variety of views on this, but in actual fact, much as I do not wish to question Professor Sir Chris Whitty, and I acknowledge his seniority as the chief medical officer, he was very much the outlier on this. Everybody…”

“The hon. Gentleman puts his finger on the exact point: it allows people to make a decision about whether or not they want to continue treatment; it has not been used in this way before, and it was not intended to be used for that purpose. I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point: he was trying to say that to stop treatm…”

“That is a very interesting intervention. I cannot comment on that because I have no knowledge of how the Mental Capacity Act was drafted or the evidence that was taken.”

“That is an absolutely relevant point. The Mental Capacity Act was not drafted in anticipation of it ever being used for this kind of scenario. Therefore, it is really incumbent upon us to weigh very carefully whether the Mental Capacity Act is the right way of assessing people’s ability to make this decision. As I was …”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. I thank the hon. Member for Spen Valley for her opening remarks. I am grateful to be called so early in proceedings, because I believe this is one of the really important issues before us. It is about whether or not somebody “has the capacity to make a decisi…”

“I beg to move amendment 34, in clause 1, page 1, line 4, leave out “capacity” and insert “ability”. This replaces the concept of capacity based on the Mental Capacity Act and replaces it with a new concept of ability which is defined in NC1.”

“I agree exactly with the hon. Lady’s point. The Act was not designed for this purpose, and it is essential that we carefully scrutinise whether it should be used in this way.”

“Ms Hewer, I am looking at figure 12 in the Report, and it appears to show that no costs have been forecast for any financial year after this one. Is that an actual reflection of your expectations, or is there another reason why no costs have been forecast?”

“So far, you have spent £17.3 million. The total expected income from interest on the loans is £78 million, so you have spent 22%, so far, of that expected income. We know that nine organisations have gone insolvent and that a further nine are behind with their repayments, so if you do not yet have an expectation of fut…”

“But you have not done it yet?”

“Okay. Do you think there is a point at which it becomes more cost effective to make these loans into grants? How will you know? What will be the factors that will decide that?”

“Ms Hewer, why has it been so difficult to get a memorandum of understanding agreed between you and Arts Council England for their collection of the loans?”

“What were the specific challenges around that?”

“I was just going to ask.”

“Indeed it is. I wanted to know if you could give us an update on London office refurbishment. Is it proceeding as planned?”

“Given that some of these unknown costs are likely to be significant, what are the chances that you might have to come back with a supplementary estimate?”

“There is a degree of uncertainty in some of your estimates, because you have had to make assumptions. First, as you have mentioned, new audit responsibilities will be transferred to you. Also, in the ones that you are already doing, there is the possibility of unexpected further work being required. You do not routinel…”

“When will we have those forecasts for future years?”

“I am struck by the fact that you said to Mr Betts that there were households you could not reach; you made a decision, based on cost considerations, that there were households that you could not prevent from going into fuel poverty. Yet the scheme has ended up costing so much less than you predicted. I am keen to learn…”