Speeches by Olney.

“So it is two separate calculations.”

“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?”

“Five years from now?”

“We have received your letter to the Committee, particularly in response to the Committee’s recommendation—from some time ago, I think—that you should evaluate the child trust fund scheme to understand what it has achieved. More pressingly, we are concerned to know what is happening about the 46% of accounts that remain…”

“I have two quick follow-ups. First, if you know who the money belongs to, what is stopping you just releasing it to them?”

“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?”

“I think so, yes.”

“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…”

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

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

“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…”

“But it is not a resistance, and it is not that it is impossible?”

“What are the remaining obstacles to progress?”

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

“Mr Glass, there are obviously different levels of preparation to be onboarded to the shared services, but as of November 2025, the Government People Function, responsible for HR, is behind in all the clusters, excluding Overseas and Defence’s civilian HR capability. Why is it the Government People Function data so diff…”

“Can you explain a little more why it is difficult? Is it that it is embedded within the processes and that it is hard to do, or is it just that there has not been the attention on it or the will to bring it together?”

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