Speeches by Davies.

“Do you ask other partners across Whitehall, or local authorities and other organisations across the country, how they perceive the Home Office and its approach?”

“The information we have received is that one has not been published, so it would be helpful to see that. Do you think the reputation the Home Office has among some—of being siloed in its mentality and the way in which it approaches work with other Whitehall Departments—is fair?”

“Other Departments have an outcome delivery plan, but I understand that the Home Office has not delivered one since 2021. Is that right? Do you plan to have a formalised delivery plan?”

“How have the Department’s priorities and organisational structure changed since the general election last summer?”

“People talk about the politics of hope and, goodness me, this statement can give the country some hope that cancer survival rates will be driven up. However, the Shrewsbury and Telford hospital NHS trust has remained challenged over the last 14 years. Will my hon. Friend the Minister confirm that the areas that are mos…”

“Is there merit in differential amounts of money for visas or amounts of possible visas to drive economic growth? For example, very high-worth individuals could access visas at a differential price compared with others, or certain industries or sectors could access them for free—for nurses wanting to work in the NHS, fo…”

“I take your point about wanting to work with police forces, but do you feel that from the centre at the Home Office, you can mandate that change and reform, given the independence that the police quite rightly enjoy?”

“You talk about ensuring that there will not be 43 ways of doing the same thing and that it should be done only once. Do you believe that police force reorganisation will emerge as part of that answer?”

“To clarify the £1 billion figure—but this is linked to the other figures you mentioned—those are savings to the Home Office, but what is your estimate of the cost shunt to other Government Departments and other parts of the state? The saving to the Home Office is one thing, but the saving to the overall taxpayer is ano…”

“I welcome my hon. Friend’s statement. In Telford there are five stuck schools. The rise in investment from £6,000 to potentially £100,000 per stuck school means that up to £470,000 of extra investment is coming the way of Telford schools. From speaking to my wife, who is a primary school teacher in Telford, I know that…”

“In places like Telford, it is a basic principle that people pay into the system and then take out of the system, or their neighbours do, when they are in need. The companies and individuals that are defrauding national benefits are often also defrauding local authority benefits and schemes. Will we extend these powers …”

“Were you given any assurances that work was under way in regard to the report, in that general meeting that you had with Minister Phillips?”

“There was a meeting last week, which you have referred to a number of times. What prompted that meeting with the Home Office?”

“Just to be very clear, there is definitely a distinction between the independence that you need as a chair and as an inquiry on the setting up and investigating piece, and what happens once the recommendations have been reported. To go back to the Telford local inquiry that we commissioned, as part of that process the …”

“Can I follow up with one or both of you on the point about the ability for local inquiries either to exercise that role or to apply to the authority in circumstances where they feel the need to? Obviously there is the duty of candour through Hillsborough that is coming through. Your views on that would be really helpfu…”

“One of the key differences between a national statutory inquiry and a non-statutory national or non-statutory local inquiry, as has been spoken about quite a lot, is the inability for a non-statutory inquiry to compel people to come and give evidence. Certainly my experience, in the inquiry that we ended up commissioni…”

“You have mentioned a couple of times the point about multiple inquiries reporting at the same time. Just to check, were you ever given an impression or told by anybody—yourself or Professor Jay—that other inquiries were taking prominence in terms of bandwidth or parliamentary time, or anything like that? Was there any …”

“Thank you. The Home Secretary was also there?”

“I associate myself and my community with the statement from the Home Secretary on this tragic incident. Whether it is the purchasing of knives online or the sharing of horrible videos celebrating violence and death, there is clearly a gap in the ability of the state to hold social media companies and online retailers t…”

“Of course, Mr O’Brien. John O’Brien: For the purpose of completeness, the Home Secretary did join that Parliament meeting—the one last week.”