Speeches by Davies.

“Finally from me, in this set of questions, there was an expectation from your perspective that there would be further follow-up meetings with Home Office Ministers and other Ministers as appropriate. Is it your expectation and assumption that that is what will happen as a result of the meeting last week?”

“To be clear, from July onwards you have met Minister Phillips in the one meeting, and then most recently Sarah Champion and Ed Davey, and then the meeting we have all described last week. In the meeting last week, were any new commitments made to you?”

“Are there any other Members of Parliament you have had discussions with about this, from Christmas onwards?”

“Okay. Have you had any meetings with any other Member of Parliament in a leadership position since, say, Christmas on this issue?”

“And the meeting last week.”

“In terms of the progress from July up to and including this month, has there been any other period of time when you have seen that rapid progress—“rapid” is my word—outside that window, from the recommendations being delivered? Did you get a sense that things were moving and under way from the meeting that you had with…”

“Did you have any meetings from July to December with civil servants or officials, or any conversations with civil servants or officials, about where this was on the work programme?”

“Sorry, this January.”

“Forgive me: last week’s meeting.”

“The first meeting last year with Minister Phillips was in terms of the general direction of the work and the fact that the new Government came in and there was a piece of work to be done. January was much more specific, in terms of talking about the individual recommendations and the timescale to deliver them. Would th…”

“I will just place on the record, first, that I was the leader at Telford and Wrekin council. The inquiry was going to come to Telford. It did not come to Telford, so we set up a local inquiry, which is now seen by others as a good standard of a local inquiry. I am also the former chair of the Local Government Associati…”

“On the recommendations as well?”

“Mr O’Brien? John O’Brien: I certainly had no discussion around our recommendations, because I think that that is a line that should not be crossed. The recommendation should flow from the evidence that the chair and the panel have heard. After the final report was finalised within the inquiry, we obviously started talk…”

“Professor Jay, you had a phone call from a special adviser within Government about your press and media comments, expressing frustration about the lack of action. Can you say a little bit more about that conversation and what the purpose of the conversation was, from your perspective?”

“Was that the conversation that you had?”

“What was the tone of that conversation? Was it a genuine curiosity about why you had gone public, or a desire to want to work together to implement the recommendations? What is your perspective?”

“Did that conversation lead to any effective change in terms of the then Government’s approach around the recommendations?”

“Would you be able to provide the Committee with a written timetable of that contact for our use later on?”

“We do not need that?”

“I have a quick question on mandatory reporting, before I move on to the recent events. I think you said that the recommendation that the previous Government were bringing forward fell as a result of the general election. I remember you saying that that version of mandatory reporting did not necessarily take the view th…”