Speeches by Darling.

“Is there anything we could learn from similar economies in Europe, Canada or Australia in terms of boosting funding appropriately?”

“Before I go to my main question, I want to understand whether you are alive to a ticking time bomb that I am concerned about: the doubling in the number of youngsters who are now educated at home. Is that beginning to feed into your world yet, or is it too early doors for that?”

“What you just shared was really inspiring; thank you for all your work in this area. Understanding future skills need is a leading light in your world. The Government have made significant changes to their focus on apprenticeships. Have you done a risk or equality impact assessment of those changes? Are there any red f…”

“This is the main question I want to explore with you. Clearly, as John as alluded to, you do not have a dedicated element focusing on youth and getting young people into work, so you need to ensure that it goes through your organisation like Torquay through a stick of rock. How do we achieve that? There is another elem…”

“Are you considering ensuring there is a pipeline of opportunities for skills training? Are you at that stage yet, or is it just over the horizon? Equally, have you undertaken any assessment of the defunding of level 7—that leadership and management approach—and what impact that may have on productivity and growth in ou…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. Although my constituency is almost as far as it possible to get from Glasgow, I know that my constituents will enjoy the games. As the Exchequer Secretary said, they should be an inspiration to us all, especially young people, and a celebration of the Commonw…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Hobhouse. The Liberal Democrats broadly welcome the draft regulations, but I wish to build on what the shadow Minister alluded to. The Minister talked about a one-year delay, but is she confident that it will be only one year? Does she believe that it may be pushed…”

“For many people, a pension is their second largest investment, after their home, but we must bear in mind that many others can only dream of having a private pension, as they face the challenges of the cost of living crisis. We Liberal Democrats want to make sure that pensions work effectively for those who invest in t…”

“With the Russian navy now escorting shadow fleet vessels down through the English channel, could a mitigation or a blocker for interdicting one of those vessels be a naval vessel with them? Was it an error of judgment by the Government to put them on notice that we were about to start those interdictions?”

“It is important to reflect that in the United Kingdom tourists face a VAT rate of 20% on their spend, whereas in Germany it is only 7% and in Spain, France and Italy it is 10%. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the Labour Government need to reverse their job-killing national insurance contribution hikes, which h…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. I congratulate the hon. Member for Rushcliffe (James Naish) on his incredibly powerful speech and other colleagues from across the east midlands and nearby on the love they have shown for this part of the United Kingdom. We could almost say that we are under th…”

“Sadly, the investment that I had hoped to see in my hospital in Torbay has been kicked into the long grass. We still have hundreds of sewage leaks across the hospital, 85% of which is not fit for purpose. However, let me go back to discussing the east midlands, which is what we are really here to do. As I was saying, S…”

“The Secretary of State is correct to suggest that the Government inherited a crisis around youth unemployment. However, by introducing the hikes in national insurance contributions, the Government made that crisis into a catastrophe for young people, and supercharged the pressure on our youth across the United Kingdom.…”

“I am delighted to welcome that, but we need to drive harder. We need only look at the massive impact on our economy of the incredibly foolish war that has been launched by Donald Trump. Uncoupling ourselves from the oil and gas industry will be a good way of protecting ourselves from such impacts in the future. The sec…”

“Yes. Let me reflect on the three areas that we need to be driving in particular. The first is our green energy approach, which the Government have made significant steps on. I am disappointed that the previous Government had a policy that did not prioritise the new schemes. A number of zombie schemes were sticking in t…”

“GPs truly are the frontline of our NHS. I recently had the pleasure of meeting representatives from the Chilcote practice in Torquay. They shared with me their concerns about the global sum payment. Their calculations suggest that it should be a little in excess of £200, yet the recently announced payment is £128 a yea…”

“I just want to unpick a bit further the effectiveness of spending on Access to Work, as compared with other schemes, where it might be £25,000 to get somebody into work. I accept there are cultural changes and so on in the bigger picture, but does the Department not have an opportunity to say, “Actually, this is a leve…”

“The other area I wanted to explore is managing budgets and where you are managing this budget from. Clearly, it is a grant budget. I want to unpick how you are managing that as far as finding other moneys to assist with that. I understand there are some schemes that are annually managed expenditure, whereas this is a g…”

“It is a pleasure. Thank you for inviting me. I would like to understand value for money, how that pans out and what the perception of value for money is. I would like to look at it through two different lenses. The average award for Access to Work is £4,000, yet institutes have looked at the value for money of other Go…”

“Thank you all for coming today. It is much appreciated. We have already touched on the national insurance hike, the increase in minimum wage and the impact of employment rights. We were mostly covering the immediate impact. What do you see as the long-term impact of those things? Also, employment rights are not necessa…”