Speeches by Yang.

“Are there precedents or forms of data sharing that we could learn from other central banks or national statistical bodies where there is access, and which the Committee or the Government should look at?”

“Thank you. I think the Committee has heard your plea for more access to commercial data.”

“Thank you, Governor. This is an open question to anyone on the panel: while the ONS is getting its house in order, and while it will take time to feed through to the transformed labour force survey, are there other datasets out there that could enhance your decision making, if you were to access them? What difference w…”

“Thank you. Would anyone else like to add to that?”

“T4. Will the Minister join me in congratulating Reading’s University Medical Group, a GP practice in my constituency that was recently awarded the gold Pride in Practice award by the LGBT Foundation? When I visited that practice last week, the doctors raised the issue of transgender care. Many constituents have also wr…”

“The right hon. Gentleman has spent the past five minutes circling around figures gathered by a consultancy that aids the super-wealthy to migrate from this country. Where is the Conservative party getting its economic ideas from? It speaks volumes that he has spent so much time up to this point speaking for the 15,000 …”

“I strongly welcome the Foreign Secretary’s historic move to recognise the state of Palestine and thank him for all the work he has done to progress this issue. While we follow the news from Gaza, let us remember the journalists who have risked their lives to bring us the news. My constituent, the former managing direct…”

“I very much welcome the Secretary of State’s focus on protecting water customers, because my constituents and I have seen our Thames Water bills go up dramatically. We want to know that those bill increases are going towards improving the infrastructure and customer service, as opposed to payouts to bosses that happene…”

“The IMF is trying to deal with the tendency of fiscal tinkering around both forecasts. Is it your view that the OBR can carry on with those two forecasts a year, so long as the Government look through the second forecast in the spring and make all the changes they need in the autumn, rather than responding immediately?”

“The second IMF recommendation was to only formally assess the fiscal rules once a year, at the time of the Budget. Obviously, that would also require legislation. What is your view on that, and what is your advice to lawmakers on that?”

“My last question is from the Institute for Government’s reflections on the IMF’s recommendations. The Institute for Government describes the media obsession with the headroom target as seemingly “uniquely British”, in its words. I was wondering whether you had a view on the institutional culture and the institutional s…”

“I mean for the actual rule to track the confidence interval, rather than the binary—”

“How workable do you think it would be to change the binary yes/no question, “Will we meet this rule or not?” to a confidence interval? That would obviously require legislation.”

“Unfortunately, despite those efforts, there is still tremendous political and media pressure around the point estimates of headroom. The IMF has made a recommendation to de-emphasise those point estimates in your assessments of rule compliance. Obviously, that speaks to something that is not directly within your remit …”

“I have some questions about external organisations’ reflections on the OBR’s work, some of which is published in external reviews this year. First, Laura van Geest, your former counterpart at the Dutch fiscal watchdog, has written in an external review recommending that you focus more on highlighting uncertainty in you…”

“Do you have a view on how PSNFL would change over the next few years if any water companies were reclassified?”

“Are you currently making preparations to forecast the financial liabilities of water companies to get ready for potential reclassification? Could you talk us through what the different steps would be in the next few years if something like that did happen?”

“On that point, you wrote in the 2019 Resolution Foundation paper about the public sector net worth as a target. As you describe in the fiscal risks report, there are significant financial liabilities that are captured in PSNFL, but there are also non-financial assets like the pipes and the physical infrastructure that …”

“It is for many of us on this Committee. Do you go into more detail because you are starting to hear more from the ONS on the risks of your classification? Could you tell me a bit more about how you see that changing over the next year or so?”

“Mr Hughes, I note that in your fiscal risks report that you have gone into a bit more detail than usual on the risk of water companies being potentially reclassified as public sector. As a south-eastern MP, my constituents suffer the financial risks of Thames Water every month, so it is a very live issue.”