Speeches by Yang.

“I thank the Secretary of State and her colleagues in the Department for their tireless work over the past week, and I very much welcome her commitment to co-production with disabled people in the Timms review. The atrocious handling of the pandemic by the previous Conservative Government has left the economy and disabl…”

“What are the obstacles within the Treasury and its statutory agencies to getting that preventive thinking and the calculation of fiscal benefits mainstreamed, would you say?”

“Finally, the Chair mentioned in opening questions the lack of a spend-to-save culture at the Treasury. The economists who gave evidence to our panel last week also spoke about the problem of preventive spending getting lost between the cracks of different Departments. One example—SEND—is an issue very close to my heart…”

“To follow on from Mr Dean’s point on tax reliefs, many non-structural tax reliefs are meant to have the same kind of impact as other spending that would be departmental spending within the review—for example, R&D tax credits are meant to stimulate R&D, but we know very little about their actual impact on R&D. I appreci…”

“Chief Secretary, I am going to ask a few questions about the process of the review itself. It is a long process, involving lots of discussion, internally and externally. I am sure that you have received many different submissions, including my own submission for my constituency. How would you make it a more enjoyable p…”

“On SEND funding, the incoming head of the IFS told us last week that that was the area where the greatest unmet needs were opening up, particularly with projected future demand and the current funding available. Do you see that as an issue? Do you also see the increased devolution of funding responsibility to local cou…”

“How confident are you in the ability for reform to drive improvements in SEND, particularly when the education budget—taking out the free school meals policy—is flat in terms of spending rises?”

“I am looking forward to the next spending review, which I cannot wait to get into. How would you make that process even more collaborative? Ministers have talked about the fact that delivery requires co-operation, but the allocation of the funding envelope can still feel very adversarial. Joint funding bids are really …”

“Local government is responsible for many of the cross-cutting objectives within the Government’s missions. When it comes to cross-cutting issues such as social care and SEND, how do you decide what spending is allocated between, say, education, health and social care and local government?”

“Professor Andreeva, Professor Wachter mentioned redlining; have you come across any other examples of discrimination from the use of AI in financial services?”

“Professor Andreeva, you mentioned that some banks have been so frightened by the accusation of discrimination that they have stopped collecting data on protected characteristics, which means they cannot effectively monitor whether their outcomes are discriminatory. Do you see any role for the regulator in monitoring th…”

“On that theme, have any members of the panel had discussions with the FCA or other financial regulators on tackling discrimination?”

“Very briefly on this point, Professor Wachter, you have created a test—the conditional demographic disparity test—to check for discrimination. It has been incorporated into, for example, Amazon’s toolkits. Do you see a role for regulators in encouraging or even requiring this kind of bias detection tool?”

“Professor Lawrence, I want to come back on your point about the ONS data. This Committee has heard from the ONS and interrogated the ONS about the problems with the labour force survey and other national statistics. There is currently a Cabinet Office investigation into the ONS. Do you have any advice for how the ONS c…”

“Professor Lawrence, could you expand on your point that over the last few years the trend has gone in the wrong direction?”

“Thank you, Professor. I will return to our main theme of AI and financial services, and in particular on bias in AI. A lot of writing about AI risks focuses on medium or long-term risks that have not yet occurred, but Professor Andreeva and Professor Wachter have argued that the growing use of AI in decision making inc…”

“One last question on this theme. Mr Spiers, you mentioned that, on the one hand, there is the negative impact—the unintended consequences—of other National Wealth Fund activity on nature. The conversation on natural capital investments that are more beneficial is about investing in nature services can support the overa…”

“So you are saying that it is not just about the amount of capital being deployed but about the management and whether they are in the community and speaking to investors? It is really about the running of the bank and the service it provides outside of investment.”

“Is there a clear economic shield in the current policy for the National Wealth Fund, if it makes bad bets?”

“How would you like to see the National Wealth Fund take those issues into account?”