Speeches by Yang.

“How long in months or years do you think it might take before you are confident, or at least fairly confident, in that data?”

“My Committee colleagues are quite keen to know whether you think other countries have done a better job of recovering after the pandemic in capturing labour force data. Are there any other countries that we should be learning from in the UK?”

“Mr Hughes, do you have any other responses to those questions?”

“I have a specific question about one part of the inactivity data. Mr Hughes, how confident are you that there has been a rise in inactivity linked to ill health?”

“But not about the underlying ill health trend itself? You mentioned there is a rise in claimants and self-reporting of it.”

“When you talk to the Department responsible, does that mean a conversation between you and DWP, or is it the Treasury in this case?”

“You mentioned that some of those costings were incomplete or some of the analysis was incomplete. Could you go into a bit more detail about what was lacking? What would you have needed to make a better or fuller forecast?”

“Does that mean that we should expect an update to those forecasts in the autumn outlook?”

“Just to summarise, you are planning to bring in the forecasts related to the employment support package, which was not scored this time, in the autumn, and also relate it to the behavioural changes and other parts of the welfare packages, which did not come in sufficient detail this time? Is that broadly right?”

“Do you plan to publish any analysis of welfare-related changes before the autumn? I note that in previous summers you have published papers describing the overall trends.”

“In the play of events from 17 March to 19 March, was there any surprise on either side? Were you surprised by being given more measures to score? Was the Treasury surprised by what you have given it? Was there a level of miscommunication? Could you explain what was happening in those few days?”

“I want to continue with one of the themes that Ms McEvoy brought up. In the 2024 welfare report, and elsewhere in the OBR publications, you refer to the “financial incentive” to applying. There is a lot of stigma in the media right now about fraud—incorrect claimants gaming the system, as it were—and the term can be in…”

“So people will put more work into getting the right doctor’s assessments and so on. There is no claim from the OBR that that evidence is mistaken and that people will be driven to—”

“There is also the implication in a lot of media discourse that the increase in PIP caseloads is not matched by an underlying increase in disability and that, therefore, there is some gaming. Do you see that in the data that you have looked at?”

“The Chancellor has rightly championed economic stability, in stark contrast to the previous Government—indeed, in stark contrast to the previous five Chancellors. Yet, as she has said, the world is becoming more unstable, and that global instability feeds through to rapid changes in official projections, which can cons…”

“I absolutely agree. As the Women’s Budget Group has shown, the measures on the minimum wage in the Employment Rights Bill will disproportionately benefit female workers, who are likely to be paid less than men. These studies on the minimum wage use econometric methods to confirm what many of us can see in our communiti…”

“I very much agree with that sentiment. Young people are the future, and to ensure they get off to the best possible start in life, they need work that pays and enables them to live in stability, not concerned about paying the bills from day to day or month to month. Most young people nowadays have to do a mixture of wo…”

“In our last session on the lifetime ISA, Anne Fairweather told us that the FCA is due to publish research on consumer saving and investment behaviour. I was wondering whether that has been done already, what the timeline is for that and what the questions are.”

“I have some questions about cash savings and, in particular, the cash ISA, following the speculation in the FT about lowering the £20,000 cap on the cash ISA and switching to cash and equities ISAs. Has the FCA done any impact assessment on the different groups this would impact, if the change were made?”

“You are looking at consumers perhaps in their late 30s or 40s who have bought their first home. They are relatively well off in that they have those savings. Is that the kind of demographic you are looking at shifting? Can you paint a picture of who you are thinking about?”