With the leave of the House, I would like to respond briefly to the debate and pick up on some of the contributions. First, I would like to address a comment by the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), who seemed to claim that I was not in my place during his speech. I would like to reassure him that I have been listening carefully throughout in the virtual Chamber, but perhaps he was not here earlier when I began my contribution virtually.
My hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler) made a powerful and important case about the link between trust and transparency and how important it is for us to take action in this place to reassert that link. She also set out how insulting the 1% pay rise—a real-terms pay cut—is to the nurses in our country. My hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) mentioned the huge waste that has happened through Test and Trace and the private outsourcing giants that have benefited from that money. It is telling that no Conservative Members today addressed Test and Trace and the spending on that programme, as far as I could tell. I found it curious, however, that the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Anthony Browne), when trying to make a case around value for money, chose to focus on the time that the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) spent in City Hall, given that one of the most notable achievements of that right hon. Member in that office was to oversee £46 million of public money being spent on a garden bridge that was never built.
As I made clear in my opening remarks, we will not be opposing the Bill’s Second Reading, but in the Committee debate that follows, I will set out how our new clause aims to introduce a new standard of transparency, which we believe is urgently needed after the Government’s approach over the last year.
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