Dame Meg Hillier

My hon. Friend raises an important point. Cost shunting can work both ways, so it is vital that the Timms review examines that. If this Government are serious about mission-led government and working across Departments, it is crucial that the Department of Health and Social Care and others are closely involved. We all know that government is about hard choices—no one said that to govern is easy. However, I say to the Government that it is about not just what they do but how they do it. I trust that over the past week the Government have really learned that. I am blown away by the talent of Members of the House, particularly new colleagues I have met since 2024. There are people sitting on the Benches on both sides of the House who have huge talent and experience. We are not just message replicators or voting fodder—there is talent, knowledge and expertise in this House that the Government would do well to harness. It is easy to get into a bunker mentality and feel like government is hard—I have been a Government Minister; there is lots to do and there is never a minute to oneself—but listening and engaging is vital and makes for better policy. The privilege of this place is that every centimetre of the United Kingdom is represented by a Member of Parliament, so we have reach, which is a valuable tool for anybody who takes policymaking seriously. Parliament has a vital role and the Government need to engage better with Members of this House, particularly those who work on the Committee corridor. I pay tribute to my fellow Committee Chairs. We have a constitutional role to play to challenge and cajole Government, but we also have a role to inform and shape policy. We live in a world where we see leadership in some prominent countries by people with whom we do not have the same values. The world is being taken in a direction that I do not want to see, and that is a risk in this country. Under the last Government, we saw how division rent the party now in opposition asunder. I have spent more than half of my 31 years in elected office under Governments led by the Conservatives—that is miserable, frankly, because it means that we did not have the power to shape things in the way that we do when we are in power.