My noble friend raises a number of interesting points. It is true that we need to address this internationally. AI clearly crosses national borders. It is not like previous forms of new technology. We need to find the way forward in getting the balance right. We have been using our opportunity to lead internationally in having those conversations across borders as one of the leaders in AI safety.

I could not possibly comment on that. What I can say is that public sector fraud wastes public money, drives up the deficit and damages the public sector. We are clear that we want to tackle it, and put structures in place to do this. My noble friend is correct, however, that it is not just public sector fraud that affects the public, and we are determined to do whatever we can to keep the public and the public finances as safe as possible from fraud and error.

My Lords, I will leave the Opposition to account for their own record. Let me talk about what this Government are doing. Our Connect to Work programme is one of the most exciting things we have seen. We are working with people who face real challenges in getting into work, often because of a particularly strong health condition or complex disabilities. Our individual advisers will work with them, find out what their skills and ambitions are, and then find an employer with an opportunity to match them with. They can help them work together. It is about getting people into jobs but also supporting them to stay in them once they are there. It is that kind of personalised support that people need. Everybody has an opportunity and everybody has potential; our job is to find it and help them fulfil it.

The key theme my noble friend is raising here is very much about staff retention within the NHS. That is not only the ideal but the practical, best way forward. We are taking action, including, as my noble friend talks about, on flexible working. We are also taking action to make staff feel safer in the workplace, enhancing support for staff health and well-being by, for example, improving access to support for mental health and musculoskeletal conditions. They are the two biggest causes of sickness absence, which also drive demand for temporary cover.

My noble friend makes a good point about how you cannot have something for nothing. If we are to have the public services that people want in this country, we have to look very carefully at how we intend to pay for them.

I almost always agree with my noble friend, but on this occasion, I would suggest a tentative correction. Actually, the previous Government did put forward legislation, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, mentioned. But we are committed to doing that, and as my noble friend says, there are some competitive pressures. I know something about competition for legislation. I know a lot less about competition law, but I am learning fast.

I am not sure that I would use the exact language my noble friend used, but we need to make a concerted effort to tackle what is seen as corrupt practice in election financing. The Government have published an anti-corruption strategy. We want to bring the corrupt actors to justice, prevent them benefitting from illicit wealth, tackle the vulnerabilities to corruption at home and build resilience overseas. That is all coming forward in our new Bill. We need to be robust in our approach to this, otherwise the whole of our democratic process is undermined. I look forward, as I said, to debating the Bill with Members of your Lordships’ House. I hope that we can get this tightened up as quickly as possible.

I thank the noble Lord for that question. I have been trying to stay in the spirit of our new Prime Minister and to reach the greatest cross-party consensus that we can on this. What the Chancellor and the Prime Minister have said about being really careful about business costs, and making sure that business stays competitive, takes us some way in that direction. But every businessperson will

tell you that you need to balance the books, and the comment from my Benches suggested that perhaps, three years ago, that was not taking place.

The acceptance of the Rycroft recommendations means that the Government have accepted a whole range of measures on tightening

up political donations from overseas, crypto currency, reporting and transparency. We have yet to put those measures into effect, but we have accepted the recommendations and will bring forward legislation to give effect to them at the earliest opportunity. That will help everybody in this House, from His Majesty’s Opposition to the Government to other political parties represented here, to have that transparency. I look forward to taking that forward in due course.

The new SFI, which we announced fairly recently and which runs through to September, was very much aimed at smaller farms and those that do not already have an agreement. The fact that 50% has been allocated already shows that that was a very popular decision.

My noble friend is absolutely right that this is a long-term problem that has been going on for many years. Unfortunately, the water industry has simply not been held to account in

the way that it should have been, and that is why we are bringing in the clean water Bill and changing the regulator.

The updated service specification will be published in due course. It will support ongoing action to increase home dialysis provision in line with the Renal Services Transformation Programme ambition for at least 20% of patients to be treated at home, including through strengthened early patient education, standardised pre-dialysis pathways, and multidisciplinary care models that enable shared decision-making.

The specification will include defined metrics for commissioned providers, including the proportion of dialysis patients receiving home-based therapies, supporting formal assessment against the ambition of achieving at least 20% uptake.

This is complemented by improvements to operational processes, including home assessments and installation pathways, to ensure patients can access home therapies in a timely and consistent way.

The updated service specification will be published in due course. It will support ongoing action to increase home dialysis provision in line with the Renal Services Transformation Programme ambition for at least 20% of patients to be treated at home, including through strengthened early patient education, standardised pre-dialysis pathways, and multidisciplinary care models that enable shared decision-making.

The specification will include defined metrics for commissioned providers, including the proportion of dialysis patients receiving home-based therapies, supporting formal assessment against the ambition of achieving at least 20% uptake.

This is complemented by improvements to operational processes, including home assessments and installation pathways, to ensure patients can access home therapies in a timely and consistent way.

NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) is the organisation responsible for organ donation services in the United Kingdom.

NHSBT, working with the Department and NHS England, delivers a multi‑channel programme of activity to increase organ donation, improve family consent, and maximise the impact of both deceased and living donation. This includes:

• year-round communications and engagement, combining national campaigns, digital marketing, and partnership working. High-profile moments, such as Organ Donation Week, Living Donation Week, and World Kidney Day, are supported by media activity across a variety of channels, directing audiences to trusted information and to register their wishes on the NHS Organ Donor Register;

• partnerships, including with National Health Service organisations, charities, community, and advocacy groups, which aim to reach people at key moments through trusted channels. For example, a functionality has been introduced recently on the front page of the NHS App, making it easier for people to record, review, and share their organ donation decision as part of routine interactions with NHS services;

• targeted community engagement, supported by NHSBT’s Community Grants Programme, helps improve understanding of organ donation and family consent in communities with greater transplant need or lower consent rates; and

• work to maximise the use of donated kidneys, including new assessment and recovery centres, which are currently being piloted and will use machine perfusion technology to preserve and assess kidneys for longer, alongside trust utilisation strategies to help transplant centres and hospitals identify and address local barriers to using suitable organs.

The Government have been clear that we expect robust action to be taken to protect the taxpayer, and we have fully supported the appropriate legal and insolvency processes being followed. As I understand it, PPE Medpro Ltd is now in liquidation, and matters related to the recovery of funds are therefore for the liquidators to pursue in line with their statutory duties. Any recoveries that can be made will be determined through those independent processes. It would not be appropriate for me to comment on those proceedings.

I must confess to my noble friend that I have not seen it, but I will seek it out. His point is really important. If we can get young autistic people—indeed, any autistic people—into work, I know that many employers will find that there is a huge benefit, not just to the individual but to the organisation. Sometimes, people simply do not know what to do. Line managers are key to this. Earlier this year, for example, my department funded some ACAS-run workshops—masterclasses on neurodiversity—for employers. They were free of charge for employers and aimed particularly at smaller companies to help them understand what it would be like, how to recruit

people and how to support them. We know that a lot of employers want to do the right thing, but sometimes just do not know how to do it. Our job is to make that as easy as possible.

I thank my noble friend. I had a fascinating conversation with a very young member of my private office. When I suggested to him that the Daily Express had once been in a Labour-leaning newspaper, he was a little surprised; that shows either my age or his.

There is an issue here around making sure that people have access to genuine information sources that are real and accurate. Like me, my noble friend will remember that, in the general election in 1997, more than 80% of people got their information from BBC sources—at least, I believe so; I should say that before I get myself in trouble again over statistics in this space—but that is not the case now. Most people get their news online, which is why we need to make sure that free and fair journalism is protected.

Yes, I agree with my noble friend, and that is why, throughout our education system, we have to tackle the elements that prevent children and young people fmaximising their potential in life from the very early stages. This is why we are investing in early years; it is why we have set a target to ensure more children are ready to benefit from school when they get there; and it is why we have focused on getting children back into school. It is why we are taking action to improve access to all routes of learning for young people post-16, and why we are widening access and participation in higher education for all students who can benefit from it.

As we discussed a little earlier this week in the House, advances are being made in the regulation in the measures that we are bringing forward to restrict social media companies in advertising or providing services to under-16s. There are the consultations that I mentioned by the OPSS on product safety, which go hand in hand with the importance of enforcement. The Secretary of State has written to Ofcom stressing the importance of that body enforcing effectively and prioritising, and has requested an enforcement strategy and framework to be available, so that that can be scrutinised by Parliament.

My noble friend is right that it is, as I have emphasised, already illegal to assault a child. He is also right to identify what we can most effectively do to prevent parents feeling that they need to resort to smacking in order to discipline or control their children. The £900 million that we are investing in the Best Start in Life centres, for example, is being used to develop parenting education on behaviour management. How do you set appropriate boundaries? What type of methods should you and could you use to discipline your children? That feels like a more constructive and wide-ranging response than a change in the law at this point.