This Government have inherited a £22 billion black hole in the public finances, and rectifying the situation requires tough choices. We will clamp down on egregious spending and halve Government spending on consultancy, which will save £500 million next year.

In my first couple of weeks in this job, I had the pleasure of meeting Minister Marchenko from Ukraine, and made a commitment to him to go ahead with the extraordinary revenue acceleration programme. It is important that we work together across the House to support the Ukrainian people against the Russian invasion.

The basic state pension is worth £900 more than it was a year ago, and will go up again in April next year because of the triple lock. We have already written to York council and are working with local authorities across the country to boost take-up of pension credit.

All Governments appoint people to the civil service. The donation from Ian Corfield was declared over a year ago in the proper way, and we answered all the questions in the right way that the civil service asked when we made that appointment.

The right hon. Gentleman has a bit of a brass neck criticising this Government, after the appointments and the partying at Downing Street that we saw under the last Conservative Government. We are appointing a covid corruption commissioner to get money back for taxpayers.

Yes, absolutely; pension credit can be backdated by up to three months. We are working closely with Liverpool city council to ensure constituents in Liverpool Wavertree get the support they entitled to.

Before I became a Member of Parliament, I was an economist at the Bank of England and respect its independence. The previous Government undermined that independence, contributing to economic chaos under the last Conservative Government. This Government will never go down that route.

I welcome my hon. Friend to this House, because he brings a great deal of expertise on green steel from his previous career. This Government's plan to launch the national wealth fund is precisely to create investment across the country in some very important strategic industries, and that includes decarbonisation of steel and the steel industry.

Water companies are commercial entities. It would therefore not be appropriate for me to comment on that. It is for the company and its investors to resolve their possible issues.

I championed this issue in the last Parliament as Chair of the Business and Trade Committee. I am pleased to confirm that I am working with colleagues across Government to make progress, and I will update the House further in due course.

The Government are reviewing the new hospitals programme as part of our spending review. We will undertake a full and comprehensive review while continuing to deliver the most advanced and most urgent hospitals in a realistic timeframe.

The Conservative party crashed the economy and then wrecked the public finances, leaving us with a £22 billion black hole. The shadow Chancellor is not willing to be straight about the damage he did, and is now trying to pass the buck to independent civil servants. I will always be honest about the public finances and take the tough decisions that we need to fix the foundations of our economy.

As the hon. Gentleman knows, Government borrowing is running at £4.7 billion higher than the OBR forecast because the previous Government made unfunded commitments without any idea of how they were going to be paid for. The previous Government set the mandate for the independent pay review bodies, and we have honoured the recommendations of those bodies to ensure that our armed forces, our police officers, our nurses and our teachers got a pay rise. I think that is the right thing to do. If he does not, I wonder how he justifies that to public sector workers in his constituency.

As Ministers, we greatly value and respect trade unions and the work of trade union representatives in supporting their members. While it is not appropriate for me to comment on individual cases, I will look into this matter further and respond to my hon. Friend in due course.

The black hole we inherited was £22 billion. We announced in the statement on 29 July £5.5 billion of savings to reduce the size of that black hole, but the hon. Gentleman can see there is still work to be done and we will be setting out further measures in the Budget on 30 October to get a grip of the public finances.

We are appointing a fixed-term covid fraud commissioner through an open competition that is now running as of this morning. The commissioner will make sure everything is done to return money owed to the taxpayer. It will report to the Chancellor, working with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, and will report to Parliament in due course.

The hon. Gentleman speaks about opportunities in renewable energy and carbon capture and storage. The national wealth fund aims to invest in such industries, including steel.

My hon. Friend speaks powerfully about Cornwall's needs, but the spending review will be the appropriate time to consider resources.

The Scottish Government mirrors UK decisions on tax powers despite fiscal challenges, given a £22 billion public finance gap.

We aim to build 1.5 million homes and have already called in four specific housing developments for prioritisation.

The basic state pension has increased by £900, energy bills are lower this year, and 800,000 missed out on pension credit under the previous government.

The spending review is ongoing. All decisions on ODA spending will be taken in the round as part of this process.