Asked by: Gavin Williamson (Conservative - Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will publish any official correspondence between Lord Mandelson and the National Security Advisor between 4 July 2024 and 11 September 2025.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
The National Security Adviser regularly engages with a range of government stakeholders on national security matters. The Government does not routinely comment on the meetings or correspondence of the National Security Adviser, which are often sensitive due to their national security implications.
Asked by: Gavin Williamson (Conservative - Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether the National Security Advisor met with Lord Mandelson between 4 July 2024 and 11 September 2025.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
The National Security Adviser regularly engages with a range of government stakeholders on national security matters. The Government does not routinely comment on the meetings or correspondence of the National Security Adviser, which are often sensitive due to their national security implications.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South and Walkden)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of emergency alerts being displayed in the language that the recipient's phone is set to.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
The Emergency Alert system is a UK Government capability that allows time critical life saving information to be broadcast to phones within a certain area.
English is the primary language Emergency Alerts are sent in. This is to ensure standardisation in message clarity and avoids the risk that any rushed translation may result in messaging which poorly conveys the necessary action to the recipient. However, where practicable, alerts impacting Wales will be sent in both English and Welsh.
Local Resilience Forums also work with partners in a local area to alert people of an emergency. Owing to their local knowledge of each area, the Local Resilience Forums are well-equipped to ensure the relevant information is communicated to non-English speakers.
The Cabinet Office will consider the feasibility for future technical improvements to the system in which an alert would come through in the language set by the individual user.
Asked by: Ben Obese-Jecty (Conservative - Huntingdon)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the Answer of 3 September 2025 to Question 72570 on National Security: Infrastructure, if he will publish the list of businesses that he provided advice on security and resilience best practice.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
As set out in the Resilience Action Plan on 14 July, the Government is actively engaging with the private sector to ensure a whole of society approach to building and strengthening resilience. This takes place via a range of conduits to build on existing relationships and expertise, including through business networks, such as Resilience First and the Confederation of British Industry. Lead Government Departments hold responsibility for sector specific engagement, and the National Technical Authorities (National Cyber Security Centre and National Protective Security Authority) also provide advice to UK industry, including industry classified as Critical National Infrastructure, on security and resilience best practice.
There are no plans to publish a list of business engagements, given the different fora that these conversations take place within.
Asked by: Ben Obese-Jecty (Conservative - Huntingdon)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the Answer of 3 September 2025 to Question 72570 on National Security: Infrastructure, what progress he has made on developing a new Cyber Resilience Index.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
The government is working tirelessly to improve the cyber resilience of our most critical services and systems, including the UK’s Critical National Infrastructure (CNI). Improving our understanding of the cyber risk we are carrying as a nation is fundamental to this. In order to build a better understanding of cyber risk, we are developing a new Cyber Resilience Index (CRI) which will build on existing measures of cyber resilience to provide a cross-sector, holistic overview of cyber resilience for UK CNI, allowing us to target resilience building efforts.
The Cabinet Office is working closely with the National Cyber Security Centre and CNI Lead Government Departments to progress the CRI. We are keen for this to be a collaborative process so that the Index delivers for all CNI sectors. More widely, the upcoming Cyber Security & Resilience Bill will also address the evolving cyber risk picture for CNI sectors across the UK.
Asked by: Ben Obese-Jecty (Conservative - Huntingdon)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the Answer of 3 September 2025 to Question 72570 on National Security: Infrastructure, when he plans to have completed delivery of CNI Knowledge Base.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
The CNI Knowledge Base is a secure digital tool that is designed to be a “single source of truth for UK CNI’’. CNI Knowledge Base is part of the National Situation Centre.
The CNI Knowledge Base’s roll-out across the government is complete. The Knowledge Base maps both physical and logical CNI systems and the supporting systems which keep them running. This enables government to identify linkages and dependencies between systems and across CNI sectors. Departments are already using it to understand key CNI systems and the potential impacts of hazards, threats and risks. We are continually introducing new features and onboarding more users.
Asked by: Ben Obese-Jecty (Conservative - Huntingdon)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the Answer of 3 September 2025 to Question 73377 on Strategic Defence Review, by when does he expect the infrastructure pillar to have been established.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
As set out in the National Security Strategy and the Resilience Action Plan (RAP), protection and defence of Critical National Infrastructure is a central strand of the Cabinet Office-led cross-Government Home Defence Programme. This is overseen centrally by the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister. The commitments from the RAP will be delivered over the course of this Parliament.
Asked by: Mike Wood (Conservative - Kingswinford and South Staffordshire)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the Answer of 7 July 2025 to Question 63325 on Armed Forces Day: Flags, whether 10 Downing Street flew the Armed Forces Day flag on Armed Forces Day in June 2025.
Answered by Nick Thomas-Symonds - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
The Armed Forces flag was flown in Downing Street for Armed Forces Day.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many special advisers left government employment as a result of the government reshuffle; and what was the total cost of (a) severance and (b) compensation payments to those individuals.
Answered by Nick Thomas-Symonds - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
In line with the Model Contract for Special Advisers, when a special adviser’s appointing minister leaves office special advisers’ contracts are automatically terminated.
The Model Contract states special adviser severance entitlement. The cost of severance payments is stated in the Annual Report on Special Advisers.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how much has the Government spent on updating (a) government websites, (b) signage, (c) stationery and (d) other branded materials as a result of changes in (i) ministerial titles and (ii) departmental structures following the reshuffle.
Answered by Nick Thomas-Symonds - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
The Cabinet Office does not centrally hold information or data on this topic.