Asked by: Mike Wood (Conservative - Kingswinford and South Staffordshire)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, with reference to the the State Council of the People's Republic of China's press release entitled, China's top diplomat holds talks with British prime minister's national security adviser, published on 15 July 2025, whether Jonathan Powell discussed the Chagos Islands with the Chinese Government at this meeting.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
The National Security Adviser meets with a range of individuals and organisations as part of his role providing advice to the Prime Minister and the Cabinet on national security matters. Such meetings are often sensitive in nature, and the Government does not routinely comment on them or their content.
Asked by: Ben Obese-Jecty (Conservative - Huntingdon)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what his planned timetable is for determining the spending that will count towards the 1.5% of GDP to be spent on resilience and security.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
NATO has already agreed the definition of 1.5% as spend “to inter alia protect critical infrastructure, defend networks, ensure civil preparedness and resilience, innovate, and strengthen the defence industrial base”. Officials are currently working through proposals and plans for meeting our obligations will be set out in due course.
Asked by: Ben Obese-Jecty (Conservative - Huntingdon)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many times the National Security Council Sub-Committee (Nuclear) has met since July 2024.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
It is a long-established precedent that information about the discussions that have taken place in Cabinet and its committees, including how often they have met, is not normally shared publicly.
Asked by: Alex Burghart (Conservative - Brentwood and Ongar)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, with reference to the consultation entitled Making public services work for you with your digital identity, of 10 March 2026, CP1498, whether there are circumstances in which private companies would have access to individual citizen’s data for payment of a fee.
Answered by James Frith - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The new digital ID system will help to personalise and join up public services. The UK has a strong set of data protection laws that will apply to this system, and robust enforcement of those laws. We won't be watering them down for this system and there are no circumstances in which the Government will sell the public’s digital ID data to private companies.
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 2 December 2025, to Question 94697, on House of Commons Director General: Public Appointments, whether the permanent Director General of the Propriety, Ethics and Constitution Group will be publicly advertised on the public version of the Civil Service Jobs website.
Answered by Satvir Kaur - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The recruitment campaign is still currently in planning stages and details will be released in due course.
Asked by: Mike Wood (Conservative - Kingswinford and South Staffordshire)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what guidance his Department has issued on whether party political events held in Ministerial diaries are held for the purposes of the Freedom of Information Act.
Answered by Chris Ward - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The Cabinet Office has not issued guidance on whether party political events held in Ministerial diaries are held for the purposes of the Freedom of Information Act.
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 Answers of 18 March 2026 to Question 119321 and of 2 June 2025 to Question 54277 on Cabinet Office: Freedom of Information, if he will place in the Library the version of the handbook released under Freedom of Information Act request reference FOI2025/05759, dated 16 May 2025.
Answered by Chris Ward - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
As stated in the response to PQ 116510, the Honours Committee handbook released through this request is a version from January 2023 which is no longer accurate. The current handbook is currently being updated. An updated version with relevant redactions will be laid in the House Library as soon as is practicable.
Asked by: Suella Braverman (Reform UK - Fareham and Waterlooville)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many whistleblowing complaints were submitted by civil servants in each of the last five years.
Answered by Satvir Kaur - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The table below provides the total number of Whistleblowing cases raised to Civil Service organisations who responded to annual Whistleblowing (Raising a Concern) data commission.
Commission year | Total number of cases |
2024 - 2025 | 443 |
2023 - 2024 | 446 |
2022 - 2023 | 388 |
2021 - 2022 | 311 |
2020 - 2021 | 245 |
Asked by: Adam Jogee (Labour - Newcastle-under-Lyme)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many honours were awarded to people (a) living and (b) working in Derbyshire in each of the last five years; and what the level of each award was.
Answered by Nick Thomas-Symonds - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
Transparency data is published alongside each New Year Honours List and King’s Birthday Honours List, giving an individual breakdown of recipients' names, level of award, their short citation and the city and country in which their correspondence address was located. Transparency data for each Honours List in each of the past five years can be found on gov.uk using the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/honours-reform-and-operation#honours-lists
The Cabinet Office does not collect home or work addresses for honours recipients; the information published reflects the correspondence address provided by recipients. This data relates only to the main Prime Minister’s List and does not include data from the Defence List or the Overseas and International List, which are not administered by the Cabinet Office.
Honours are awarded on merit basis. A key aim of the honours system is to ensure that it is more representative of the country as a whole and we will continue to encourage more nominations from every corner of the UK in future honours lists.
Asked by: Adam Jogee (Labour - Newcastle-under-Lyme)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many honours were awarded to people (a) living and (b) working in Berkshire in each of the last five years; and what the level of each award was.
Answered by Nick Thomas-Symonds - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
Transparency data is published alongside each New Year Honours List and King’s Birthday Honours List, giving an individual breakdown of recipients' names, level of award, their short citation and the city and country in which their correspondence address was located. Transparency data for each Honours List in each of the past five years can be found on gov.uk using the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/honours-reform-and-operation#honours-lists
The Cabinet Office does not collect home or work addresses for honours recipients; the information published reflects the correspondence address provided by recipients. This data relates only to the main Prime Minister’s List and does not include data from the Defence List or the Overseas and International List, which are not administered by the Cabinet Office.
Honours are awarded on merit basis. A key aim of the honours system is to ensure that it is more representative of the country as a whole and we will continue to encourage more nominations from every corner of the UK in future honours lists.