Asked by: Mike Wood (Conservative - Kingswinford and South Staffordshire)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether his Department considers that electronic messages held on non-corporate devices relating to official government business held by (a) Ministers and (b) Special Advisers are owned by the Government.
Answered by Chris Ward - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
Official information, wherever stored, is considered to be held by the Crown.
I refer the Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire to the Government’s 2023 ‘Guidance on Using Non-Corporate Communication Channels for Government Business’ for further detail that was produced and published under by the previous Government.
Asked by: Mike Wood (Conservative - Kingswinford and South Staffordshire)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what is the status of the Cabinet Office fact-finding investigation into Labour Together, separate to the report by the Independent Adviser on Ministerial Standards.
Answered by Chris Ward - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The fact-finding exercise has concluded. The Independent Adviser on Ministerial Standards wrote to the Prime Minister on this issue on 27 February. His letter is available online: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69a32870f534e7e99adaeaf8/Letter_from_the_Independent_Adviser_to_the_Prime_Minister.pdf
Asked by: Mike Wood (Conservative - Kingswinford and South Staffordshire)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether the Whatsapps messages on 10 Downing Street official iPhones are automatically backed up to a cloud or central server.
Answered by Nick Thomas-Symonds - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
There is established guidance on the management and recording of electronic communications on non-corporate channels. We keep all guidance around the use of non-corporate communications under review to ensure it remains fit for purpose.
Asked by: Esther McVey (Conservative - Tatton)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the answer of 10 March 2026 to question 113071, whether he plans to bring forward legislation to strip Lord Mandelson of his peerage.
Answered by Nick Thomas-Symonds - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
The Government is committed to introducing legislation to enable the removal of peerages from disgraced peers. We will announce further details in due course.
Asked by: Euan Stainbank (Labour - Falkirk)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many backlog death in service cases remain unresolved by Capita following the Cabinet Office's Recovery Plan Sprint 3.
Answered by Satvir Kaur - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The Cabinet Office awarded the contract to administer the Civil Service Pension Scheme to Capita in November 2023 under the previous government.
The issues and delays facing a number of civil servants and pension scheme members in receiving their pension quotes are unacceptable. I want to reassure you that this Government has taken firm action to help put things right as soon as possible. We have agreed a clear recovery plan with Capita, which includes specific milestones and accountability targets for delivery. For priority cases, we have deployed additional resources and improved communication with affected colleagues, so that staff, both former and serving, receive the quality of service and support they deserve.
Existing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) have been enhanced and strengthened to deliver improved performance and higher penalties for failure, including financial penalties. These have already applied in respect to Capita's performance with recent issues and delays in administering the Civil Service Pension Scheme.
The highest priority cases for recovery, including death-in-service and ill-health retirements, have been returned to normal service levels, with cases concluded wherever it has been possible to do so.
Capita has processed 407 death-in-service cases, successfully reducing the volume of workable cases from 375 to 75 as of 23 March. Capita has now achieved its target of normalising work in progress to 60 cases, representing a return to steady-state operations. While the backlog has been addressed, this figure is expected to fluctuate slightly as cases currently with third parties are returned to Capita for finalisation.
The Cabinet Office remains committed to ensuring these cases are managed efficiently to provide timely support to beneficiaries.
Asked by: Pete Wishart (Scottish National Party - Perth and Kinross-shire)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will publish the grounds of justification for the reduction in hepatitis C Financial Loss Awards from 2017 due to the introduction of new effective treatments; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Nick Thomas-Symonds - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
The compensation scheme assumes that the introduction of effective treatments in 2016 improved most infected people’s ability to effectively manage their infection. This assumption is applied when calculating financial loss for living infected people.
The Government recognises that some people did not receive effective treatment for their particular infection in the year it was introduced, and not everyone was able to continue working for a range of reasons including continued illness, or due to the length of time out of the workforce.
In line with the recommendation made in the Inquiry’s Additional Report, the Compensation Scheme now offers a route through which infected people can show that they were unable to return to work, or unable to work at the assumed level, even after the introduction of effective treatments. The Infected Blood Compensation Scheme (Amendment) Regulations 2025 do this by removing the earnings floor on the supplementary route Exceptional Loss award for Financial Loss, to ensure that a route is available for infected people to present evidence on their actual earnings loss.
This change offers people the ability to demonstrate they had continued financial loss, even after the introduction of effective treatments, so they can be compensated fairly for this under the compensation scheme.
Asked by: Mike Wood (Conservative - Kingswinford and South Staffordshire)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps did Darren Tierney, then the head of the Propriety and Constitution Group, take to ensure that Lord Mandelson was personally interviewed before his appointment as Ambassador.
Answered by Nick Thomas-Symonds - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
No such interview took place. It is not unusual for political appointments to take place without direct conversations with the Cabinet Office. I refer the Hon Member to the Government's statement and release of information on 11th March which sets out the process of appointment and the steps the Government is taking to strengthen the process going forwards.
Asked by: Greg Smith (Conservative - Mid Buckinghamshire)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether the Government Property Agency has made an estimate of staff time or resource allocated to measuring, collecting, reporting or validating greenhouse gas emissions across the parts of the estate for which it is responsible.
Answered by Anna Turley - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
I refer to my answer for 116583. The GPA calculates greenhouse gas emissions for office space occupied by GPA staff and provides utility consumption data for departments occupying other buildings within its managed estate. As this activity is performed by staff as part of their wider duties, the exact amount of time allocated to this specific activity is not centrally recorded.
Asked by: Perran Moon (Labour - Camborne and Redruth)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of establishing a dedicated Standard Industrial Code classification for public electric vehicle charging.
Answered by Satvir Kaur - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.
A response to the Hon gentleman’s Parliamentary Question of 25th is attached.
Asked by: Mike Wood (Conservative - Kingswinford and South Staffordshire)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether electronic communications between Lord Mandelson and Morgan McSweeney have been copied to the official record and retained for the Humble Address.
Answered by Nick Thomas-Symonds - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
I refer you to the Government's statement and release of information on 11th March, providing an update on the response to the Humble Address. The Government is working to ensure that Parliament’s instruction is met with the urgency and transparency that it deserves.
All government departments, ministers and relevant individuals have been instructed to retain and provide to the Cabinet Office all information they hold that falls in scope of the Humble Address motion.