Covid-19 Inquiry: Response Costs Quarter 4 2023-24
Alex Burghart Excerpts(5 days, 12 hours ago)
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The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Alex Burghart)
The Minister of State, Baroness Neville-Rolfe DBE CMG, has today made the following statement: Quarter 1-3 Quarter 4 Cumulative Total Cost of UK Covid-19 Inquiry Response Unit—including contingent labour costs £12,900,000 £5,100,000 £18,000,000 Number of UK Covid-19 Inquiry Response Unit staff—full-time equivalents 249 265 Quarter 1-3 Quarter 4 Cumulative Total Total legal costs £20,900,000 £5,300,000 £26,200,000
Throughout the covid-19 pandemic, the Government acted to save lives and livelihoods, prevent the NHS being overwhelmed, and deliver a world-leading vaccine roll-out which protected the nation. In establishing the UK covid-19 inquiry, the Government recognised the unprecedented and wholly exceptional circumstances of the pandemic, and the importance of examining as rigorously as possible the actions the state took in response, in order to learn lessons for the future.
As such, the inquiry is unprecedented in its scope, complexity and profile, looking at recent events that have profoundly impacted everyone’s lives.
The Government remain fully committed to transparency throughout this process. The UK covid-19 inquiry publishes its own running costs quarterly; the most recent update, covering costs for quarter 4 of the 2023-2024 financial year, was published on 9 May. The Government’s response to the inquiry is a significant undertaking and accordingly, the Government have updated Parliament on the UK Government costs associated with responding to the UK covid-19 inquiry.
Ensuring a comprehensive and timely response to the inquiry requires significant input from a number of key Departments, including the Cabinet Office, the Department of Health and Social Care, the UK Health Security Agency, the Home Office and HM Treasury, many of which are supported by the Government Legal Department.
Figures provided are based upon a sample of departmental costs, and are not precise figures for accounting purposes. While every effort has been made to ensure a robust methodology, complexities remain in trying to quantify the time and costs dedicated to the inquiry alone.
It should be noted that alongside full-time resource within Departments, inquiry response teams draw on expertise from across their organisations. The senior civil servant staff costs associated with appearing as witnesses, preparing witnesses and associated policy development work on the covid inquiry are significant. Those costs are not included in the costs below.
Breakdown of Staff and Costs
The Government’s response to the UK covid-19 inquiry is led by inquiry response units across Departments.
Number of UK Covid-19 Inquiry Response Unit staff: 265 full-time equivalents (Q4).
Cost of UK Covid-19 Inquiry Response Unit staff: £5,100,000—including contingent labour costs—(Q4).
Total Inquiry Response Unit Legal Costs
Inquiry response units across Departments are supported by the Government Legal Department, co-partnering firms of solicitors, and legal counsel. These associated legal costs—excluding internal departmental advisory legal costs—for January to March 2024 are below.
Total legal costs: £5,300,000—as of Q4.
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Public Procurement
Alex Burghart Excerpts(6 days, 12 hours ago)
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The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Alex Burghart)
I beg to move,
That the draft Procurement Regulations 2024, which were laid before this House on 25 March, be approved.
This statutory instrument represents a significant legislative step in implementing the Procurement Act 2023, which seizes the opportunity, following Brexit, to develop and implement a new public procurement regime for over £300 billion-worth of public contracts. The new regime helps to deliver the Prime Minister’s promise to grow the economy by creating a simpler and more transparent system that will deliver better value for money, reducing costs for businesses and the public sector.
The regulations bring to life and set out the practical detail necessary for the functioning of many of the Act’s provisions. They address many of the points of practical detail that are more appropriately set out in regulations given their detailed nature and propensity to change and need updating from time to time. Many of the measures set out the detail required to be provided in notices required by the Act, which allow contracting authorities to conduct their public procurement in an open, transparent and informative manner. They include the particular contents of various notices that will be used to communicate opportunities and details about forthcoming, in-train and completed procurements.
Sir John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
Does the Minister think the regulations are duly simplified so that it is feasible for the self-employed and very small businesses to have access to contracts? Is there any provision for breaking down contract sizes so that the self-employed and small businesses have more opportunity?
Alex Burghart
My right hon. Friend asks a pertinent question—one that was at the forefront of Ministers’ minds when the legislation was drafted and as it made its way through both Houses. A number of provisions in primary legislation are there specifically to increase the chances that small and medium-sized enterprises, which are more likely to be British, get a bigger share of the £300 billion-worth of public procurement. Those provisions include everything from the online procurement system that we are building—which will increase transparency and allow greater notification of pipelines, helping small and medium-sized enterprises to prepare for those procurements—to reduced red tape, which will take the burden off those SMEs and reduce their barriers to entry. We are hopeful that a lot of local businesses in his constituency and in mine will benefit from this landmark piece of post-Brexit legislation.
The contents I was describing would typically include the contact details for the contracting authority, the contract’s subject matter, key timings for the procurement process, and various other basic information about a particular procurement that interested suppliers would need to know. The provisions also cover the practical measures that authorities must follow when publishing those notices, such as publishing on a central digital platform and handling situations in the event that the platform is unavailable.
Beyond transparency, the instrument includes various other necessary provisions to supplement the Act that will be relevant in certain situations. We provide various lists in the schedules so that procurers are able to identify whether certain obligations apply in a particular case, including a list of light-touch services that qualify for simplified rules, and a list of central Government authorities and works that are subject to different thresholds. The regulations disapply the Procurement Act in relation to healthcare services procurements within the scope of the NHS provider selection regime, which has set out the regulatory framework for healthcare services procurement since its introduction in January this year.
The regulations also set out how devolved Scottish contracting authorities are to be regulated by the Act if they choose to use a commercial tool established under the Act or procure jointly with a buyer regulated by the Act. The provisions of the regulations apply to reserved procurement in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, and to transferred procurement in Northern Ireland. The Welsh Government have laid similar secondary legislation that will apply in respect of devolved procurement in Wales, and if the devolved body carrying out that procurement mainly operates in Wales, elsewhere.
The Government have consulted carefully with stakeholders throughout all stages of the reform process, and we published our response to the formal public consultation on these regulations on 22 March. That consultation was a great success, evoking a good response from the various representative sectors, and confirmed that the proposed regulations generally worked as intended. Many stakeholders urged that certain matters be clarified and explained in guidance and training, which is a key part of our implementation programme that is being rolled out across the UK. The Government response demonstrates that we have listened to feedback, and confirms a number of areas in which the consultation led to technical and drafting improvements.
Once the instrument has been made, contracting authorities and suppliers will need time in order to fully adapt their systems and processes before go-live. As such, the Government have provided six months’ advance notice of go-live of the new regime before these regulations come into force, which will happen on 28 October this year.
John Spellar
I thank the Minister for giving way—at least it will enable him to draw breath—but could I ask a straightforward question? To what extent is this instrument going to enable British industry and British services to compete on a level playing field, in which we prioritise our domestic producers like every other country in the world does?
Alex Burghart
The right hon. Gentleman knows what is coming, because he asked me this question a number of times during the passage of the Act. We are doing two main things: the first is that we are greatly simplifying our procurement processes, which—as he heard me say a moment ago to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Sir John Redwood)—will particularly work to the advantage of small and medium-sized enterprises. However, the right hon. Gentleman must be cognisant of the fact that we have a number of international trade agreements with countries all over the world, in which we have agreed to compete with them on a level playing field. The only way in which we could deliberately give advantageous opportunities to British companies vis-à-vis those arrangements would be to break those trade deals. I am sure that is not what the right hon. Gentleman is proposing.
John Spellar
We have a lot of time and a thin House. I presume that the United States is also a signatory to the same trade treaties, yet it has the “buy American” legislation, which is very strong and very effectively enforced. In the area of shipping, for example, it also has the Jones Act, which says that anything being shipped between ports in the United States has to be carried by American vessels. The United States is working under the same treaty, so why is it able to do that, while we, for some reason—perhaps deep Treasury dogma, or long-standing civil service prejudice against industry—cannot?
Alex Burghart
If the right hon. Gentleman looks at the details of the trade deals that we have with other countries, he will see that by and large, those trade deals have been created in order to further commerce and trade between two countries, and agree that there will be areas in which there will be a level playing field between our country and that other country—that is often the basis of a trade deal. The United States is the world’s leading economy and has been for over a century, and can sometimes strike deals or come to arrangements that other countries that are not the world’s largest economy cannot. I am afraid he will have to go and do his own research on American trade deals, but I can explain to him why we have the procurement system we do and why, because of the steps we have taken in this legislation, we will be creating additional opportunities for small and medium-sized enterprises in his constituency as well as in mine. That is much for the better, and it is a much better situation than we found ourselves in while we were still in the EU, with a very cumbersome, slow-moving and long-unreformed system of procurement to which we had been shackled for about 40 years.
For the avoidance of doubt, Members will want to be aware that this statutory instrument has been corrected to remove drafting references and a couple of typographical errors that were mistakenly added during the publishing process. I hope that colleagues will join me in supporting these regulations and will approve this SI today.
Alex Burghart
Gosh—the Leader of the House? One day, Mr Deputy Speaker.
It has been a pleasure to listen to hon. Members and to hear the widespread support for the regulations. There is widespread recognition that they are a great improvement on the regime that we have swept away. They form part of one of the landmark pieces of legislation since our departure from the European Union.
We heard support from across the House for a procurement system that greatly supports small and medium-sized enterprises. As I said in my opening remarks, that was at the forefront of Ministers’ thinking as the Procurement Bill was devised. It was very much in the minds of the businesses and the contracting authorities that we spoke to as the legislation was put together. The right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar) gave an excellent speech and referred to Churchill’s wonderful phrase that industry should be “more content”. From the extensive consultations we have undertaken to prepare the legislation, we know these regulations will make “industry more content”, and that this is very much what businesses have been asking for and looking forward to.
There are a number of things that will help small and medium-sized enterprises, not least transparency and our new online system. The hon. Member for Llanelli (Dame Nia Griffith) said, quite rightly, that the system must be easy to use. One of my first jobs as an adviser to Government was in child protection. I remember the disastrous integrated children’s system that was in place under the last Labour Government, which took hours upon hours out of social workers’ time. It was dreadful because it took them away from working with children and meant they had to follow a very bureaucratic process.
We must be committed to ensuring that people are able to enter data and use the system without taking away from the most important part of their job. The Procurement Act, the regulations and the supporting documentation also support social value. The national procurement policy statement, which we have published, is keen to make sure that we do not remain obsessed with the most economically advantageous tender, but instead move to the most advantageous tender. That is a broader understanding of what is useful to contracting authorities and to society, and enables the consideration of issues such as local jobs and local skills.
The right hon. Member for Warley mentioned skills, and he was quite right to do so. When I was Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills, I was very keen to make sure that we were building up high-quality, internationally competitive apprenticeships, which played to the skills that were going to be needed in the areas in which they were provided.
The right hon. Gentleman also spoke about levelling up. I saw one of the most powerful examples of levelling up when I was a Minister in the Department for Education. The Government created a freeport on Teesside, which was part of our job. The excellent Mayor of Teesside, Lord Houchen, who I am pleased to say has been wonderfully returned by his constituents, worked with business to build a hydrogen plant in the freeport. The deal that was struck was that the hydrogen plant would support local colleges in providing the high-quality apprenticeships that would get young people—and not so young people—the jobs in that community. That is levelling up: all parts of Government—both from Whitehall to a local level—working with providers of local skills and industry to make sure that people can be a part of the success story of their own communities. I am very proud that it is this Government who have helped to deliver changes such as this.
John Spellar
I thank the Minister for his positive remarks.
Cannot Government, as customer, prescribe ratios of apprenticeships within the contracts, particularly construction contracts, and stipulate, as was done at the Olympic Park, that if a company moves off site for whatever reason, including when a contract moves into a different phase, and a new company comes in, there is an obligation to transfer the apprentices across? That would be building a sustainable base for the future.
Alex Burghart
I am sure the right hon. Gentleman knows that that is often the case. We do have requirements for apprenticeships to be part of major Government projects. He quite rightly spoke about Government as an intelligent customer—intelligent not just in terms of getting the best price, but of getting the best overall value. I say to him again that the idea of having a system of most advantageous tender, not just most economically advantageous tender, was always at the heart of these regulations.
The right hon. Gentleman should look at the excellent work being done by the Crown Commercial Service. By bundling together purchases made by different parts of Government, we can make sure that we get best value—I mean value in the broadest sense. In the Cabinet Office—perhaps one of the less glamorous areas of Government—in which I am proud to serve, that work is under way, already saving British taxpayers billions of pounds and making sure that we have a better and more holistic view of what Government spend can do.
Work such as that, alongside legislation such as this, means that we are building a system in which not just industry is content, but Government and the taxpayer are too, as well as the small and medium-sized enterprises and the communities in which they sit. I recommend this motion to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That the draft Procurement Regulations 2024, which were laid before this House on 25 March, be approved.
Government Security
Alex Burghart Excerpts(2 weeks, 6 days ago)
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The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Alex Burghart)
The Government take the security of the UK’s citizens, systems and establishments extremely seriously and we have a range of measures in place to scrutinise the integrity of our arrangements.
This was demonstrated in our recent updates on steps to prevent potential security risks materialising in light of the increasing capability and connectivity of visual surveillance systems.
Our approach is preventative to manage and mitigate any potential risk materialising in the future.
That is why in November 2022 the Government instructed all Departments to cease deployment of such equipment on to sensitive sites, where it is produced by companies subject to the National Intelligence Law of the People’s Republic of China.
Departments were also advised that no such equipment should be connected to departmental core networks and that they should consider whether removal and replacement of such equipment should be expedited rather than awaiting any scheduled upgrades. In June 2023, during the Report stage of the Procurement Act, the Government also committed to setting out a timeline for the removal of such equipment from sensitive sites.
Work on the removal of these devices is currently ahead of schedule. To date, it has been identified that the vast majority of sensitive sites never deployed such equipment. Of the small proportion that did, approximately 50% of sites have now had that equipment replaced. Work is pressing ahead to remove remaining devices, with approximately 70% of sites expected to have their surveillance equipment removed by October this year, and all remaining sites on track for complete replacement no later than April 2025. The Government will always keep the security of our personnel, information and estate under constant review and, again, these preventative steps were taken in line with that approach and to manage against risks materialising.
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Oral Answers to Questions
Alex Burghart Excerpts(3 weeks, 3 days ago)
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Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Alex Burghart)
It looks like the Member who tabled No. 10 is not out of bed.
A validation process is carried out to assess the strength and credibility of each nomination. We protect the integrity of the honours system by carrying out probity checks with a number of Government Departments before the Prime Minister submits names to His Majesty the King for approval.
Ruth Cadbury
The Prime Minister previously backed calls for Horizon victim and campaigner Alan Bates to receive an honour, yet his name was absent from the Prime Minister’s surprise honours list last month. However, Russia-linked Mohamed Mansour’s name was on that list. What was it about the multi-millionaire, generous Conservative party donor that attracted the Prime Minister to the idea of giving him a knighthood?
Alex Burghart
The gentleman whose name has just been mentioned is a very successful businessman and philanthropist, and I am sure those qualities were very much in the Prime Minister’s mind when he was put forward for an honour. Extremely distinguished names from the world of artificial intelligence and the creative industries were also recognised for their contribution to our country.
Alex Burghart
I advise the hon. Gentleman to go back and check the list because, not for the first time in this House, he is wrong.
Mr Dhesi
The Prime Minister recently announced an extraordinary round of honours, which many described as lacking integrity and bringing the system into disrepute. It included a donor who had donated £5 million to the Conservative party, and four Conservative MPs loyal to the Prime Minister. In the run-up to a general election that he is widely tipped to lose, what could possibly be the justification for the Prime Minister announcing and recommending a round of honours outside of the traditional King’s birthday list?
Mr Speaker
Order. It would have been easier if you had been here for the beginning of the question. Stretching the question is testing my patience and the patience of the Government Front Bench.
Alex Burghart
I thank the hon. Member for Slough for turning up. I refer him to the answer I gave a few moments ago.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Alex Burghart)
The Government recognise how vital digital products and services are for delivering public services. The digital, data and technology playbook provides best practice guidance for the procurement of digital products and services. The playbook is updated annually, most recently in June 2023. Departments are responsible for ensuring that public services delivered by the private sector represent value for money.
Chi Onwurah
Digital services procurement should be a win, win, win: the British public get better services, businesses get a good and reliable customer, and public services are reduced in cost. However, that is not the case under this Government. Departments are locked into single-source providers and dependent on legacy systems. The National Audit Office itself said that procurement was not competitive enough. As an example of that, can the Minister say how competitive cloud service provision is across his Government? Will he set out how he is using open source to boost competitiveness in digital services procurement?
Alex Burghart
We have a highly successful commercial function in Government, which is driving up value for money across all our commercial arrangements. It monitors contracts, before, during and after they have been in place, to ensure that we reduce the chances of issues such as lock-in. I strongly advise the hon. Lady to go and read the commercial function documentation—
Alex Burghart
I am sure she has not. She should read the commercial function documentation that comes out of the Cabinet Office, because she will see, as has been shown successively, that it saves billions of pounds for the British taxpayer.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
With reference to the written questions that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Cabinet Office has answered, can he outline what the Government consider to be the difference between a foreign court and an international court?
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Alex Burghart)
We have answered this question on a number of occasions.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
The Paymaster General told my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) that he could not give a timeline with regard to the infected blood scandal compensation. This subject is raised on an almost daily basis in this House by Members on both sides, because our constituents just cannot understand why it is taking so long. Can he at least give an indication of when he thinks compensation might begin to be paid? It is especially important given that, as I understand it, one victim of the scandal dies every four days.
State of the Estate: 2022-23
Alex Burghart Excerpts(1 month ago)
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The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Alex Burghart)
I have today laid before Parliament, pursuant to section 86 of the Climate Change Act 2008, the “State of the Estate in 2022-23”. This report describes the progress made on improving the efficiency and sustainability of the central Government estate and, where relevant, records the progress that Government have made since the previous year. The report is published on an annual basis, and this year highlights the following progress.
Government reduced their overall greenhouse gas emissions by 39%, compared to the 2017-18 baseline, with reductions in energy consumption saving the Government an estimated £163 million compared to the 2017-18 baseline.
Government as a whole reduced total waste by 16% from the 2017-18 baseline, exceeding the 15% target. In total, 5% of Departmental waste was sent to landfill, which therefore met the target of 5% maximum.
The Government Property Agency Government hubs have continued to grow in number during 2022-23, with the opening of Peterborough, Quay House, which brings together departments into this shared location, making more efficient use of space. Sixteen hubs are now in operation, with a combined floorspace of about 330,000 square metres, located in all four nations of the United Kingdom, providing a network of shared modern workspaces for the UK civil service.
Through the places for growth commitment, by March 2023, 12,075 roles had been relocated outside of London (this increased to 18,283 by 31 December 2023). This exceeds the programme’s interim 2025 milestone set out in the levelling-up White Paper of relocating 15,000 roles by 2025.
We are also seeing significant savings being achieved, demonstrating our commitment to running the UK estate in as efficient a manner as possible. We have disposed of no-longer-needed properties worth more than £1 billion, returning that money to the taxpayer to be reinvested.
Across Government and the wider public sector, services are delivering real improvements through more imaginative and integrated estate design, and through encouraging co-location and more efficient use of space. By 2030, Government property will have significantly contributed to economic growth, and supported improving the quality of public services, while at the same time helping to transform places and communities.
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Cabinet Office
Alex Burghart Excerpts(1 month ago)
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Alex Burghart
Obviously the Government are considering the very good and serious report into this situation from the Procedure Committee. It is not an anomalous situation—it has arisen before—but it is right that we should consider it in a modern light. In the meantime, while we are waiting for the Government’s full consideration, there are a number of ways in which the Foreign Secretary is being held to account by Parliament as a whole. In the House of Lords, he answered questions on 21 November, 5 December, 15 January, 16 January, 13 February, 12 March and 15 March.
[Official Report, 20 March 2024; Vol. 747, c. 1025.]
Written correction submitted by the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart):
Alex Burghart
Obviously the Government are considering the very good and serious report into this situation from the Procedure Committee. It is not an anomalous situation—it has arisen before—but it is right that we should consider it in a modern light. In the meantime, while we are waiting for the Government’s full consideration, there are a number of ways in which the Foreign Secretary is being held to account by Parliament as a whole. In the House of Lords, he answered questions on 21 November, 5 December, 15 January, 16 January, 13 February, 5 March and 12 March.
Access to Redress Schemes
Alex Burghart Excerpts(1 month ago)
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The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Alex Burghart)
It is a pleasure to respond to a thoughtful debate in which we have heard some very good speeches. Hon. Members have had the opportunity to display the considerable expertise that they have built up, often while dealing with difficult constituency casework. It is a reminder to us all that we are here to serve the needs of our constituents and to help them find redress when hardship, difficulties and, sometimes, the system get in their way.
It was a pleasure to hear experienced Members of the House harking back to the glorious days when we had a full working Thursday. I share their desire for that—and not just because we would have had more people in attendance for this debate. It was particularly good to hear the considered speech of right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), in which he savagely attacked lawyers. I look forward to the leader of his party reading and considering his remarks.
We are here to debate the details that have been raised thanks to the diligent efforts of the all-party parliamentary group in writing to the Government with its thoughts about how we might make general improvements. The Government firmly believe that access to redress is fundamental in upholding justice and fairness in our society. It is imperative that individuals have avenues to seek recourse when they have been wronged or harmed. In recognition of that, the schemes through which the Government provide redress are numerous.
The Government have done more than most in the past few years to address historical wrongs. In 2017, the infected blood inquiry was set up, and in October 2022 interim payments of £100,000 were made to everyone in the UK infected blood support schemes. The Windrush programme was set up in 2019, the Horizon shortfall scheme in 2020, the overturned convictions scheme and the LGBT veterans scheme in 2021, and the group litigation order compensation scheme in 2023. Yesterday, my right hon. Friend the Paymaster General set out our next steps in supporting the victims of the infected blood scandal.
The Government have been steadfast in our commitment to providing diverse compensation schemes that cater to varying needs and circumstances. We remain committed to upholding the rule of law and ensuring that all citizens have access to effective mechanisms for resolving grievances and holding institutions accountable. There is, rightly, considerable interest across the House in how we can ensure best practice. I am grateful to be able to engage with some of those ideas today.
Although I acknowledge the interesting ideas mooted by the APPG, I think we should sound a note of caution. We must be wary of any approach that would set up a uniform system for redress and compensation. Each set of circumstances is often very different, and schemes need to be capable of reflecting those differences in order to ensure that the affected individuals get the best possible redress. Any reform process would need to ensure that we do not lose personal understanding of the claimants who are accessing the scheme, and that we provide adequate support and understanding of their personal experiences. I urge hon. Members to keep claimants at the centre of our thinking during consideration of any reforms—that has been at the heart of what hon. Members have said in the debate.
Mr Kevan Jones
I do not disagree with the Minister— I agree that victims should be at the centre, and that no two schemes will ever be perfectly the same—but there are broad frameworks. What tends to happen—it certainly did with the Horizon scheme—is that people try to reinvent the thing every time. Surely we could put in place some parameters that civil servants could use as a template when faced with a future compensation scheme.
Alex Burghart
I was going to come to that point. Although the right hon. Gentleman is right that there is currently no public guidance, that does not limit the sharing of knowledge between Departments and policy areas. There is a great deal of dialogue and shared learning between officials when schemes come into existence. The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord) suggested in his opening remarks that the wheel was always being reinvented. That is not the case; a learning process happens within Government.
Richard Foord
I do not suppose that lessons are not being learned and that one set of civil servants is not passing lessons on to another set; rather, this is about victims having the reassurance that when there is a perceived conflict of interest, they have somewhere else to go.
Alex Burghart
The point I was making was very much that we have internal schemes of learning, and we ensure that each new scheme learns from the experiences of those that have gone before it.
Alex Burghart
I will give way one more time to the right hon. Gentleman, but I am running out of time.
Mr Jones
That is not my experience. When we were setting up the advisory board for the Horizon compensation scheme, I asked officials to look at the mineworkers’ compensation scheme, which was a massive scheme. The problem is that, with the turnover of civil servants, corporate knowledge is lost. We need corporate knowledge to be held centrally in Departments—possibly in the Cabinet Office; otherwise, things left to Departments do not happen because people leave.
Alex Burghart
The right hon. Gentleman is right: the Government require a means of retaining corporate knowledge. That is something that I have been working on since I came to the Cabinet Office 18 months ago. I will not go into it now, but we are putting in place a number of novel programmes to ensure that, as people move on, we retain their learning—not just with regard to redress schemes, but more broadly across Government. He is right about that. Although there is a richness in having civil servants who have worked in many different Departments and have a broad understanding of how Government works, there is sometimes a danger that, in having that rotation, we lose expert knowledge.
I will move on to some of the progress that has been made on the major schemes that the Government have under way. In respect of the Horizon IT scandal, let me reassure the House that the Government are determined for postmasters to receive the compensation that they deserve. As of 31 March this year, approximately £190 million had been paid to over 2,800 claimants across three schemes: £111 million on the Horizon shortfall scheme; £39 million for all payments, including interim payments, on the group litigation order scheme; and a total of £41 million for all payments, including further interim payments, on the overturned convictions scheme. With regard to the Windrush scandal, as of February this year the Home Office had paid over £83 million across 2,307 claims. On infected blood, as I mentioned earlier, the Government have paid over £400 million in interim compensation to those infected, and bereaved partners, registered with existing support schemes since 2022.
Let me turn to the specific points made by other contributors. Alas, my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) ascribes to me a greater power than I possess: I am unable today to respond formally to the Cumberlege review, but he will be aware that the Government are in the midst of very serious consideration of its findings and recommendations, and I know that he will hold our feet to the fire to ensure that that formal response comes soon. To go back one more time to the right hon. Member for North Durham, I am grateful for his acknowledgment of the work done by my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake). His comments about lawyers aside, I very much agree that we need schemes that reduce the opportunities for legal opportunism—we owe that to our tax-paying constituents, and also to those who have been wronged.
The Government understand that there are broad lessons to be learned from schemes that have gone on in the past, but also from the four big schemes that are currently under way. It will also be necessary for us to consider the response of the National Audit Office to the letter written earlier this year by the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), so that we can better understand how we can build on the good work that has already been done to help our constituents when similar wrongs befall them in future.
Acting Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman
Alex Burghart Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Alex Burghart)
At the outset, I would like to pay tribute to the outgoing ombudsman, Rob Behrens CBE, who steps down at the end of this month after serving the statutory maximum term of seven years. I would like to thank him for the great work he has done to transform the PHSO. For example, he has improved complaint handling, established an independent expert advisory panel to inform decision making, and set up Europe’s first ombudsman academy to build capability. He has also introduced new ways of working, including mediation in casework. On this House’s behalf, I praise Rob for his achievements and wish him all the very best for the future.
The campaign to recruit a new ombudsman commenced at the beginning of October 2023. The House-appointed recruitment panel made a recommendation to the Prime Minister in January, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg) said a few moments ago. This is an important and high-profile role, so it is very important that the process takes as long as is necessary to appoint the right person. Until then, and to ensure continuity for the PHSO, it is necessary to appoint an acting commissioner. Mr Behrens had reached the end of the statutory maximum term of seven years, so it is necessary for us to have an acting commissioner before a final appointment is made.
The Government very much support Rebecca Hilsenrath’s appointment to this role, as we believe she has the ability and experience to lead the PHSO until a new ombudsman is appointed. She joined the PHSO as director of external affairs, strategy and communications in 2021, and she was appointed its chief executive officer in July 2023.
Alex Burghart
That will be a matter for the Prime Minister. As my hon. Friend will have heard me say a few moments ago, it is very important that this process is followed thoroughly and diligently to make sure that the correct appointment is made.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I also want to put on the record my thanks to Mr Rob Behrens, not least for the way he supported one of my constituents. However, my concern is that the Minister and the Prime Minister have had plenty of time to review the appointment. By putting an interim person in place, there will be disruption when a new person comes into place. Does the Minister not also recognise that there is much work to be done in reducing the number of complaints and addressing the real needs of our constituents, who need redress for the serious issues they are raising?
Alex Burghart
The hon. Lady is absolutely right that this is an extremely important role. That is why, in looking for a temporary head, we have chosen someone with an enormous amount of experience within the ombudsman itself. There will be no disruption; there will be great continuity. She points to the amount of time it is taking to sign off the role. While I appreciate that she would like to have it now, looking back, the appointment of Mr Behrens seven years ago took almost a year, so it is not unusual for appointments to take more than a couple of months. With that said, in accordance with section 3A of the Parliamentary Commissioner Act 1967 and paragraph 2 of schedule 1 to the Health Service Commissioners Act 1993, I commend Rebecca Hilsenrath to the House for the role of acting commissioner.
Question put and agreed to.
Deputy Speakers
Ordered,
That, further to the Orders of 30 January, 23 February and 26 October 2023, paragraphs (1) and (2) of the Order of 19 December 2022 relating to the appointment of Sir Roger Gale as Deputy Speaker and to the exercise of the functions of the Chairman of Ways and Means shall continue to have effect up to and including 23 July 2024.—(Penny Mordaunt.)
Westminister Hall: Sitting Times
Ordered,
(1) That, with effect from 15 April, the following amendment to Standing Orders be made:
In Standing Order No. 10 (Sittings in Westminster Hall), paragraph (1)(c), leave out “1.30 pm” and insert “12.30 pm”.
(2) That this amendment shall have effect for the remainder of this Parliament.—(Penny Mordaunt.)
Scrutiny of Secretaries of State in the House of Lords
Alex Burghart Excerpts(2 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Alex Burghart)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) on bringing forward what is a genuinely interesting and surprisingly well-attended Adjournment debate. I think it is the best-attended Adjournment debate I have taken for some time. Were I in mischievous mood, I would gently refer him to the answers that I gave him on 18 November, 29 February and 12 March and resume my place, but alas mischief eludes me and I will give him as full an answer as I can.
Obviously the Government are considering the very good and serious report into this situation from the Procedure Committee. It is not an anomalous situation—it has arisen before—but it is right that we should consider it in a modern light. In the meantime, while we are waiting for the Government’s full consideration, there are a number of ways in which the Foreign Secretary is being held to account by Parliament as a whole. In the House of Lords, he answered questions on 21 November, 5 December, 15 January, 16 January, 13 February, 12 March and 15 March.
I know that the House of Lords is not a place where the Scottish National party goes to play. As the hon. Gentleman knows, because we have debated this on a number of occasions, I think that is a great shame. I understand that the party’s plans and vision to break up the kingdom failed—with the support of the Scottish people, I am pleased to say. After that juncture, SNP Members would have done well to accept that that was a once-in-a-generation vote and that they were plausibly going to be here for some time if people continued to elect SNP Members to this House. It would therefore have been wise of them to stick a few people in the upper House so that the views of their party and that part of the electorate could be represented in that part of Parliament. They chose not to. Consequently they are now unable to question the Foreign Secretary when he stands to answer questions in the Lords, but that is their prerogative.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister will know that our constituents’ voices will not be heard in the other place, and that it is us who are elected to bring those voices forward. On 17 October, the Foreign Secretary at the time invited all Members of this House over to the Foreign Office to ask questions. Could the Minister explain why the Foreign Secretary has not made himself available, even in an informal way off the record, so that Members of Parliament from the House of Commons can scrutinise him over his decision making?
Alex Burghart
The hon. Lady will have an opportunity to ask that question of the Foreign Secretary’s colleagues when they next come to the House. I cannot answer the particulars because they pertain to the Foreign Office.
In the meantime, there will be opportunities to ask questions of the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell). Although it is true that he is not the Foreign Secretary, he is in the Cabinet and is bound by collective agreement. He sits in discussions at the highest level on all matters relating to foreign affairs, and he has answered questions in this House on 14 November, 21 November, 27 November, 7 December, 11 December, 12 December, 19 December, 8 January, 10 January, 24 January, 26 January, 29 January, 30 January, 21 February, 27 February, 28 February, 12 March and 19 March. Members of this House have had opportunities to ask questions of him—a man who sits in Cabinet and who knows the Foreign Secretary’s mind. I am sure he will be very grateful to hear the comments of the hon. Member for Glasgow North about his workload, but I can assure the hon. Gentleman that my right hon. Friend is a very capable individual, as the hon. Member for Rochdale (George Galloway) said, and workload is not a problem from which he suffers.
While we await the Government’s response to the report, it is possible for Members to write to the Foreign Secretary. I know that the hon. Member for Glasgow North has written to him once and, having done so, I assume that he asked all the questions he would like to ask. If he has not, he is welcome to write a second letter.
There is a broader point that I raised with my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) when I was before the Procedure Committee, which is that there is an historical dimension that works with the grain of what the Committee is saying. This issue first arose, as you will probably know from your history lessons, Madam Deputy Speaker, in 1674, when the Commons chose to summon two peers, the Duke of Buckingham and the Earl of Arlington, to answer questions—the Duke of Buckingham because he was considered to be lascivious, wicked and scandalous in his lifestyle, and the Earl of Arlington because he favoured papists. They were admonished by the Commons and sent on their way.
The response of the Lords was to point out that their House, too, had privileges, and that it is not within the power of the Commons to forcibly summon Members of the House of Lords to the Bar of the House. The Lords passed a Standing Order that said that Members of the House of Lords could not be summoned here.
However, it was still clear that Members of the House of Lords could be invited, and there have been a number of instances in which Members of the House of Lords have been invited to this House and have answered questions. In 1779, the Earl of Balcarres and Earl Cornwallis were brought here to answer questions about the Army’s conduct during the American revolution. In 1805, Lord Melville came to this House at his own request, having been impeached—he asked that the House gave him an audience. Lord Teignmouth was questioned twice about Indian affairs in 1806 and 1813. More famously, the Duke of Wellington came to give an account of the peninsula war in 1814. I raise these points because we are all aware that there have been moments in not-so-recent history when commoners have come to the Bar. The last was in 1957, when Mr Junor was summoned over an issue in the press.
My point is that if the Commons wants to, it is capable of inviting a Member of the Lords to come to answer questions here. To a certain extent, history places the solution at the disposal of the hon. Member for Glasgow North: the Commons could invite the Foreign Secretary now to come to the Bar of the House to answer questions. However, I appreciate the hon. Gentleman is looking for something more routine, and for that I am afraid he will have to wait until the Government respond to the report.
In conclusion, it is right that we have this debate; it is important that there is scrutiny of the Government and of the Cabinet, and that is what this Government seek to provide.
Question put and agreed to.
Security and Intelligence Agencies: Contingencies Fund Advance
Alex Burghart Excerpts(2 months, 1 week ago)
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The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Alex Burghart)
The Minister of State, Baroness Neville-Rolfe DBE CMG, has today made the following statement:
The security and intelligence agencies have presented a supplementary estimate for approval to Parliament in the central Government supply estimates booklet (HC 500, published on 27 February). Full details can be found on www.gov.uk. As it will be some time before the associated legislation receives Royal Assent, the agencies are seeking an advance from the Contingencies Fund in order to meet contractual commitments.
Parliamentary approval for additional resource of £5,295,000, capital of £96,261,000 and cash movement of £66,444,000 has been sought in a supplementary estimate for the security and intelligence agencies. Pending that approval, urgent expenditure estimated at £168,000,000 will be met by repayable cash advances from the Contingencies Fund.
As the security and intelligence agencies are non-ministerial Departments, I am making this statement on behalf of their accounting officer to ensure that Parliament is informed of this advance from the Contingencies Fund.
[HCWS316]