Education

Debate between Damian Hinds and Jeremy Quin

Thursday 8th February 2024 Ministerial Corrections

[Damian Hinds]

We have launched 32 attendance hubs, to reach more than 1 million pupils. And we will be expanding our attendance mentor pilot, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon) rightly mentioned, to reach 15 priority education investment areas.

Topical Questions

The following is an extract from Education questions on 29 January 2024:

[Sir Jeremy Quin (Horsham) (Con)]

Educational psychologists are enormously important. What progress are the Government making on their current recruitment drive to increase their number?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Damian Hinds and Jeremy Quin

Thursday 27th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. I agree that it is great news that the Cabinet Office, among other Government Departments, is relocating jobs to Scotland. We have a hub in Glasgow; the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and many other Departments also have a Scottish hub. That is good news. I have been assured that our UK apprenticeship programmes are available across the UK, and I believe that we are in dialogue with the Scottish Government. Where we can work together to provide good apprenticeship opportunities across the public sector, that must be a good thing.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

12. What steps his Department is taking to reduce public sector fraud.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Jeremy Quin)]

I was so entranced by the brilliant advocate of civil service jobs in Scotland, the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier), that I had forgotten my old friend, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds). I apologise to him and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

The Cabinet Office co-hosts the new Public Sector Fraud Authority with His Majesty’s Treasury. It will work with public bodies to better understand and reduce the impact of fraud against the public sector. In its first year, it will deliver £180 million in outcomes and agree targets with other public bodies. I hope that was worth waiting for.

[Damian Hinds]

It was well worth waiting for; I warmly welcome the Paymaster General to his place.

There is a lot of commonality between different types of public sector fraud and between public sector fraud and regular consumer fraud. Often, there are the same professional enablers, there can be the same criminal gangs, and of course, there are the same routes out for money laundering. Can he reassure me that he and his Department will continue to seek every possible synergy between what different Departments are doing, and between the Government and law enforcement?

Defence and Security Industrial Strategy

Debate between Damian Hinds and Jeremy Quin

Tuesday 23rd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question. He has beaten me to it, because I was going to say suitably warm words about my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow when he addresses the House later in this session. The right hon. Gentleman is right to say that that report in 2018 was incredibly influential and very helpful in setting out not only the prosperity agenda that was announced in March 2019, but this paper. Two changes should warm the heart of the right hon. Gentleman. [Interruption.] I will do my best. The first is that as we look at new procurements right from the outset we will be looking to think, “What are we going to get out of this, not just for the kit we need for our forces—what is the broader impact? What else can we do to secure prosperity, which, after all is a defence task, through the orders we place and how we go about it?” We will be taking that nuanced approach, looking at each one in turn, on a case-by-case basis, to see what can be achieved. Of course there will be occasions when off the shelf is the best option, but for every one that needs to be tested, considered and thought through. Secondly, I am very proud that we are going to be ensuring that social value is always applied to our tender process. So this will be a minimum of 10%. It will be compulsory from 1 June, in respect of DSPCR—Defence and Security Public Contracts Regulations 2011. This is about making certain that through that mechanism we catch the whole benefit that a procurement can make.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

I strongly welcome my hon. Friend’s statement and the strategy, including what he outlined on the deepened working with industry and academia. Can he say how the strategy can help build the UK’s skills base in key STEM subjects, which is obviously very important for defence industries, but also for important parts of the wider civil economy?

[Jeremy Quin]

This is a great opportunity to build our skills base and our number of apprentices. My right hon. Friend will have heard what I said about FCAS and Team Tempest and that new generation coming through—people are very excited about the prospect of working on this new system—but it is broader than that. I particularly pay tribute to the work of the RAF across Wales in bringing on STEM skills. The whole of the armed forces are acutely aware that our future is going to be digital, cyber and highly technological, and we as a country need to have that STEM support. I know that this strategy, with its £6.6 billion minimum spend on R&D over the next four years, will help to deliver just that.