Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what support his Department is providing to members of the Civil Service Pension Scheme that have experienced financial hardship following the time taken to implement the McCloud remedy.
Answered by Anna Turley - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
The administration of the Civil Service Pension Scheme, including the implementation of the 2015 Remedy (often referred to as the 'McCloud remedy'), is the responsibility of the Minister for the Cabinet Office.
The Government is committed to implementing the remedy as quickly as possible, and the scheme administrator (MyCSP) has established processes to manage the implementation and support members in line with the scheme's formal governance and service standards. This support will continue once Capita takes over the scheme administration in December 2025.
Since October 2023 all members starting to receive their pension for the first time have been given their 2015 election options prior to their pension being put into payment.
From the Remedy group, there are just 70k members remaining (from the original 430k) requiring the issuing of a Remediable Service Statement. This will enable the member to either continue with their current benefits or opt for the alternative. It is important to note that all impacted members in receipt of a pension are already receiving benefits and that the remedy is an adjustment and the alternative scheme benefits will not automatically provide a member with a higher pension and lump sum. Where it does and the member makes an alternative scheme election, the difference between what has been paid and what is due, will be backdated to the original payment date and paid to the member inclusive of interest.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps he is taking to ensure that the McCloud remedy is provided to for members of the Civil Service Pension Scheme (a) in full and (b) as quicky as possible.
Answered by Anna Turley - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
The administration of the Civil Service Pension Scheme (CSPS), including the implementation of the 2015 Remedy (McCloud), is the responsibility of the Minister for the Cabinet Office.
The Cabinet Office, as the Scheme Manager, is responsible for ensuring the remedy is implemented in full for all eligible members. All members retiring since October 2023 have been provided with their 2015 Options prior to commencement of their pension. By August 2025, 95% of active members had received their Remediable Service Statement.
Regarding implementing as quickly as possible, the Government is committed to completing this complex programme. The original regulatory timeline for 'Immediate Choice' members (those already retired by October 2023) was 31 March 2025.
While the administrator issued remediable service statements to 44% of this group by that date, the Cabinet Office has exercised its discretion to extend the delivery date by two years for the remaining, more complex cases. Work is underway with the new scheme administrator, Capita, to deliver the remaining Remedy programme as soon as possible.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether his Department plans to provide an updated timetable for completion of the McCloud remedy for the Civil Service Pension Scheme.
Answered by Anna Turley - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
The administration of the Civil Service Pension Scheme, including the implementation of the 2015 Remedy (McCloud), is the responsibility of the Minister for the Cabinet Office.
The regulatory timeline for issuing all 'Immediate Choice' Remediable Service Statements was 31 March 2025, by which 44% of statements were issued.
For the remaining 56% of complex cases, the Cabinet Office has extended the delivery date by two years. More detailed delivery dates within this new timeframe will be made available as the work progresses with the incoming supplier, Capita.
It is important to note that anybody retiring after October 2023 has been fully implemented; 44% (58,000) of those who retired before that date have been sent a Remediable Service Statement, and 42,000 have responded and had their election implemented. Of the Immediate Choice group, 56% (90,000) remain to be implemented and these will be completed by March 2027.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will take steps to ensure that public contracts are not awarded to companies which blacklist workers.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The Government is committed to tackling misconduct in public procurement. All contracting authorities and suppliers are expected to act, and be seen to act, with integrity.
The Employment Relations Act 1999 (Blacklists) Regulations 2010 prohibit the compilation, usage, sale or supply of blacklists. Contracting authorities may exclude suppliers for blacklisting offences under the exclusion regime in the Procurement Act, which came into force in February 2025, for example, on the grounds of professional misconduct. Those suppliers may also be added to a central debarment list by the Cabinet Office. We will not hesitate to make use of those powers where there is evidence of wrongdoing.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what estimate he has made of the cost of the application for judicial review of the UK covid-19 inquiry.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
We do not yet have a figure for the costs incurred. We brought this judicial review to seek clarification on a point of law and we are pleased that the Court agreed that there was an important legal question to consider.
It acknowledged our concerns over respecting the privacy of individuals and ensuring that completely irrelevant information is returned and not retained.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps his Department is taking to monitor departments' performance against the Cabinet Office consultation principles, updated in March 2018.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
The consultation principles are high level guidance to help departments manage their consultations. The Cabinet Office provides advice to departments on these principles on request. Individual departments are legally responsible for the consultations they run, and will determine how to practically apply the principles to each of their consultations.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment his Department has made of whether goods produced by the slave labour of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang are present in Government procurement contracts.
Answered by Jacob Rees-Mogg
HM Government is committed to preventing modern slavery occurring in public sector supply chains. The Cabinet Office has published commercial policy and guidance setting out the steps that all Government departments must take to identify and mitigate modern slavery and labour abuse risks throughout the commercial life cycle - focusing on the areas of highest risk. This policy is mandatory for all Central Government Departments, their Executive Agencies and Non-Departmental Public Bodies.
The Government has taken a number of measures to help ensure that no British organisations are profiting from or contributing to human rights violations against the Uyghurs or other minorities. We have introduced new guidance for UK businesses on the risks of conducting business in Xinjiang, implemented enhanced export controls, and committed to introducing new procurement guidance for Government bodies as well as financial penalties for non-compliance with section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act.
The Procurement Bill, which was recently introduced to Parliament, will strengthen the approach to exclude suppliers from bidding for public contracts where there is clear evidence of their involvement in forced labour or other Modern Slavery practices.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the Answer of 11 June 2021 to Question 11654, when he plans to the announce the (a) membership and (b) terms of reference of the UK Commission on Covid Commemoration.
Answered by Michael Ellis
While the Government's immediate focus is on protecting lives and livelihoods, the Government fully recognises the need to mourn those who have died and how this period in our history should be remembered and commemorated.
The Government will set out the membership and terms of reference of the UK Commission on Covid Commemoration in due course.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Prime Minister, what proportion of correspondence sent to him by hon. Members received a substantive response within the service standard in each month of (a) 2018, (b) 2019 and (c) 2020.
Answered by Boris Johnson
This information is not centrally collated in the form requested. Where a Hon. Member writes to me about a matter that is directly the responsibility of another Department, it has been the long-standing practice of successive administrations for that matter to be passed to that Department for a substantive reply, on my behalf.
This means that the data on such response times will be included in that Department’s broader figures.
Further information on departmental performance can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/data-on-responses-to-correspondence-from-mps-and-peers
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, what the timetable is for publishing his Department's response to the consultation on the expansion of the National Fraud Initiative data matching powers.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Shadow Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology
Over the 12 week consultation period, a high volume of responses were received and are currently being analysed. A statement will be published on GOV.UK in due course with further details, including the anticipated timetable.