Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Burghart Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to face the right hon. Gentleman across the Dispatch Box for what I believe is the first time. I am pleased to see three members of the Cabinet on the Front Bench—it is quite right that the Cabinet Office should be so well reflected.

The day after he entered Downing Street, the Prime Minister pledged to personally chair each mission delivery board to drive through change. We now hear that he is not chairing each mission delivery board. Why has the Prime Minister broken his pledge?

[Pat McFadden]

Let me begin by welcoming the hon. Gentleman to his position; I look forward to our exchanges. He is also the shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, so I hope his party leader will be giving him a Christmas bonus for productivity and hard work—he will certainly deserve it.

The Prime Minister is very engaged in the delivery of these missions, and meets for missions stocktakes regularly with the Secretaries of State in charge. That is the benefit of having this kind of programme: the Prime Minister can personally hold Secretaries of State to account and ensure they are all focused on delivery of the Government’s priorities.

[Alex Burghart]

The right hon. Gentleman is right: as the holder of two shadow portfolios, I get double the money. [Laughter.] I am sorry not to hear an explanation for why the Prime Minister has gone back on his word. There are growing concerns that the mission delivery boards are not being taken seriously. Those concerns were felt by members of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee yesterday, when the right hon. Gentleman’s very capable permanent secretary said that

“the governance and the wiring of how we do this might not be immediately observable”,

which is a masterful piece of civil service phraseology if ever there was one.

These boards are not Cabinet Sub-Committees, which means they are not authorised to make policy. The Prime Minister is not there, so his authority is absent. The Government will not reveal who is on them, what they discuss or when they meet. They are starting to sound like figments of the Government’s imagination—a litter of Schrödinger’s cats. Will the right hon. Gentleman at least commit to regular published updates on what each of the boards is doing, who sits on them, what decisions they make, what work they are undertaking and what achievements they have achieved?

[Pat McFadden]

The hon. Gentleman is going to get a published update in a couple of hours, when he will receive a very full account of what the boards have been doing, how they have been prioritising their work and what the next steps are. He is a former Cabinet Office Minister, so he will know that one of the wonderful things about the Cabinet Office is that it does a great deal of work under the bonnet—sometimes not in the full gaze of publicity—and that that is the privilege of all of us who have served in the Cabinet Office. That is true of this work. However, we are publishing a very important update later this morning.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

Was the Cabinet Office’s propriety and ethics team informed by Downing Street of the former Transport Secretary’s conviction before she was appointed as a Minister of the Crown?

[Pat McFadden]

The former Transport Secretary had exchanges with the Prime Minister last week, which have resulted in her resigning from the post. She set out her reasons for her resignation in that letter. We now have a new Transport Secretary, who has already made an excellent start in the job.

[Alex Burghart]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for restating what is already known. Obviously, it is a matter of public interest whether the propriety and ethics team had been informed before the right hon. Lady was made Transport Secretary. I ask him again: will he confirm whether the PET was informed by Downing Street of the former Transport Secretary’s conviction before she was appointed a Minister of the Crown?

[Pat McFadden]

All Cabinet Ministers have an interview and make declarations to the propriety and ethics team before they are appointed to the Government. I am aware of what I told the propriety and ethics team before my appointment, but I do not look through the declarations from every other Minister.