Asked by: Angela Rayner (Labour - Ashton-under-Lyne)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the Answer of 9 February to Question 140150 on Ministers: Members' Interests, what progress he has made on aligning ministerial interests declarations more closely with the declarations of Members of Parliament.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
I refer the Right Honourable Member to the official record here: https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2023-02-20/debates/9DF0D70A-7E95-4FEB-9C02-DF57D3EA4E94/CabinetOffice#2MC
The Government is assessing a number of recommendations from both the Committee on Standards in Public Life and Nigel Boardman regarding Ministers' quarterly transparency returns, which cover gifts; hospitality, meetings and overseas travel.
Asked by: Angela Rayner (Labour - Ashton-under-Lyne)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether contracting authorities are regularly alerted by his Department about suppliers who have been excluded from procurement on the grounds of (a) fraud, (b) corruption and (c) other grounds under the Public Contract Regulations 2015.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
Exclusion decisions are for individual departments. In the most serious of cases, the Cabinet Office may undertake a review of a supplier and issue guidance to departments but the decision on exclusion remains with the contracting authority.
The Procurement Bill, which is making its way through Parliament, further strengthens the rules on supplier exclusion for fraud and corruption. It will also create a new 'debarment register', accessible to all public sector organisations, which will list companies who should be excluded from contracts.
Information about exclusions relating to legal action being initiated by the Government relating to contracts to supply personal protective equipment is not held centrally.
Asked by: Angela Rayner (Labour - Ashton-under-Lyne)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many companies have been excluded from participating in public procurement due to legal action being initiated by Government relating to contracts to supply personal protective equipment.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
Exclusion decisions are for individual departments. In the most serious of cases, the Cabinet Office may undertake a review of a supplier and issue guidance to departments but the decision on exclusion remains with the contracting authority.
The Procurement Bill, which is making its way through Parliament, further strengthens the rules on supplier exclusion for fraud and corruption. It will also create a new 'debarment register', accessible to all public sector organisations, which will list companies who should be excluded from contracts.
Information about exclusions relating to legal action being initiated by the Government relating to contracts to supply personal protective equipment is not held centrally.
Asked by: Angela Rayner (Labour - Ashton-under-Lyne)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the Answer of 17 March to Question 165342, how much his Department spent on external (a) legal firms and (b) counsel in (a) 2020, (b) 2021 and (c) 2022.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
Cabinet Office predominantly receives legal advice in-house from Government Legal Department, and the information requested, in respect of external advice, in the question is not centrally held.
Asked by: Angela Rayner (Labour - Ashton-under-Lyne)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the Answer of 17 March 2023 to Question 165263 on Government Consulting Hub: Staff, for what reasons his Department closed the Government Consulting Hub.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
The Government Consulting Hub (GCH) was established to ensure the government built more in-house capability.
We have made significant progress in this area on a number of fronts. A key focus of the GCH was to develop capability and ownership of this work across government to ensure this is embedded in the long-term.
The triage service, developed by GCH, has been transferred to the Crown Commercial Service, building on the work done by GCH with each department - this transition is a recognition of the maturity level of the service, which means it can now integrate with CCS work with consultancy procurement strategies across government. The very well received Consultancy Playbook, setting a new bar of how we get best value from external firms, operates alongside the suite of playbooks, owned and led by the Commercial Function.
The GCH capability programme, supporting civil servants to adopt consultancy type skills where appropriate, is now fully onboarded to Civil Service Learning, and will continue to be available to all civil servants. By improving these skills in the public sector, we can continue to ensure the government is only using consultants when absolutely necessary.
Asked by: Angela Rayner (Labour - Ashton-under-Lyne)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how much his Department spent on external consultants in 2022.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
For 2021-22, Cabinet Office external consultancy spend can be found on page 193 of our Annual Report and Accounts 2021-22, linked here.
Consultancy spend for 2022-23 will be published in the Cabinet Office Annual Report and Accounts 2022-23, later this year.
Cabinet Office has a mature assurance framework for Consultancy & Professional Services. A dedicated team exists to assure such spending and make recommendations to officials accordingly for decision. The assurance framework is built on the principles outlined in the Consultancy Playbook and aims to ensure that where such requirements are justified, they deliver value for money for the taxpayer. This use of these consultants is a legitimate part of policymaking that helps to deliver efficient public services to the taxpayer and has been a feature under successive Governments.
Asked by: Angela Rayner (Labour - Ashton-under-Lyne)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether his Department has any record of public contracts being awarded to suppliers on the UK Sanctions List between 1 January 2021 and 31 January 2023.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
Details of all suppliers excluded from the procurement process are included in the Contract Award Report, which is approved and signed off by Cabinet Office Commercial. No central record of these exclusions is held by the Cabinet Office, and in order to confirm the details of suppliers excluded from any procurement would mean checking each Contract Award Report approved and signed off between 1 January 2021 and 31 January 2023.
The UK imposes a range of sanctions against individuals or organisations that pose a threat to our country or its interests. Alongside procurement exclusions, these include asset freezes, travel bans, trade sanctions and transport sanctions.
Asked by: Angela Rayner (Labour - Ashton-under-Lyne)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many suppliers the Department excluded from procurement on the grounds of (a) fraud, (b) corruption and (c) any other grounds under the Public Contract Regulations 2015 between 2015 and 2022.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The information requested is not readily available and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost. To obtain the information a manual search through individual records would be required as this is not recorded centrally on departmental systems.
The grounds for the exclusion of bidders from public procurement procedures are set out in the Public Contracts Regulations 2015. These rules set out the circumstances in which bidders must, or may, be excluded from a public procurement process.
The Procurement Bill brought forward by this Conservative Government, currently being considered by Parliament, expands the scope of misconduct which can lead to exclusion. We are also increasing the time period within which misconduct can lead to exclusion from 3 years to 5; bringing subsidiary companies into scope of exclusion; and making the rules clearer so that contracting authorities can undertake exclusions with more confidence
Asked by: Angela Rayner (Labour - Ashton-under-Lyne)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will make an assessment of the level of compliance by (a) Government Departments, (b) Executive Agencies and (c) non-departmental public bodies with the guidance set out in Procurement Policy Note 01/22: contracts with suppliers from Russia and Belarus.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The illegal invasion of Ukraine by Russia has been met with unprecedented global condemnation. The UK is proudly standing shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine and has introduced tough financial and investment sanctions, to push Russia to cease its illegal and destabilising actions.
In March 2022, Cabinet Office published PPN 01/22 which set out the government's commercial policy and guidance, recommending that public bodies immediately seek to identify any contracts with Russian and Belarusian companies and, to switch suppliers with minimal disruption, pursue legal routes of cancelling them. In all cases, contracting authorities must be proportionate and take a risk-based approach. The final decision to terminate a contract rests with the contracting authority with responsibility for the contract.
In the case of the Cabinet Office’s own commercial activities, since the publication of PPN 01/22, there have been no instances where a Russian/Belarusian supplier has bid, and therefore been excluded from a procurement. Other departments will hold their own records on such matters.
Asked by: Angela Rayner (Labour - Ashton-under-Lyne)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, for what reasons the Government decided to publish Lord Pannick KC’s legal opinion on the Privileges Committee investigation into the Rt Hon Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
The Government at the time determined it was in the public interest for Lord Pannick’s legal opinion to be published given the exceptional circumstances. It remains the case that the Government does not comment on legal advice that may or may not have been sought or received. This is in line with the long-standing policy under successive administrations.