Oral Answers to Questions

Catherine West Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

That is an extremely important point, and the hon. Lady is right to highlight it to the House. First, that is why we are putting in more funding: £2.6 billion over three years, as opposed to the previous £1.9 billion over five years. On her particular point about deterrence, that funding is outwith the funding provided to the National Cyber Force, which is going into Preston and the north-west as part of our levelling-up agenda. That will have a key role in the deterrence aspects of the risk that she quite rightly identifies.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

9. If he will take steps to reassure the public that Cabinet Ministers’ personal and lifestyle costs are not being funded by donors and therefore vulnerable to outside influence.

[The Paymaster General (Michael Ellis)]

All Ministers are subject to the ministerial code, which requires Ministers to ensure that no conflict arises, or could arise, between their public duties and their private interests, financial or otherwise.

[Catherine West]

It was so good to hear the Paymaster General praising civil servants, so could he please explain why the Foreign Secretary overruled civil servants’ advice and went to a £3,000 lunch in a private members’ club owned by a Tory donor, and he calls that abiding by the code? Will the Paymaster General immediately include that in the investigation being undertaken into the other boozy parties in No. 10 Downing Street?

[Michael Ellis]

It is absolutely ridiculous to characterise the matter in the way that the hon. Lady does. The reality of the matter is that the Labour party engages in trade union entertainment on every possible occasion. There is no conflict of interest in the matter she describes. Indeed, all the matters that are brought to the attention of the relevant authorities are properly dealt with.