Chris Law
Main Page: Chris Law (Scottish National Party - Dundee Central)Department Debates - View all Chris Law's debates with the Cabinet Office
(4 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberBaroness Sugg leads in the Department in meeting the CSOs, and there are regular meetings ongoing. The integrated review is working over the summer to pull together the key issues, and development is an absolutely critical strand within that.
Last week I asked the Secretary of State what partner organisations and non-governmental organisations were consulted prior to the announcement of the merger of the Department for International Development and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. She said that the statement on the merger was first made to Parliament and that there has been ongoing consultation since then. This stands in stark contradiction to what the Prime Minister said previously when he told this House that there had been
“massive consultation over a long period.”—[Official Report, 16 June 2020; Vol. 677, c. 678.]
Therefore, was the Prime Minister aware he had taken a decision without any evidence to support it, or did he mislead Parliament to create an illusion of legitimacy for this ideologically driven, disastrous merger?
As set out in previous answers, the Prime Minister made the announcement of the new departmental framework to Parliament first, and there are ongoing discussions led by Baroness Sugg and the permanent secretary with the CSOs and the NGOs.
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. I will indeed think about what we can do. As he knows, these are matters for the honours committees, which are independent of Government, and I urge him strongly to make his representations to them.
I know that we have done a number of growth deals in Scotland recently and that we intend to do more. The best I think I can say to the hon. Gentleman is that I will write to him with an answer about the Tay cities deal.