Oral Answers to Questions

David Mowat Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

The hon. Lady should direct her first inquiries to the council, because not all councils are cutting funding to the voluntary sector. She should be aware of the broad national picture, in which volunteering is up, giving is stable and social investment is rising. There is a whole range of Government programmes to support and strengthen civil society and help it to maintain its resilience through this very difficult period.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

T3. In 2010, the Smith report suggested that substantial cost savings would result from moving parts of the civil service from London to the regions. It suggested a target of moving 15,000 civil servants by 2015. Will the Minister update us on progress?

[Mr Maude]

By last year, there were already nearly 12,000 fewer civil servants based in London. Our priority is to exit excess space and we have now exited 1.6 million square feet of office space, but there is much more that we can and will do.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Prime Minister]

I can tell you, Mr Speaker, that Lynton Crosby has never lobbied me on anything. The only opinions that I am interested in are how we destroy the credibility of the Labour party, on which he has considerable expertise, though I have to say that he is not doing as good a job as the Labour party.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

Q14. Last year the Prime Minister successfully intervened in the case of newly born baby Lexie-Mai, who has eventually been confirmed as the daughter of Private Daniel Wade, who died on active service in Afghanistan. Private Wade’s fiancée and her family are in the Gallery today. This whole situation would not have arisen if the Ministry of Defence routinely kept samples of DNA of soldiers on active duty. Are we making any progress on this?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, and he is quite right to have stood up for his constituents in the way that he did. I would like to convene a meeting with MOD Ministers so that I can get back to him with the very best answer about the action we can take to stop these problems happening in the future.