Security of Ministers’ Offices and Communications

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Julia Lopez]

I appreciate the hon. Lady’s question, but I am not asking her to believe anything. I am asking her to have patience while the Department conducts its own investigation into exactly what happened. On the use of emails, there are clear guidelines to which Ministers should adhere, but we have to accept that there was a situation in which we all had to move online, and we all have to account for the way in which we handled ourselves in that period.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab) [V]]

I have lost count of the number of times my colleagues and I have raised issues about the lack of transparency, honesty and integrity under which too many Government Ministers operate. The ministerial code is not worth the paper it is written on. The whole sordid affair follows on from the former Health and Social Care Secretary being found to have acted unlawfully in his disclosure of contracts for personal protective equipment, contracts for mates, and now the revelation of the use of private emails. This, as others have said, smacks of his covering his tracks.

On the cameras, if Ministers were unaware of them, that is nothing short of Big Brother. What other Department buildings have similar cameras of which we are not aware?

[Julia Lopez]

I think that will form part of the investigation, and it is something that the Government’s security group will actively look into.