Oral Answers to Questions

Deidre Brock Excerpts

Wednesday 1st May 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising a very important issue. I send our condolences to his constituent’s family, particularly that young son who will grow up without his mother. The issue of post-natal depression and people returning to work and balancing childcare and work responsibilities is important. We are looking into a new returners programme to help those who are returning to the workplace. My hon. Friend the Minister for Mental Health is doing some good work on the whole question of mental health provision, particularly for mothers with young babies. It is right for my hon. Friend to have raised this area of concern, which the Government are looking at in a number of ways. We will aim to ensure that nobody else suffers in the way that his constituent and her family did.

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

Q5. The Prime Minister will not be surprised to learn that I would like her finally to spill the beans on Cambridge Analytica and AggregateIQ visiting Downing Street. For more than a year now, I have been asking why these shadowy organisations were invited into the heart of her Government, and she has been refusing to answer. When I write to her, a junior Minister responds and says there is nothing to reveal—most recently they said that no meetings took place—but I now have a written answer from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office saying that Ministers and officials had a series of meetings with Cambridge Analytica. Will the Prime Minister finally come clean? Which of her Ministers, special advisers and officials have met AIQ or Cambridge Analytica; where and when did those meetings take place; and what was their purpose?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady has consistently stood up and asked me about meetings that took place in No. 10 and she has had answers about meetings that took place in No. 10. My hon. Friend the Minister for the Constitution has written to her about this matter. We routinely publish information about Ministers’ and senior officials’ meetings with external organisations, and the correct information has been published in the transparency returns for my meetings. She might like to know that the UK Government actually publish far more transparency data than the Scottish Government.