Oral Answers to Questions

Georgia Gould Excerpts

Thursday 5th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Lorraine Beavers (Blackpool North and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

T5.   Labour’s plan to make work pay promised to bring about the biggest wave of insourcing of public services in a generation. Insourced services are often shown to provide better value for money. Will the Government provide an update on their work to ensure that public bodies carry out public interest tests when outsourced contracts expire?

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Georgia Gould)]

The Government are determined to deliver high-quality public services and better value for money for the taxpayer. We have committed to introducing a public interest test to assess whether expiring contracts could provide better outcomes and better value in-house, and that was included in the national procurement policy statement.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

T7. A recent cyber-attack on schools and early learning IT in my constituency knocked out online access, but also underlined the need for a positive interaction between Scotland’s two Governments, rather than the constant constitutional bickering we have seen in recent years. With cyber-security about to move out of the Cabinet Office, can the Minister assure us about the way in which a positive cross-governmental and intergovernmental approach to these relationships will be secured?