Oral Answers to Questions

Graham Leadbitter Excerpts

Thursday 22nd January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Dan Jarvis]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman, as I always am, for the important points that he raises. I think he knows how seriously we take these issues. He is right to raise the point about skills and education. We are doing a lot of work to support the victims of cyber-crime and providing free guidance, tools and incident response advice through the National Cyber Security Centre, alongside targeted awareness campaigns. I give an assurance of the seriousness with which we take these matters.

[Graham Leadbitter (Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey) (SNP)]

9. What assessment he has made of the adequacy of the Government’s insourcing policies.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chris Ward)]

The Government are committed to delivering the largest wave of insourcing in a generation. As part of that, we have consulted on plans to introduce a public interest test before any further services are outsourced and we will publish the results soon. Let me be clear: this Government will end the decade-long drive to outsource our public services and we will do so to deliver better value for money for taxpayers and better services.

[Graham Leadbitter]

The Minister repeated the promise that was made nearly 18 months ago when the Labour party came into power. We are not seeing a massive amount of insourcing at the moment. I have constituents in Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey who work on three different military bases as contractors. Many used to be civil servants and they have lost considerable pension benefits as a result of that outsourcing. There are many others in a similar position in Department for Work and Pensions offices, the Cabinet Office itself and other Government offices throughout the country. When can those workers expect to see some fairness in their contractual arrangements?

[Chris Ward]

I know that the hon. Gentleman has raised that point about workers in his constituency before. We are making progress. The Employment Rights Act 2025 will make some progress, particularly by reinstating the two-tier code. We have consulted on a public interest test. I will bring forward our conclusions and proposals on that very soon, but as I say, the central point is that this Government will reverse the decade-long drive to outsource and bring more powers and resources in-house to deliver better value for taxpayers.