Asked by: James Gray (Conservative - North Wiltshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of her Department’s cloud-hosting contracts have been awarded to (a) hyperscale cloud providers and (b) UK SMEs; and what the value of those contracts was in each of the last three years.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Home Office has a number of cloud hosting contracts, with a variety of service providers.
It is our policy to award contracts on the basis of value for money, whilst doing everything we can to encourage UK suppliers, and UK SME's in particular, to win business. This is achieved through competitive tender in accordance with public procurement legislation.The Home Office actively encourages SMEs to bid for Government contracts and where applicable include relevant clauses in our terms and conditions and tender process to encourage UK suppliers to use SMEs within their supply chain.
The Home Office has a number of cloud hosting contracts with hypercloud providers, such as Amazon Web Services, Oracle Fusion and Microsoft Azure, as well as contracts with Vodafone, DXC, SCC and UKCloud. The Department has a number of smaller hosting contracts, with a wide variety of UK-based and we utilise the services of other hosting providers through our extended service integrator supplier base.
Asked by: James Gray (Conservative - North Wiltshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what security measures her Department has in place relating to the receipt by her Department of incoming post and parcels; and what discussions she has had with the British Forces Postal Office on providing such services.
Answered by Ben Wallace
The department follows guidance issued by the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure for establishing secure postal monitoring services.
Asked by: James Gray (Conservative - North Wiltshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when Wiltshire Police will conclude the Operation Conifer inquiry into the late right hon. Sir Edward Heath; to whom and by what mechanism that inquiry will report; and whether that report will be made public.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
The police are operationally independent of Government. The duration of Operation Conifer, and arrangements for its conclusion, are operational matters for the Chief Constable of Wiltshire Police.
Asked by: James Gray (Conservative - North Wiltshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum or visa applications from Afghan interpreters formerly employed by the armed forces were refused in the most recent period for which figures are available.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
The information requested is not held centrally and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.