Civil Service Impartiality
Debate between Jeremy Quin and Marcus Fysh(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
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Jeremy Quin
That would help. I have been pondering the earlier question about the efficacy of people moving from the civil service into party political roles. Clearly that cannot be deemed an impossibility, and many of us have benefited from time in the civil service before taking on political roles. But there are ways of doing this; that is what is so important, and it would be very helpful if the Labour party could transparently set out exactly what took place.
Mr Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)
The House and the country should know that on 7 September 2019 I witnessed Sue Gray, then permanent secretary at the Department of Finance in Northern Ireland, discuss with a special adviser to the UK Cabinet Office how to exclude solutions other than high alignment with EU law and regulation from consideration by the Government in respect of Northern Ireland and the withdrawal agreement. A month later, the Government proposed the Northern Ireland protocol, which subjected Northern Ireland to EU law and regulation. Since then, Sue Gray has been the civil servant specifically responsible for advising on Union considerations in Government. It was reported this week that Sue Gray was present at the briefing of Cabinet Ministers on the Prime Minister’s Windsor framework, which, among other things, appears to confirm and embed the application of EU law and regulation in Northern Ireland—
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Jeremy Quin and Marcus Fysh(4 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)
The Minister for Defence Procurement (Jeremy Quin)
Throughout the pandemic, orders have continued to be made and placed and suppliers paid. The MOD has to date paid £123 million in interim payments to ensure that critical defence outputs can continue uninterrupted, and engaged directly with 600 of its critical suppliers. In addition, as part of the Treasury fiscal stimulus programme, an additional £200 million of funding has been allocated to improve the defence estate accommodation.
Mr Fysh [V]
Short-term support is great, but companies such as Leonardo in my constituency need long-term certainty on programmes as they fight back from covid. What can the Minister do to provide such certainty?
Jeremy Quin
My hon. Friend is a great advocate for Leonardo and for military helicopters. The publication of the integrated review and, in particular, the defence and security industrial strategy will provide a great deal of certainty. In addition, in the case of Leonardo, through our strategic partnering arrangement we are establishing a joint working group to support future capability and understanding.