Oral Answers to Questions

John Penrose Excerpts

Thursday 22nd June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alex Burghart]

We have established the Public Sector Fraud Authority to clamp down on fraud. As a former DWP Minister, I assure the right hon. Lady that this Government go after fraud wherever it is found. Every time we find new opportunities for fraud, we come forward with new means of clamping down on them. We are a Government committed to efficiency, which we are delivering. As the right hon. Lady will have heard me say in answer to the first question this morning, the Cabinet Office, in the most recent financial year for which figures are available, delivered £3.4 billion-worth of savings to the British taxpayer. That is work we will continue to do.

[John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)]

2. What criteria his Department uses to assess people who are nominated for honours.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

7. What recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of his Department’s processes for scrutinising nominations for honours.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Alex Burghart)]

Nominations are, as my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) will know, taken on merit. The criteria that we use are regularly reported to Government, with our most recent report on the operation of the honours system published last month. We are confident that the process for honours selection, including adequate probity and propriety checks, is proportionate and robust and that all due process is followed.

[John Penrose]

Does the Minister agree that as proven by recent controversies, the system must be transparently meritocratic, so that it is crystal clear that everybody receiving an honour legitimately deserves it? Now that we have introduced a points-based immigration system to choose the best and the brightest from around the world to live here in Britain, should we consider a similar points-based system to choose this country’s brightest and best to receive honours in future, too?

[Alex Burghart]

My hon. Friend is too modest to mention that he came up with this idea some time ago, and it is one that we have considered, but it is not one that we will be taking forward at this moment in time. We go to great lengths to ensure that the process remains transparent, and he can read the most recent report, which was published last month. It is essential that we ensure that the committees that make the considerations around the honours system can do so and can report to this place and to the public. While I am aware that he would like us to go further, we do not believe it necessary to uproot the entire system. We want to ensure that the honours system represents people from the length and breadth of the country.