Civil Service Impartiality Debate

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Department: Cabinet Office

Civil Service Impartiality

Jonathan Gullis Excerpts
Monday 6th March 2023

(1 year, 8 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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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.

This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record

Jeremy Quin Portrait Jeremy Quin
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To be clear, we on the Government Benches have no desire or intention whatsoever to attack civil servants. We want to protect the impartiality of the civil service, and protect it from any shift in perception of its impartiality; and we want to hold the Opposition to account, and ask them to be a bit more transparent about their dealings.

Jonathan Gullis Portrait Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)
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The Leader of the Opposition was best friends with the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), but dumped him as soon as the latter lost the election. The Leader of the Opposition was pro a second referendum, but when Labour lost the election, he dumped that. He made 10 pledges in order to become Leader of the Opposition, and dumped them. There has been rebrand after rebrand. The Labour party clearly has a grubby deal going on behind the scenes. The Leader of the Opposition talked about integrity, openness and honesty. Why cannot he evaluate those three things, and tell us: who, where, when and why?

Jeremy Quin Portrait Jeremy Quin
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I very much agree that those questions need to be answered by Opposition Members.