Meg Hillier
Main Page: Meg Hillier (Labour (Co-op) - Hackney South and Shoreditch)Department Debates - View all Meg Hillier's debates with the Home Office
(12 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberUrgent 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.
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I assure my hon. Friend that discussions are taking place among Departments about the funding. The funding will not reside with the MOD. The matter of penalties is one between LOCOG and G4S, but the Government will discuss it with them. As he rightly says, if the required numbers have not been delivered, the financial penalty proceeds should revert to the Government to make extra money available.
I share the concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) about the number of people, including in my constituency, who would have loved to have had one of the 12,000 jobs that are now going not to security staff but to the armed forces.
The Home Secretary has been in her post for two years and two months. In that time she has had three security Ministers, and Olympic security needs have more than doubled. The Home Office knew that there was a problem in May 2010. When did she know there was a problem, and why did not she or one of her three security Ministers ask LOCOG more detailed questions about its poor forward planning?