Lord Mandelson Humble Address: Government Response

Lord Gove Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gove (Con)]

My Lords, one figure emerges from these papers with his already high reputation enhanced. I refer of course to Sir Olly Robbins, the former Permanent Secretary at the FCDO, and I am sure the noble Baroness, who is an excellent Minister, will agree with me that the memo that he authored towards Lord Mandelson, which was published, reinforces that he is a public servant of the highest standards of honour and integrity. Would she also agree with me that he should be reinstated now rather than have the taxpayer pay hundreds of thousands of pounds for his unfair dismissal?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

My Lords, Olly Robbins was dismissed because the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary lost confidence in him, as has been set out publicly before. As has always been the case, we do not comment on individual employment cases.

Pension Schemes

Lord Gove Excerpts

Tuesday 28th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend. There was I, about to say that, given his time in government and his extensive ministerial service across many departments, my noble friend knows better than I do about the awarding of these contracts.

There is a serious point here: at the heart of these conversations is the fact that every contract is managed on its own merits and contains robust, specific protections to ensure delivery. The award of the contract we are talking about followed a rigorous and transparent process under the public contracts regulations. The Secretary of State sought and received specific assurances from Capita regarding delivery after it had become clear what had happened to the Civil Service Pension Scheme. The DWP was alerted; obviously, there are members of staff at the DWP who will also have been affected by this.

It is fair to say, I think, that I have never had so many discussions with my colleagues as I have had with civil servants across the piece who wanted me to make sure that we fix this and fix it well, given my exposure to them. I am very grateful that my noble friend Lady Sherlock has come to be supportive; there are always effective cross-government communications when required, and I am pleased that my noble friend is sitting next to me for this one.

[Lord Gove (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Reid, made a very valid point. Capita was the organisation in charge of Army recruitment. It did such a bad job that even the MoD decided to dispense with its services. The Ministry of Defence has long experience with Capita. Capita was the principal delivery organisation for the Defence Infrastructure Organisation, which was the most dysfunctional arm of that dysfunctional department.

It is not as though the Government have not been warned. As my noble friend Lady Finn pointed out, the Government have not learned what a truly dreadful organisation Capita has been. Yet now Capita is the preferred bidder for the Department for Work and Pensions’ Civil Service payroll contract. Indeed, only last month, Capita was selected for a 10-year contract, valued at £370 million, to run HR and finance systems for four UK government departments. When will Ministers and civil servants learn that Capita is no friend of efficiency or accountability?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

The noble Lord is aware that I have been a fan for many years and would listen to him with interest on every position he takes. I do, however, find it a little rich, given the positions that he previously held, to be lectured by him about a contract that was signed by the previous Government, following many contracts, not least the ones he talked about in defence, that were signed by the previous Government. I have already talked about how we will seek to move forward with insourcing.

I should put on record the fact that I am an honorary captain in the Royal Navy and was a member of the Defence Select Committee when some of these issues were being discussed about the Capita contract and the impact it had on recruitment into our Armed Forces. I believe and hope, however, that Serco is going to benefit from some of the changes that we as a Government undertook with Capita on the defence recruitment contract, which moved to Serco last month.

At the heart of this are—as I think we are all aware—our responsibilities towards taxpayers’ money and making sure that it is spent well, and that, whenever we choose to outsource, it is because we need to bring in different expertise that is not typically appropriate for us to hold centrally. But we need to make sure that this works and works for us, and I hope we will see that going forwards. But Capita is a supplier in more than 80 government contracts.

Wildfires

Lord Gove Excerpts

Thursday 12th June 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Gove (Con) (Maiden Speech)]

My Lords, it is a great honour and privilege to have been chosen to join this House. I am deeply grateful for the support and kindness that I have received since I arrived. In particular, I thank my supporters, my noble friends Lord Vaizey of Didcot and Lady Finn. I also thank the staff of the House: Black Rod, Garter King of Arms and, in particular, the staff of the Library and the doorkeepers, who have given me invaluable assistance since I arrived.

I thank my noble friend Lord Caithness for introducing this debate. Like me, as he referred to earlier, he is a teuchter from Aberdeenshire. He spoke with considerable authority and expertise about a cause close to many of our hearts: making sure that our environment can be preserved and enhanced for future generations.

I come to this House having served an apprenticeship of 19 years in the other place, during which time I spent 13 years as a Minister. I regard this as inadequate preparation for joining this House because, during my time as a Minister, I learned that respect for your Lordships’ House was a precondition of achieving anything in politics. The collective expertise, across party and of no parties, which the House of Lords provides is a huge asset to our constitution; the voices raised and points made in this House undoubtedly enhance the quality of governance that the people of the United Kingdom enjoy.

I am very glad to be speaking in this debate, not just because my noble friend Lord Caithness has devoted time both in government and on the Back Benches to enhancing our environment but because the vital issue of ensuring that we, first, prevent and, secondly, mitigate the impact of wildfires goes to the heart of a series of environmental questions that we face.

In the speeches made by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and my noble friend Lord Jack, we saw two apparently conflicting but, to my mind, overlapping points. The plea that I would like to make in this speech is a plea for understanding—understanding of the importance of making sure that our peatland and moorland landscapes are protected, but also understanding between what are sometimes seen as warring interests. Whether it is the Moorland Association, the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust or the many environmental NGOs that sometimes find themselves disagreeing just a little with one lobby or another, all have a shared interest in making sure that we hand on our environment, in what has become a very nature-depleted nation, in a better state to the next generation. That was my mission during my brief time as Environment Secretary. During my time in this House, I hope to work across parties to ensure that we enhance our natural environment, our built environment and the environment that we leave to the next generation.