Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Neil O'Brien and David Lidington

Wednesday 24th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Neil O’Brien (Harborough) (Con)]

3. What steps his Department is taking to help improve the cyber security of public and private sector organisations.

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office (Mr David Lidington)]

While the Government can manage and have been managing the security risk, it is essential that the cyber-security and engineering flaws in Huawei products are fixed. The National Cyber Security Centre has set out the improvements we expect the company to make and will not compromise on the improvements we need to see, in particular sustained evidence of better software engineering and cyber-security.

[Neil O’Brien]

Will the Minister update the House on the distinction the Government make between different types of infrastructure equipment from Huawei, and how that will be used to respond to the centre’s recommendations?

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Debate between Neil O'Brien and David Lidington

Monday 25th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I will say a bit more about the statutory instrument in a few minutes, if the hon. Lady will bear with me.

[Neil O'Brien (Harborough) (Con)]

I support the Prime Minister’s deal—I think it is a good deal—and I welcome the news that we will be voting on it again, but will my right hon. Friend look closely at the important proposals from my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) to amend the unilateral declaration to provide more certainty, clarity and reassurance to those not yet ready to vote for the deal?

[Mr Lidington]

I can reassure my hon. Friend that the Government have taken very seriously the comments from our right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) and continue to have a dialogue with him and others to find the best way forward.

EU Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Advice

Debate between Neil O'Brien and David Lidington

Tuesday 13th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I always try to build bridges. I hope that what I have said is of some assurance to colleagues in all parts of the House. As I said earlier, I think that the motion as worded goes wider than what the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras, in all fairness to him, was clear about in his introductory speech.

[Neil O'Brien (Harborough) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Lidington]

I will, and then I really must make progress.

[Neil O'Brien]

I am incredibly thankful to my right hon. Friend for his thoughtful tone in this debate and for the important reassurances he has given to the House, but could he give me one more reassurance, which is that he opposes in principle the thin end of the wedge on the Order Paper? I worked with brilliant civil servants for five years, and if they had to give any legal advice in full, written as if it were for publication every single time, their jobs would simply be impossible.

[Mr Lidington]

I want to come on to that point now. Where I part company with the Opposition motion is over the proposed disclosure of Law Officers’ formal advice. Everyone in the House will know that there is a strong long-lasting constitutional convention, followed by Governments of all political parties, that the opinions of the Law Officers remain confidential. That is reflected in the words of the ministerial code, which seeks to balance the Government’s twin duties of accountability to Parliament and maintaining confidentiality where necessary and appropriate. The code explicitly provides that

“Ministers should be as open as possible with Parliament and the public,”

but also expressly notes that the advice of Law Officers and even the fact that such advice has been sought or obtained

“must not be disclosed outside Government without their authority”—

that is, the authority of the Law Officers themselves.

Furthermore, “Erskine May” on page 447 specifically states that

“the opinions of the law officers of the Crown, being confidential, are not usually laid before Parliament, cited in debate or provided in evidence before a select committee, and their production has frequently been refused”.

“Erskine May” goes on to explain that

“The purpose of this convention is to enable the Government to obtain frank and full legal advice in confidence.”

Successive Governments have upheld that principle because the work of Government—Governments past, present and future, of different political persuasions—benefits from receiving such frank, confidential advice. The convention exists for very fundamental constitutional reasons, and to uphold the rule of law.

The right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras referred to the entrenched tradition of privileged legal advice: in this country, we operate on the basis that advice given by a lawyer to his or her client, whether an individual, a corporation, the Government or a political party, should be treated as confidential. Although he cited exceptions to that, those exceptions were about litigation in court, rather than about the circumstances we are deciding here.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Neil O'Brien and David Lidington

Wednesday 11th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Neil O’Brien (Harborough) (Con)]

I strongly welcome the extra £20 billion and the long-term plan for the NHS, but does the First Minister agree that, at a time when local authority budgets are under pressure, it would be attractive to have more pooling of budgets between health and social care?

[Mr Lidington]

It is important that the national health service and local authorities work closely together to ensure that community-based care, funded from whichever source, is effective and meets patients’ needs. I know that the new Health Secretary, like his predecessor, is determined to take that forward further.