Nusrat Ghani
Main Page: Nusrat Ghani (Conservative - Sussex Weald)Department Debates - View all Nusrat Ghani's debates with the Cabinet Office
(1 month ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call the Chair of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Mr Brickell, I was not sure if you were going to swap seats again. Are you comfortable where you are?
Phil Brickell
I wish to confine my remarks to the responsible, resilient and transparent use of taxpayers’ money. I say that as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on anti-corruption and responsible tax, a role which sees me engage with ministerial colleagues from across Government on a whole swathe of issues. I push Government constructively to increase transparency, improve controls and increase enforcement when those who seek to defraud the taxpayer are identified.
Public sector fraud and error is estimated to cost taxpayers between £55 billion and £81 billion annually. That is not sustainable when we are asking taxpayers to shoulder a large burden and when our public finances are already squeezed, at a time of increasingly turbulent geopolitical headwinds. That is why, back in December 2024, I was delighted to see the Government announce the introduction of Tom Hayhoe as the new covid fraud commissioner. He was tasked with identifying areas of reckless spend overseen by the previous Government and going as far as possible in claiming back moneys for the taxpayer.
Since then, Mr Hayhoe has identified £10.9 billion lost to fraud and error across the covid schemes, at a time when the Government’s resilience was pushed to the limit. Let us dwell on that £10.9 billion figure. Of that money, £324 million was lost in personal protective equipment fraud during the pandemic and £1.88 billion was lost in fraud on the bounce back loan scheme, issued by the Department for Business and Trade. We talk about more money for the defence investment plan or increased resilience at a time of increasing geopolitical instability, and those figures of taxpayers’ money lost to fraudsters by the last Government are truly astonishing.
Without straying into ongoing litigation, let us dwell on the PPE Medpro scandal for a second. It has become symbolic of the waste and poor oversight that occurred during some covid-19 procurement processes. As we know, the company was awarded Government contracts worth more than £200 million through the controversial VIP lane system. In 2025, the High Court ruled that PPE Medpro had breached a £122 million contract for surgical gowns, because the products supplied did not meet the required standards, and the company was ordered to repay that money to the Government.
That matters, because holding suppliers accountable when contracts are not fulfilled properly helps to protect public funds and reinforces the principle that those who benefit from Government contracts should meet their obligations. That is a vital premise, because we must ensure that Government procurement is resilient and delivering the best value. Ensuring that those who rip off the state—and, by default, you, Madam Deputy Speaker, me and every other person up and down the length of the country—are held to account is vital.
Alongside our debate on the Cabinet Office’s estimates, will the Minister articulate why the Government announced last week that they had chosen to only “partially accept” four of Tom Hayhoe’s recommendations? The first of those recommendations was that the Government should have a challenge champion in crisis situations—we talk a lot about resilience. The second recommendation was to ensure that small companies publish profit-and-loss accounts—remember that small companies were the engine of the bounce back loan scheme fraud.
The third recommendation was that there should be stronger measures when Ministers issue directions to override the civil service. That is crucial, given that ministerial directions included overriding an accounting officer’s concerns about fraud on bounce back loans. The fourth recommendation was to have clearer central oversight of the spending of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government through local bodies, including grants. I appreciate that my hon. Friend the Minister may not have the answers to hand, but I would be very grateful if she could write to me after this debate.
Do not let my questions distract from the good work undertaken during this Parliament. I particularly commend the Cabinet Office for the work undertaken by the Public Sector Fraud Authority, including last week’s launch of the new public authorities fraud investigation and enforcement service. I had the benefit of meeting my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton Test (Satvir Kaur) only a few weeks ago to discuss the vital work of the PSFA. We both know how critical it is to drive up transparency, break down information silos, and drive cultural change via the tone from the top across Government. As such, we should be proud that the PSFA has reported savings to the taxpayer of £311 million in 2022-23, £373 million in 2023-24, and over £480 million in 2024-25. That is a trajectory I want to see continue—an increase of approximately 50% over the course of two financial years. In total, the Government reported £7.53 billion of taxpayer savings from counter-fraud activity in the last financial year, including almost £400 million linked to covid fraud that had been recovered. That is vital work that should not go unnoticed, and it is not small change; those are critical funds that need to be retained in the public sector, for the sake of our infrastructure, resilience and security.
The Minister may not be surprised to hear me say that we must not rest on our laurels. I therefore welcome the views of my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton Test on establishing a central Government database to strengthen the detection and prevention of fraud, alongside enhanced mitigation measures and greater transparency in how they are implemented. I also support a new offence of fraud against the public purse, coupled with meaningful incentives and protection for whistleblowers to help identify and expose wrongdoing, as recommended by the campaigning organisation Spotlight on Corruption.
My constituents—whether in Heaton or Horwich, Chew Moor or Chequerbent—need to know that the Government are on their side and that attempted public sector fraud will have consequences, no matter who you are or who you know. It is only by pursuing fraudsters tenaciously that we will be able to find the much-needed resources to support investment in critical infrastructure and ensure that we are as prepared as we can be, whether that is for the next pandemic, climate change, industrial sabotage or conflict.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
We now come to the Front Benchers. I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson—are we ready?
Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)
Born ready, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Earlier this year, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said that
“we are not at war, but we are certainly not at peace either.”
Just over the two years since this Government took office, there have been many reports of instances of foreign espionage and interference. Earlier this year, it was reported that Chinese spies use LinkedIn and other recruitment platforms to target UK officials and military staff. A tracker was successfully placed on the Prime Minister’s car, and—as has been mentioned by my hon. Friends the Members for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) and for West Dorset (Edward Morello)—there have been attacks on the Prime Minister’s home and car. Also, people with links to a sitting MP were arrested on suspicion of assisting a foreign intelligence agency. It is therefore no surprise that the Government say that national security is their first responsibility. They are right to do so.
I am lucky enough to be a member of the armed forces parliamentary scheme this year. I have been fortunate enough to meet some of the remarkable people who serve in our military, from the most junior to the most senior, and the key message I have taken from those interactions is that, as a society, we are not scared enough and we are certainly not prepared enough. When talking about preparation, the thoughts of many will instantly go to physical safety and defence spending. I understand why, but there needs to be a whole-of-society approach that goes beyond our armed forces to include national security, resilience, civic preparedness, food security, economic security, cyber-security, energy security and so on. This point has already been raised by other Members, but when the Minister responds shortly, I would be grateful if she could update the House on the Government’s plans to increase the awareness of the British people—including my own Hazel Grove constituents —about the role we must all play to keep our country safe and to prepare should the worst happen.
After looking at the estimates, I have one specific question for the Minister. As I understand it, the security spending under the “Keeping the country safe” subheading is rising largely because the integrated security fund has been moved across to the Cabinet Office, not because Ministers have found new money to meet new dangers. Could the Minister tell the House how much of that uplift is new investment in our resilience, and what changes are happening to that spending as it comes under the Cabinet Office?
We cannot have national resilience if the public can no longer trust the integrity of our democracy. The National Cyber Security Centre dealt with more than 200 attacks on our critical national infrastructure in the past year alone, and around three quarters of those attacks were traced to hostile states, primarily China, Russia and Iran. They reach into hospitals, our energy supply, and the public services that many across the country depend on. That is why the Liberal Democrats tabled an amendment to the Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Bill that would have required the Government to publish a digital sovereignty strategy. Had it been put in place, that strategy would clearly have set out how the Government would assess, manage and mitigate risks to the security and resilience of critical network and information systems arising from foreign interference and reliance on foreign technology. Additionally, our strategy would place a focus on strengthening Government procurement practices, which would ensure that the Government lay out how they intend to reduce strategic dependencies on foreign-owned service providers and commit to prioritise domestic tech. We would ensure that critical national functions are powered by technology that only the UK Government or UK companies could control.
Perhaps the sharpest threat to our democracy is the money flowing into it from outside. British politics is being targeted by powerful interests beyond our shores who would happily see our democracy weakened, and the loopholes that let them in remain far too open. Opaque, foreign and dark money can still find its way into our political parties, our campaigns and our online conversations, and the Government have not yet done enough to prevent that money from entering our democracy. They commissioned the Rycroft review into political finance, but to date, they have committed to just two of its 17 recommendations. We Liberal Democrats ask that the Minister give serious consideration to the other 15 and commit to all of them in full very soon.
The elections strategy paper published last summer and the Representation of the People Bill are both welcome steps, but there is an Elon Musk-shaped hole running right through the middle of them. They contain nothing to stop social media platforms paying elected representatives to post increasingly divisive and incendiary content, and nothing to shut the back door through which foreign money reaches our politics. Liberal Democrats have tabled amendments to the Representation of the People Bill to fix exactly that. Our amendments would ban payments to MPs by X and other platforms and bar people who have served foreign Administrations from donating to political parties, campaign groups and think-tanks, and we would implement the Rycroft review’s recommendation of banning foreign-funded online political ads altogether.
Given the scale of potential foreign interference, we believe that the Government should go one step further and launch an investigation into US interference in our democracy, including financial support by this White House for those in the UK who—and I quote—share their values. I urge the Minister to further consider how we can best ensure that the Department’s budget is used effectively to limit the reach of foreign interference in our political system, because our democratic security is our national security.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. The hon. Member has been here throughout the debate.
Dame Angela Eagle
The hon. Lady is correct, and she talks about mitigation. There is also an adaptation issue here, which I was addressing, but clearly the cross-departmental nature of co-ordination happens within the Cabinet Office.
Our country’s resilience is front and centre of our approach to national security. Without security and resilience at home, we cannot deliver economic growth or any of our other missions to improve the lives of the British people.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) gave a good speech about what happens if corruption is allowed to get out of hand and people who defraud the public purse of money are allowed to get away with it. I thank him for asking important questions about Tom Hayhoe’s recommendations. I promise to make inquiries with colleagues in Government, and commit to writing to him about the specific issues that he raised in his speech.
The Government inherited a resilience landscape that had too often been neglected, leaving our nation exposed to the shocks of an increasingly volatile world. The resilience action plan, published last July, sets out the Government’s strategic approach to creating a stronger and more resilient UK, and the steps being taken to deliver it. We face a rapidly changing global risk landscape. From severe weather to geopolitical instability, the risks are complex and numerous. We must be honest with the public about the challenges while demonstrating our resolve to address them head-on, and we have to strike a balance by giving an appropriate warning without panicking people. Building a truly resilient society requires a fundamental cultural shift in the way that emergency preparedness is thought about. That includes being clear about the risks we face and the actions that we can all take to improve collective resilience, as the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart) said from the Liberal Democrat Front Bench.
In summary, our No. 1 priority is to keep the country safe. The Government are undertaking plenty of work within our own shores to strengthen our stance, which is further bolstered by our unshakeable commitment to Europe-wide security. That responsibility has been spread right across the Government, and it is emblematic of the good work that can come when collaboration is at the heart of planning. Thanks to this work, the risk landscape is not an unknown country; we have made it familiar terrain through rigorous mapping of what could harm us and our citizens, and of what our response should be. It is through level-headed planning that we will create resilience at home and, through that work, create a secure foundation for families, businesses and economies to thrive.