Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Pat McFadden and Lindsay Hoyle(4 days ago)
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Pat McFadden
We do not have a permanent secretary in Wolverhampton, but it is important that there is career progression and that there are senior roles outside London. That should include permanent secretaries, and that should all come within our target of half of UK-based senior civil servants being located outside London by 2030.
Mr Richard Holden (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
Heads of Departments have said that 60% attendance in the office is the best balance for civil servants working in Government Departments, but in an answer to a recent written parliamentary question from my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire (Mike Wood), the Cabinet Office said that no data exists for attendance outside London HQs—it is certainly not collected centrally. However, the Office for National Statistics has produced data about its own workforce, which, via the UK Statistics Authority, comes under the Cabinet Office. That shows a daily attendance rate of as little as 3% in some of the ONS’s regional offices. Does the Minister think that an attendance rate of 3% will help career progression and thereby help relocate civil servants outside London? Does he think that 3% is acceptable? Is this not just part of a wider pattern of non-attendance in offices outside London, and is it not time his Department published the data on attendance levels?
Pat McFadden
My hon. Friend is a brilliant champion for her community. It is precisely because this Government want to support growth in communities like hers that the Chancellor has set out that the new Green Book will support place-based business cases. Rapid work is happening to deliver that over the coming months.
Government Resilience Action Plan
Debate between Pat McFadden and Lindsay Hoyle(6 days ago)
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Pat McFadden
I am grateful to the Chair of the Joint Committee on National Security Strategy for his questions. The National Cyber Security Centre has been working closely with Marks & Spencer and the other victims of recent cyber-attacks. I look forward to appearing before his Committee in a few days and working closely with it in the future.
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
I thank the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster for advance sight of the statement. The world is now less stable and more insecure than at any time since the cold war. Consequently, the Government must ensure that the British people and the United Kingdom are prepared in the event that our country or an overseas territory is threatened. The Liberal Democrats therefore welcome any measures to strengthen our resilience, especially to the cyber-security threat—a new and evolving threat against which we must be armed.
While the Liberal Democrats welcome the alert test, we call for a wider public information campaign to support resilience building across the UK, and to ensure that the public are properly ready for any potential future conflict or disaster. Perhaps we could take lessons from our Scandinavian neighbours, who are always working to address future threats and providing information to their citizens. Information should be provided through a number of different means, including leaflets and traditional broadcast.
While we welcome the alert test, websites and text alerts will miss millions of British people—those without phones, or without signal or battery—so we need to be ready on all fronts, and not just rely on single text alerts. Will the Government accept the Liberal Democrats’ call to launch a national awareness campaign that draws on different modes of contact?
I welcome the talk about being more resilient to climate emergencies. We have all seen the horrifying pictures and upsetting stories from the floods in Texas in recent days, and in this country, we have had one of the hottest starts to a summer in UK history; it is vital that the Government are not caught unawares as the temperature rises. Last week, I had a meeting in my constituency with Thames Water, which told me that it is preparing drought mitigation measures. The regular supply of water to people’s properties, businesses and agricultural land is vital to livelihoods and everyday lives. What steps are the Government taking, and perhaps putting in their new action plan, to ensure that any drought mitigation measures will not significantly impact the country in the coming months?
National Security Strategy
Debate between Pat McFadden and Lindsay Hoyle(2 weeks, 6 days ago)
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The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Pat McFadden)
Today the Prime Minister attends the opening day of the NATO summit. That summit is expected to agree to a new commitment to grow spending on national security to 5% of GDP by 2035—to be made up by a projected split of 3.5% on core defence spending, and 1.5% on broader resilience and security spending. This will mark a new resolve among NATO members to make our countries stronger and, as we have always done, the United Kingdom will play our part.
NATO’s member countries meet at a time when the security situation is more in flux than at any time in a generation—a time when Ukraine is in its fourth year of resisting Russia’s invasion; a time when we in Europe are being asked to do more to secure our own defences; a time when security involves not just the traditional realms of air, sea and land, but technology, cyber and the strength of our democratic society; and, as we have seen in recent days, a time of renewed military action in the middle east, with Israel and the United States acting to try to stop Iran developing a nuclear bomb. News of a ceasefire is welcome, but as we have seen, even in recent hours, the situation remains fragile and the focus must now be on a credible plan to stop Iran developing nuclear weapons.
It is to the great pride of my party that NATO was founded in the aftermath of the second world war with the strong support of the post-war Labour Government. Ernest Bevin, the Foreign Secretary at the time, said that
“we must face the facts as they are.”—[Official Report, 22 January 1948; Vol. 446, c. 386.]
Today, in this very different age, we too must face the facts as they are.
The generation that founded NATO saw it as a powerful expression of collective security and solidarity: alliances abroad, matched by capacity at home. Our national security strategy, published today and made for these very different times, is inspired by those same values and aims. Every Member of this House understands that the first duty of any Government is to keep the country safe. That is and always will be our No. 1 priority, and our national security strategy sets out how we will do that.
The world has changed fundamentally and continues to change before our eyes. This is indeed an age of radical uncertainty, and the challenge to leadership in times of such change is to understand, to respond and to explain. The British people understand this. They recognise that we are living in a world that is more confrontational, more turbulent and more unpredictable than most of us have experienced in our lifetimes.
When the Prime Minister spoke to the House in February, he promised to produce a national security strategy that would match the scale of the task ahead. The strategy we have published today does that, with a plan that is both clear-eyed and hard-edged about the challenges that we face. It sets out a long-term vision for how we will do three crucial things. First, we will protect security at home by defending our territory, controlling our borders and making the UK a harder target for our enemies—one that is stronger and more resilient to future threats.
Secondly, we will promote strength abroad. That means bolstering our collective security, renewing and refreshing our key alliances, and developing new partnerships in strategic locations across the world. It also means taking a clear-eyed view of how we engage with major powers such as China in order to protect our national security and promote our economic interests, and my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary will make a further statement on the China audit shortly.
Thirdly, we will increase our sovereign and asymmetric capabilities by rebuilding our defence industries, training our people, focusing investment on our competitive strengths, and using our exceptional research and innovation base to build up advantages in new frontier technologies.
All this will make us a stronger and more resilient country, but delivering on each commitment will be possible only if all parts of society are pulling in the same direction. Our manufacturing, science and technology industries have to be aligned with national security objectives. Our industrial strategy, published yesterday, will help play to the UK’s strengths and deepen our capabilities. The investments we announced in the spending review also deepen our resilience and strength as a country, with a health service strong enough to cope, safe and secure energy supplies, modern housing and transport for our people, all of which contribute to a strong United Kingdom.
That is why it is so important that all parts of Government and businesses big and small understand that cyber-security is national security, and that our core systems and the revenues of business are being targeted by our adversaries. It is why we as legislators have to ensure that our own laws—from borders to trade—fit with national security. This will take a whole-system approach that reflects today’s reality. National security means strong supply chains, controls on immigration, tackling online harm, energy security, economic security and border security. It transcends foreign and domestic policy, and it all plays a role in how we make Britain a safer, more secure and more sovereign nation.
This document provides the blueprint of how this fits together. The strategy brings together everything we are doing across the full spectrum of national security: the commitment to spend that 5% of our domestic economic output on national security by 2035, meeting our NATO commitments once again; the over £1 billion we are investing in a new network of national biosecurity centres; how we are stepping up in areas such as cyber capability; our anti-corruption strategy to counter illicit finance; the expansion of our legal and law enforcement toolkit; the largest sustained investment in our armed forces since the cold war; our plan for defence investment to unlock real benefits for working people; how we will prioritise NATO explicitly in our defence planning; a vision for not only deepening our alliances with the United States and the European Union, but growing our relationships with other emerging nations; the money we are investing in our brilliant research and development base over the coming years, such as the £750 million for the supercomputer at the University of Edinburgh; and our ambition to gain a competitive advantage in cutting-edge technologies and to embed national security in our artificial intelligence agenda.
We do not underestimate the size of this task. The world is a more dangerous place than at any time since the end of the cold war, yet it is also a place where Britain’s values, capabilities and alliances can make a positive difference. Since we came to power, we have taken step after step to prepare Britain for what lies ahead: record investment in defence, backing our allies, and resisting the false choices put before us that would only have weakened our country. Today’s strategy represents an important contribution to all that work. It recognises that our long-term growth, prosperity and living standards all depend on national security becoming a way of life for people and businesses in the UK. This is a plan for how we protect the British people. It is a plan for today’s times, but rooted in long-held values. It is a plan to defend our national interests, deepen our international alliances and increase our sovereign capabilities, and I commend it to the House.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Pat McFadden and Lindsay Hoyle(1 month, 1 week ago)
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Pat McFadden
The hon. Member is absolutely right. The National Cyber Security Centre offers advice, guidance and tools such as Cyber Essentials to businesses to help them prepare as best they can for attacks. Unfortunately, organised crime carries out some of these attacks, and the extortion of money is often at their root. It is really important that Government, business and individuals prepare as best we can to act against the bad actors who are trying to explore cyber-vulnerabilities and often, as I said, extort money.
Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)
The Government’s own cyber experts Innovate UK have warned the Government that the proposed Chinese embassy at the Royal Mint threatens to compromise the telephone and internet exchange that serves the financial City of London. The experts are now telling the Government what everyone else has known all along: the super-embassy poses a super-risk. Yet the Deputy Prime Minister’s office has said that any representations on the planning application have to be made available to the applicants. Perhaps the real Deputy Prime Minister can clear this up: are the Government seriously saying that if MI5 or GCHQ have concerns about security on this site, those concerns will have to be passed to the Chinese Communist party, or has the Deputy Prime Minister got it wrong?
Pat McFadden
I am not quite sure that was the previous Government’s plan—maybe the right hon. Gentleman wishes it was. This is a hugely important issue for us. It is a security issue as well as an immigration issue. Of course, international policing and security operations to stop these gangs and this trade is a vital part of trying to combat it.
Mr Richard Holden (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
The Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament is unique, made up of Privy Counsellors from both Houses. However, last month the Committee took the highly unusual step of publicly criticising the Government for their failure to allow the Committee the staff and independence to fulfil its role overseeing the circa £3 billion annual spend, for which
“there is no oversight capability.”
The Committee is led by an experienced Labour peer, and it just wants the basics: to have staff who are not totally beholden to the Cabinet Office, so that they can do their job on behalf of Parliament and the country, and to meet the Prime Minister. The work of our intelligence services has never been more important, given the grey zone that states are acting within at the moment, which must be properly overseen.
I asked a written question about when the Prime Minister would deign to meet the Committee. The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Ms Oppong-Asare), said that one was being arranged. Has that now happened? I also asked written questions about the independence and resources of the Committee and was told that discussions were ongoing. On a matter of this seriousness, does Parliament not deserve more than fob-off half-answers, and will the Minister provide further details now?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Pat McFadden and Lindsay Hoyle(2 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Pat McFadden
This is another debate, which has gone on for many years and relates to the question of headcount—Governments can magically reduce headcount by creating a quango somewhere, but the headcount may not have changed at all. What is informing the drive this time is the fiction that an arm’s length body can somehow absolve Ministers of responsibility. It does not work like that in the real world. Sometimes there is a good case for having an arm’s length body, but in the end, we know that accountability will be with Ministers, and that is what is informing how we look at these things at the moment.
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
I have listened with a great deal of interest to what the right hon. Gentleman has had to say on the Government’s plans to make Whitehall more efficient and to make significant reforms to service delivery, and we on these Benches very much welcome the intention behind that statement. However, announcements have been made in the media about the intention to cut 2,100 jobs in the Cabinet Office and reduce the Department’s workforce by a third. Why have we not had a statement in this House about those job cuts specifically, and when will Members of Parliament get an opportunity to scrutinise exactly what that means for their constituents and their expectations about service delivery?
Pat McFadden
Merit will always be the primary consideration in any appointment, but diversity is important, and we are not giving up on it. We want to see a public service that looks like the country and speaks with all the accents that make this country a great place. The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Queen’s Park and Maida Vale (Georgia Gould) recently spoke at the civil service social mobility conference to bring home that message, which will reflect what we do on public appointments.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Pat McFadden and Lindsay Hoyle(4 months, 1 week ago)
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Pat McFadden
My hon. Friend is absolutely right: not all the systems used across central or local government are as up to date as they should be. This is a constant battle and a constant challenge. It is really important that we put every effort into ensuring that we are as well protected as possible against hostile acts from both state and non-state actors.
Pat McFadden
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for reading my speeches so closely, but what he has misunderstood is that the teams are on the ground, and the process is to learn every week. I am glad to report that I have already visited a couple of those areas, and good work is under way. The whole point is that this will develop, it will adapt, and perhaps it will be different from the record of the Conservative party, which saw a growth of 131,000 public officials over the last�
Mr Speaker
Order. I know we have mentioned Thursday and Friday, but I think we are on Sunday already.
Pat McFadden
I have both appetite and full faith in our excellent intelligence and security services, who protect us every day.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The best is always last.
What assessment has the Minister made of the volume of apprenticeships offered within the cyber-security industry, specifically in relation to digital software and hacking prevention online?
Storm Éowyn
Debate between Pat McFadden and Lindsay Hoyle(5 months, 2 weeks ago)
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The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Pat McFadden)
With your permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the Government’s response to Storm Éowyn.
On Thursday of last week, the Met Office issued two red weather warnings for Storm Éowyn, meaning there was danger to life across Northern Ireland and central and southern Scotland. As a result, and in consultation with the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland Executive, I approved a decision to issue an emergency mobile phone alert containing information about the weather warnings and guidance on how to stay as safe as possible to approximately 4.5 million people across Northern Ireland and Scotland. This was the largest real-life use of the emergency alert system to date.
On Friday morning, Storm Éowyn brought extremely strong winds to different parts of the UK, with gusts exceeding 92 mph in Northern Ireland. Initial observations from the Met Office say it was “probably the strongest storm” to hit the UK in at least 10 years and the most severe storm for Northern Ireland since 1998. Very sadly, we have had reports so far of two deaths during the storm—a young man in Scotland and a young man in the Republic of Ireland. Our thoughts are with and our condolences go to their families.
The storm caused widespread property damage and significant disruption to transport and power supplies, particularly in Northern Ireland and Scotland. At its peak, 285,000 properties in Northern Ireland—that is about a quarter of the population—and around 290,000 properties in Scotland lost power. More than 95% of the customers in Scotland have had their power restored. Work is continuing to bring that number down. In England and Wales, around 325,000 properties lost supply, and the vast majority have been reconnected.
As a result of the power outages, disruption to telecoms was reported by mobile phone operators in the areas affected. Significant impacts were also felt across the rail and road networks, with train services cancelled, and Edinburgh airport and both Belfast airports suspending operations on Friday. Also on Friday, all schools in Northern Ireland were closed, as were almost 90% of Scotland’s schools, and all colleges and universities. In England, there was also a smaller number of school closures. As a result of the storm, around 3,000 properties in Northern Ireland are experiencing disruption to water supplies, and supplies of bottled water are en route to Northern Ireland.
I want to thank the emergency services, the engineers and others who have worked tirelessly and with great courage in the face of extremely difficult weather conditions. They put in a huge effort to provide support to those who have needed it to restore power, repair damage and clear roads and railways. I know the whole House will join me in thanking them for their work.
The Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland Executive have led the response efforts in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and there has been good co-operation between the UK Government and the devolved Governments over the past few days. We remain in regular contact to assess the situation and see what more needs to be done. On Saturday, the Prime Minister spoke to the Scottish First Minister and the Northern Ireland First Minister and Deputy First Minister to offer any support that the UK Government could provide. Today, the Prime Minister has also spoken to the Taoiseach and discussed the latest situation in the Republic of Ireland.
Over the weekend, I chaired a ministerial Cobra meeting with relevant Cabinet colleagues as well as the First Minister of Scotland and the First Minister and Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland. I reiterated the Prime Minister’s offer of assistance, and we discussed the practical support that the UK Government could provide. Under industry arrangements, electricity network operators have facilitated mutual aid, and 102 engineers with equipment have travelled to Northern Ireland to support power restoration. Northern Ireland has requested specific mutual aid from Great Britain in the form not only of engineers, but of helicopters, generators and batteries, as well as equipment more widely, including chainsaws and vehicles.
UK Government Departments are moving as quickly as they can to meet these requests. We believe the majority of requests can be met through either the usual mutual aid channels or, in some cases, commercial arrangements with industry. The Cobra unit in my Department, which has met twice over the weekend at official level and once again this morning, is continuing to co-ordinate the support to ensure it is provided as swiftly as possible.
I have met Cobra officials several times to review the situation and ensure that we are doing all we can to support those affected. The message has been simple: to get as much help as quickly as possible to where it is needed. The situation on the ground is improving, but it is estimated that it could be up to 10 days before everyone is reconnected—a long time. This is very serious and we are working as hard as we can to accelerate the restoration of power.
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is today in Northern Ireland, where he has met the Minister for Infrastructure to discuss recovery, and residents impacted by the storm. The Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Michael Shanks) is in Scotland this afternoon, meeting staff who are working on reconnections. Since Friday, around 220,000 properties in Northern Ireland, and 600,000 across Great Britain, have had their power restored. Welfare provisions have been provided to households without power, travel disruption has eased, most schools in Northern Ireland have reopened today, and we hope that the majority of the remainder will reopen tomorrow.
However, the situation remains serious and there is a need for ongoing help. In Northern Ireland an estimated 60,000 properties are still without power, as are around 7,500 in Scotland. Northern Ireland electricity networks expect to restore power to the vast majority of homes and businesses over the coming days, and we will continue to provide additional support that may be needed to accelerate that reconnection for as many households as possible.
Storm Éowyn has now moved away from the UK, but another storm, which the Spanish Met Office has named Storm Herminia, has brought heavy bands of rain to south-west England and Wales. A number of properties have been flooded, and 35,000 properties lost power, although the majority of those have now had it restored. We expect the impact of this storm to be significantly less than that of Storm Éowyn.
I hope this statement underscores the seriousness and urgency with which the Government are working to address the destruction that Storm Éowyn has wrought. In the days ahead we will continue to work closely with our colleagues in the devolved Governments, particularly in Northern Ireland, which has been worst hit in this situation, to ensure that all households are reconnected as soon as possible, and that full support is provided to affected households in the meantime. I commend this statement to the House.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Pat McFadden and Lindsay Hoyle(5 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Pat McFadden
Not for the first time, the hon. Gentleman speaks a lot of common sense. Wherever people are in the UK, they want the freedom to go about their business—shopping, work or whatever it is—in peace. We believe that some of those measures, such as CCTV, are important. So too is community policing. I am very happy to have a positive and constructive dialogue with the Administration in Northern Ireland and all the devolved Governments on these issues. Powers in these areas are devolved, but we share a common interest in protecting the public and ensuring that our streets and communities are safe.
Mike Wood (Kingswinford and South Staffordshire) (Con)
In recent weeks, in response to written parliamentary questions, the Cabinet Office has refused to commit to updating Parliament on the status of the targets in this plan; refused to publish information on the delivery board monitoring; refused to have an independent review and audit of the targets and to publish an annual cost analysis of them; refused to publish a risk register on meeting the targets; refused to publish an annual report; and refused to publish a public dashboard. At the same time, Ministers have been unable to explain how a series of targets in the plan will be measured, so will the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster explain whether this a sign that his Department is being obstructive and evasive, or that the plan has not been thought through beyond the slogans?
Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)
Ministers in this Department and in others have been generous in engaging with my repeated requests for engagement with Cheltenham’s cyber-security industry, where GCHQ and the National Cyber Security Centre are located. There is increasing evidence that having the private and public sectors co-located is important for our cyber-security sector. The Golden Valley development provides an opportunity to do that, and the Places for Growth scheme might give an opportunity for more public sector officials to be placed alongside one of our most influential cyber-clusters. Would the Minister be interested in having a meeting about that?
Pat McFadden
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I congratulate the hon. Member for his relentlessness in raising those issues on behalf of his constituency. He is right to draw attention to the assets we have there—GCHQ and the National Cyber Security Centre—and I pay tribute to the officials working there. There is a benefit to clusters in people learning from one another and in being close by, and it all helps contribute to our efforts in this area.
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
Last year, the National Cyber Security Centre, located in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson), said that the Government were almost certain that Russian actors had attempted to interfere in the 2019 general election. We are clearly in a new era of politics. Trust in politics is at an all-time low; disinformation is on the rise; and following instances across the world of foreign interference in elections, it is essential that the Government make a plan to address this threat to democracy. It is vital that we take all possible steps to restore faith in politics to strengthen our political system, boost political engagement at home and protect our national democracy from external influences. What steps is the Secretary of State taking to safeguard the democratic processes of the United Kingdom from foreign interference?
Pat McFadden
I am grateful to the shadow Minister for his question. Those of us of a certain age will remember the appalling consequences of the last serious outbreak of foot and mouth in the UK, more than 20 years ago. Let me say very clearly from this Dispatch Box that we are treating this with the utmost seriousness. I met with Cobra officials yesterday and have asked for several briefings since the outbreak in Germany, and my colleagues at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs at a ministerial and official level are taking this very seriously as well. We know the threat that such an outbreak would pose to our farming communities, and we want to work with farmers and do everything we possibly can to protect them from it. So far, there has been no outbreak in the UK, but we will—
Mr Speaker
Order. This is a very important subject; I totally agree. The trouble is, in topicals, I have to get a lot of Members in. As this subject is so important, I would always welcome a statement on Monday.
Alex Burghart
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his reply. Could he assure me that he is speaking to interested parties in Northern Ireland? Given that Northern Ireland is so closely connected to Ireland, which is part of the EU, farmers there are consequently very concerned that they may be affected by any spread of the disease. Will he therefore assure me that he is undertaking that work?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Pat McFadden and Lindsay Hoyle(7 months, 1 week ago)
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Pat McFadden
We announced an extra £22 billion for the NHS over the next couple of years in the recent Budget. I can certainly assure the hon. Lady that reducing waiting times is at the heart of our missions, because current waiting times are bad for people’s health and bad for our economy.
Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)
It is a pleasure to face the right hon. Gentleman across the Dispatch Box for what I believe is the first time. I am pleased to see three members of the Cabinet on the Front Bench—it is quite right that the Cabinet Office should be so well reflected.
The day after he entered Downing Street, the Prime Minister pledged to personally chair each mission delivery board to drive through change. We now hear that he is not chairing each mission delivery board. Why has the Prime Minister broken his pledge?
Alison Bennett
During the recent debate on the infected blood compensation scheme, the Government made promising indications regarding boosting engagement with affected groups. Victims and their families in Mid Sussex and across the country have been waiting for decades for answers. It is essential that people begin to receive the compensation that is so long overdue. Why did the Government make last-minute changes to the accepted documents for interim compensation claims required from the estates of people who died after receiving contaminated blood and blood products? Will the right hon. Gentleman tell me what action is being taken to tackle the unacceptable delays?
Mr Speaker
Order. I say gently to the hon. Lady that we are now on topicals, which are meant to be short and punchy. Today, we seem to have a bit of time, but please try to help each other.
Pat McFadden
Let me assure the hon. Lady that my right hon. Friend the Paymaster General, who leads on this, is fully aware of the issues she has raised. He is working with the groups affected and is determined to ensure that initial payments are out by the end of the year.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Pat McFadden and Lindsay Hoyle(8 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Pat McFadden
Small businesses are the lifeblood of our economy. Our agenda for growth will help small businesses. We are determined to support them. I assure my hon. Friend that they are an important part of our resilience strategy and our resilience review. Earlier this week, the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Ms Oppong-Asare) met a range of businesses to discuss shared goals in respect of resilience and to ensure that they can have input into the strategy we are preparing.
Sir Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere) (Con)
Can the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster provide an update on the current situation for British nationals in Lebanon, including the measures being taken to ensure their safety? Are there any plans for further evacuations, given the ongoing instability in that region?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Pat McFadden and Lindsay Hoyle(11 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Pat McFadden
I assure the hon. Member that we take value for money seriously; it has been a theme of today’s questions. The Government supported businesses during covid—necessarily and rightly—but it is important to ensure the best value for money in such schemes. In the end, it is all taxpayers’ money, so that should have been done. Where that is not the case, and where there has been fraud or waste, we will do our best to recover what was wrongly spent.
Mr Speaker
Can we pick up the pace of questions and answers? We are on topicals now. Rachel Hopkins will set a good example.
Pat McFadden
I welcome the right hon. Member to his position. I mean that genuinely: it is not easy to step up and serve in opposition after an election defeat, so I welcome what he and his colleagues are doing. I echo his praise for the civil service and the Cabinet Office team, who have supported me and my colleagues in the best way in the past few weeks. On the UK biological security strategy, my answer is simple and short: yes.
Sir Oliver Dowden
I welcome that answer and I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his kind words. An effective strategy must be underpinned by dedicated resources, which is why one of my final acts in the Cabinet Office was to announce that we would ringfence biological security spending across Government. Will he uphold that commitment, so that important resilience spending does not fall victim to day-to-day spending pressures?
Pat McFadden
We are getting on with our first steps, including on healthcare, which is a top priority for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. We want to make the NHS fit for the future. We did it before and we can do it again.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
This summer, we have been celebrating 25 years of devolution in Scotland. In the last Parliament, the Scottish Affairs Committee looked at how the relationship between the UK and Scottish Governments has deteriorated in the past decade and how we can improve it. Does the Minister agree that in the next tranche of devolution, we should look at how to improve relationships with the devolved Administrations and regional authorities? Perhaps we should set up a UK council of Ministers to involve Ministers from all the Administrations and regional mayors.
Mr Speaker
Order. We are all on a learning curve, but we do need to ask short, punchy questions. Also, “you” means me, but I am sure that we will not be doing that again.
Pat McFadden
On this, perhaps the simplest thing is for my hon. Friend to write to me, so that I can get her question considered by the proper Minister.
Mr Speaker
That completes questions. Before we move to the business questions, I shall let those on the Front Benches leave.
Covid-19 Inquiry
Debate between Pat McFadden and Lindsay Hoyle(11 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Pat McFadden
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to pay tribute to the staff at St Thomas’ and other NHS staff across the country, who did so much to care for people during that very difficult period. I have visited the memorial wall in her constituency, and she is right: it is an incredibly moving and human experience. I am very happy to take up her invitation to visit again.
Mr Speaker
Order. May I just say to the Front Benchers that we are all learning, but we should do so by setting the best example? You are meant to have two minutes, not three. Please can we help each other? Otherwise, I will have Members complaining that they did not get in.
Pat McFadden
I thank the hon. Member for her questions and the spirit in which she asked them. The truth is that it is easy for any of us to say, “Lessons must be learned,” and whenever anything goes wrong, people say that. The proof is in the practice. Will it be shown in practice? That is the ultimate test for us all.
I am happy to confirm to the hon. Member that, just as I said to the Opposition spokesperson, yes, we are happy to work across the aisle on this and to consider suggestions. My colleagues at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport are considering the recommendations on the memorial.