Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Bedford Excerpts

Thursday 23rd April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

That is an absolutely absurd question. The hon. Gentleman is asking that question when his party’s position is to keep in place all the fees that we currently have to pay on exports to the EU. He also talks about the emissions trading system linkage. Without mutual exemptions from the carbon border adjustment mechanism, businesses will have to pay around £700 million in carbon taxes. The consequence of his party’s position is that they would have to pay them.

[Mr Peter Bedford (Mid Leicestershire) (Con)]

8. What assessment he has made of the effectiveness of performance management plans in the civil service.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Satvir Kaur)]

Departments are responsible for setting their own performance plans, subject to centrally set performance management frameworks. This Government are focused on a high-performing civil service, which is why we have recently announced changes to the senior civil service performance system that will see the performance of top civil servants linked to key performance indicators set by their Ministers, and underperformers held to tougher standards.

[Mr Bedford]

Our constituents must interact with many Government agencies each week to renew their passport or driving licence or to submit their tax returns. Despite record numbers of bureaucrats, productivity remains low, which results in many errors and vast delays for our constituents. The answers to my written parliamentary questions confirm that there is no proper performance management of our civil servants, corrective action or even dismissals for continued poor performance. Without the usual platitudes about how hard civil servants work, I want to know what the Government are doing about the thousands of poorly performing civil servants who are costing our constituents millions of pounds each year.

[Satvir Kaur]

I think it is ironic that Opposition Members complain about civil servants but did nothing when they were in power. Instead, this Government are updating the performance management framework, incentivising those who deliver and tackling underperformance as soon as it arises. To do this, we are changing the rules to ensure a closer, more effective link between pay and performance, with larger awards for the highest performers, and strengthening the minimum standards so that those who fail to manage the performance of their teams are quickly identified.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

My hon. Friend talks powerfully about the impact of long covid, and it has had that impact on many people following the pandemic. The most recent module 3 report from the covid inquiry covered this issue in detail. Of course, the Government will carefully consider the inquiry’s work on this in our full response—it absolutely should.

[Mr Peter Bedford (Mid Leicestershire) (Con)]

T4. Last week, a former Attorney General wrote that there was no legal reason for the Government not to publish a list of the Humble Address documents being withheld by the Metropolitan police. Will the Government publish that list?

[Darren Jones]

We are working in co-operation with the Metropolitan police. As the hon. Member would expect, and as I am sure the House would agree, we do not want to do anything that would interfere with the police process.