Asked by: Phil Brickell (Labour - Bolton West)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, when his Department plans to publish the 2025 edition of the National Risk Register; and whether she plans to enable Parliament to (a) feed into and (b) scrutinise that register.
Answered by Abena Oppong-Asare - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The UK is facing an ever-changing and growing set of risks. All risks in the National Risk Register, which is the public-facing version of the internal, classified National Security Risk Assessment, are kept under review to ensure that they are the most appropriate scenarios to inform emergency preparedness and resilience activity.
The National Risk Register will be updated in the coming months.
Lead government departments are responsible for providing updates and use the latest evidence and analysis to ensure the government’s assessment of risks reflects the risk landscape.
The Government is committed to opportunities for openness and scrutiny, for example, the opportunity to discuss risk assessment at the Public Accounts Committee on Extreme Weather events in February 2024.
Asked by: Phil Brickell (Labour - Bolton West)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether he plans to reform the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments by (a) making it statutory, (b) providing it with greater enforcement powers and (c) increasing its level of resourcing.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The government has committed to reviewing and updating the Business Appointment Rules. An update on this work will be provided in due course.
Asked by: Phil Brickell (Labour - Bolton West)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of (a) placing the House of Lords Appointment Commission (HOLAC) on a statutory footing, (b) providing HOLAC with a right of veto where candidates are not deemed fit and proper, (c) requiring the publication of supporting rationale for HOLAC decision making and (d) requiring increased scrutiny of proposed appointments where candidates have (i) acted as a fundraiser for and (ii) made sizeable financial contributions to a political party.
Answered by Nick Thomas-Symonds - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
The Government committed in its manifesto to reform the process of appointments to the House of Lords to ensure the quality of new appointments and to seek to improve the national and regional balance of the second chamber and is actively considering how this can be achieved.
This Government has also already introduced the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill. This Bill delivers the Government’s manifesto commitment to bring about an immediate reform by removing the right of the remaining hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords.