Richard Holden

The Office for Equality and Opportunity’s role in informing Government policy on marriage relates to equality and discrimination, as it is responsible for the protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010, which include marriage and civil partnership.

While the Office for Equality and Opportunity work with the Ministry of Justice on issues relating to equality, the Ministry of Justice is responsible for marriage law.

Minimal costs were incurred in the rebranding of the Equality Hub to the Office of Equality and Opportunity as it was a renaming exercise rather than a Machinery of Government change. Therefore, there has been no programme or digital expenditure to date and only minimal administrative time by current employees.

I refer the Rt Hon Member to the Prime Minister's entry in the Register of Members' Financial Interests.

The Commissioner for Public Appointment regulates appointments listed on the Order in Council. Honours Committee appointments are not listed on the Order in Council. The Order in Council was last updated in November 2023.

As appointments to the Honours Committee are not part of the Commissioner for Public Appointment’s regulatory remit, no discussions took place with the Commissioner regarding the campaigns listed in the question. Even for regulated roles, the decision to close or restart a competition lies with the relevant Minister, and would not require engagement with the Commissioner for Public Appointments.

The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.

A response to the Hon gentleman’s Parliamentary Question of 14th January is attached.

The Regulatory Innovation Office is not an arm’s length body. On 8 October 2024, the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology announced that the Regulatory Innovation Office would be set up as an office within the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.

As was the case under the previous administration, details of Cabinet Office special advisers’ meetings with senior media figures are published quarterly in arrears on GOV.UK at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/special-advisers-transparency-publications

Data for the period of July to September 2024 will be published shortly.

The pilots were selected due to their potential impact and alignment with a new way of working (Test, Learn and Grow). No funding has been allocated in this initial phase but there is in kind resource from the Government complementing local teams. The Cabinet Office and MHCLG will be working across government and with local partners to co-design the detailed approach to the allocation of the Public Service Reform and Innovation Fund for next financial year. We will partner with the Local Government Association (LGA) on this process.

Information will be published in due course in the Cabinet Office’s dataset detailing expenditure above £25,000, which is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cabinet-office-spend-data.

In line with longstanding process, relevant meetings are declared in the Special Advisor transparency publications.

I refer the Rt Hon Member to my answer of 8 January 2025, Official Report, PQ 18205. The Prime Minister stands by the relevance of raising to the attention of the House that two former Conservative Prime Ministers were fined by the police for breaking the COVID rules that they put in place for others.

Most suppliers of the 10 Downing Street gift shop are British companies, and many of the items are made in the UK. A very small number of items are manufactured overseas, including China. This was the case under the previous government.

The Prime Minister is allocated the flat in 11 Downing Street and personally pays full council tax.

The Cabinet Secretary’s letter set out for Ministers the Prime Minister’s decision on the government’s approach to legislation on assisted dying. As the letter said, collective responsibility on the merits of this Bill have been set aside and the Government will therefore continue to remain neutral on the passage of the Bill and on the matter of assisted dying. The letter was clear that the matter of assisted dying is one for Parliament and not Ministers to decide.

Departmental spending that meets the criteria are published in gov.uk transparency data publications, available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cabinet-office-spend-data

Individual departments are responsible for recruitment decisions and they are required to meet all obligations of relevant legislation, including the Equality Act 2010. If a department wants to restrict an internship programme to a specific group or groups, it would be expected to ensure on a case by case basis that it complies with the relevant legislation. As a result, as was the case under the previous administration, no central guidance is provided on this matter.

The New Media Unit will initially draw expertise through departmental staff loans and will sit within the Cabinet Office with oversight from the Prime Minister's Office.

The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.

A response to the Hon gentleman’s Parliamentary Question of 13th January is attached.

There has been no change to the guidance or rules relating to the appointment of non-executive directors of Government Departments since the General Election.

It is a long-established precedent that information about the discussions that have taken place in Cabinet and its committees, their attendance, and how often they have met, is not normally shared publicly. The appointment of special advisers is at the discretion of the Prime Minister in compliance with the relevant codes.

Between 9 September 2024 and 4 November 2024 one of the flats in Admiralty House was allocated to the Secretary of State for Defence, on a limited time basis.

Pursuant to the Answer of 27 November 2024 to Question 14712 on Honours: Public Appointments, the assessment panel members for each of the competitions mentioned (a) before they closed and (b) after they re-opened are as follows:

(i) Community and Voluntary Service:

1. Panel before the advert closed: The Rt Hon Nick Hurd - Chair, Community and Voluntary Service Honours Committee; Meenal Sachdev - Co-Founder of Connect India (independent panel member); Alison Bennett - (then) Deputy Director, Honours and Appointments Secretariat, Cabinet Office.

2. Panel after advert re-opened: The Rt Hon Nick Hurd - Chair, Community and Voluntary Service Honours Committee; Vijay Krishnarayan - former Director, Commonwealth Foundation (independent panel member); Official from the Honours and Memorialisation Secretariats, Cabinet Office.

(ii) Parliamentary and Political Service:

1. Panel before the advert closed: Lord Sherbourne - Chair, Parliamentary and Political Service Honours Committee; Natascha Engel - former MP (independent panel member); Alison Bennett - (then) Deputy Director, Honours and Appointments Secretariat.

2. Panel after advert re-opened: Lord Sherbourne - Chair, Parliamentary and Political Service Honours Committee; Natascha Engel - former MP (independent panel member); Clare Brunton OBE - Deputy Director, Honours and Memorialisation

Secretariats.

(iii) Diversity and Outreach (formerly called Representation and Outreach):

1. Panel before advert closed: Sir Chris Wormald KCB - (then) Chair, Main Honours Committee, Mary Mcleod - CEO, Business in the Community; Alison Bennett - (then) Deputy Director, Honours and Appointments Secretariat, Cabinet Office.

2. Panel after advert reopened: Sir Chris Wormald KCB - (then) Chair, Main Honours Committee (this was what was advertised - he will now be replaced by Dame Tamara Finkelstein as the new Chair, Main Honours Committee); Official from the Honours and Memorialisation Secretariats. The independent panel member has not yet been confirmed.

As is longstanding practice, officials in the delegated grades (i.e. who are not Senior Civil Servants) are not normally named publicly.

All Freedom of Information requests are considered on their individual merits in accordance with the relevant legislation. A copy of the information released in the response will be deposited in the House Library.

Information about the Duchy of Lancaster's accounts will be published by the Duchy in the usual way.

Individual departments are responsible for recruitment decisions and they are required to meet all obligations of relevant legislation, including the Equality Act 2010. If a department wants to restrict an internship programme to a specific group or groups, it would be expected to ensure that it complies with the relevant legislation. As each case will be unique, a generic assessment would not be appropriate. This approach has not changed since when the Rt Hon member was a minister in the department.

As said in my previous answer of 8 January 2025, Cabinet Office maintains records and oversight of formally established Arm’s Length Bodies, including NDPBs. Individual departments are responsible for any proposals to open or close NDPBs.

Individual departments are responsible for recruitment decisions and they are required to meet all obligations of relevant legislation, including the Equality Act 2010. If a department wants to restrict an internship programme to a specific group or groups, it would be expected to ensure on a case by case basis that it complies with the relevant legislation. As a result, as was the case under the previous administration, no central guidance is provided on this matter.

Details of Cabinet Office structure and salaries are due to be published by the end of January 2025 as part of regular transparency reporting. This will include the Office for Equality and Opportunities and within it the sub units of: Women’s Equality Unit, Race Disparity Unit, and Disability Unit. As was the case under the previous administration, the Cabinet Office does not specifically publish the mean salaries of these civil servants.

Ministers and certain office-holders are entitled to a severance payment when they leave office under the Ministerial and other Pensions and Salaries Act 1991.

As set out in the Act, to be eligible to receive the payment ministers and office-holders must be under the age of 65 when they leave office. Under this provision, the Rt Hon Member for Islington North was not eligible to receive a severance payment when he left the role of Leader of the Opposition in 2020.

The established process for the declaration and management of ministers’ private interests is set out in Part B Chapter 3 of the Ministerial Code. Details of the categories ministers are asked to declare their interests in can be found in the List of Ministers’ Interests, along with more information on the interests process. The last list was published in November 2024 and is available here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/67407bad53373262c0d825f6/List_of_Ministers__Interests.pdf

No refurbishment works had been commissioned.

I refer the Rt Hon Member to my response to PQ 20832 and PQ 22188.

Baroness Casey followed the published process for declaring any interests.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/non-executive-board-member-declaration-of-interests-process/non-executive-board-member-declaration-of-interests-process#context

Interests will be published in due course on the department’s website.

Yes. In recent years, UKIC has run a number of internships and placement schemes. They are designed to provide insight about what it is like to work in UKIC to individuals who have particular skills and expertise, want to work in a particular area and/or are from demographics and backgrounds under-represented across Government.

Any internship participant wishing to subsequently apply for employment with UKIC or the Civil Service is required to take part in a fair and open competition, in the normal way, with selection based on merit.

In relation to what guidance the Cabinet Office has provided to government departments on publishing details of individual Civil Service pensions for senior officials:

(a) Financial Reporting requirements - The Cabinet Office issues an ‘Employer Pension Notice’ (EPN) to government departments each year, so they can provide the disclosure of Senior Civil Servants' pensions under their Financial Reporting requirements.

(b) Under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) - I refer the right honourable member to the answer given in 15229 answered on 29 November 2024. The Cabinet Office has not issued either internal or external guidance on whether FOIA requests requesting information on senior civil servants should be disclosed. All requests are considered on their own merits in all circumstances.

The requested information is not centrally held, and complying with this request would incur a disproportionate cost to the department.

There has been no change in the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice rulings in relation to the UK. We are also clear that we will not be re-joining the Single Market, the Customs Union or Freedom of Movement.

The government is committed to an evidence based approach to training. In 2021 the previous administration published a report on the efficacy of unconscious bias training with recommendations on alternative approaches to support workforce equality. At the time other public sector organisations were encouraged to take account of this.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/unconscious-bias-and-diversity-training-what-the-evidence-says

There has been no change in the approach under this government