Richard Holden
Main Page: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)Department Debates - View all Richard Holden's debates with the Cabinet Office
(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
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Michael Gove
Yes, absolutely. If advice comes from the agencies, then that advice will always go, absolutely direct, to the Prime Minister and to the relevant politician. The record of previous national security advisers in the United States of America, from Condoleezza Rice to Henry Kissinger, is a distinguished one. Having people of that stature reflects well on the Presidents who appointed them, and it makes the case that a national security adviser of the kind that David Cameron introduced is a welcome innovation.
Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)
In 1987, David Frost was appointed to start his career in the diplomatic service. He served there for a quarter of a century. He has since served in senior appointments both in government and in the private sector. Does the Minister agree that it is exactly people with this range of experience that we need in senior government positions?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend, who has served in government as a political appointee, knows absolutely whereof he speaks. As I say, I find it somewhat curious that Opposition Members who have themselves supported the Government on many, many political appointees are now having a fit of the vapours at the idea that there should be a political appointee.