Oral Answers to Questions

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Johnny Mercer]

We meet the devolved authorities regularly to make sure that all our strategies are in sync. Obviously, a lot of these policy areas, whether health, housing or education, are devolved, but we are clear that, both nationally and internationally, we want the Office for Veterans’ Affairs to set the standard. We have great relationships internationally now in terms of setting the pace on that, and I want to make sure it is concomitant with what we are doing with the devolved authorities: we have regular meetings with the Welsh Government and the Scottish, and indeed we are going over to Northern Ireland again in two weeks.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

6. What recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of his Department’s processes for scrutinising nominations for honours.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

10. What recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of his Department's processes for scrutinising nominations for honours.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Alex Burghart)]

It looks like the Member who tabled No. 10 is not out of bed.

A validation process is carried out to assess the strength and credibility of each nomination. We protect the integrity of the honours system by carrying out probity checks with a number of Government Departments before the Prime Minister submits names to His Majesty the King for approval.

[Ruth Cadbury]

The Prime Minister previously backed calls for Horizon victim and campaigner Alan Bates to receive an honour, yet his name was absent from the Prime Minister’s surprise honours list last month. However, Russia-linked Mohamed Mansour’s name was on that list. What was it about the multi-millionaire, generous Conservative party donor that attracted the Prime Minister to the idea of giving him a knighthood?