Oral Answers to Questions
Sonia Kumar Excerpts(1 month, 4 weeks ago)
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Ms Oppong-Asare
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is the lead Department for flooding in England and it stands up its emergency operations centre when a flood forecast or flooding incident justifies that. This includes when flooding may exceed the capacity of local response networks to manage. The EOC works in tandem with Government. We have also set up the flood taskforce, which is looking at how we can deal with flooding in the future to make sure we can address issues like those in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency.
Sonia Kumar (Dudley) (Lab)
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Pat McFadden)
As we have heard, last week we had the Second Reading of the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill to modernise the Lords. We have also delivered on our manifesto commitment to hold the first Council of the Nations and Regions. We are working hard to deliver justice for the victims of the infected blood scandal. We have published a written statement today on the implementation of the UK biological security strategy. Finally, we have set out the position on the right balance of flexible working and time in the office for civil servants.
Sonia Kumar
What plans does the Cabinet Office have to support small and medium-sized enterprises in building resilience to future economic shocks and crises, to ensure that they can continue to operate under difficult conditions?
Pat McFadden
Small businesses are the lifeblood of our economy. Our agenda for growth will help small businesses. We are determined to support them. I assure my hon. Friend that they are an important part of our resilience strategy and our resilience review. Earlier this week, the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Ms Oppong-Asare) met a range of businesses to discuss shared goals in respect of resilience and to ensure that they can have input into the strategy we are preparing.
Infected Blood Inquiry
Sonia Kumar Excerpts(4 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Nick Thomas-Symonds
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. She is entirely right that we need to learn lessons from previous compensation schemes, where they have gone well, and, frankly, where they have gone not so well—where, after looking at and reflecting upon them, we see that the proportion of money that we wanted to go to victims did not quite make it. I certainly give the reassurance that we are looking at those previous schemes and trying to learn best practice from them.
Sonia Kumar (Dudley) (Lab)
Congratulations on your elevation, Madam Deputy Speaker.
This statement is welcome in my constituency, where it is estimated that between 80 and 100 people were infected with HIV and approximately 26,800 were infected with hepatitis C after a blood transfusion. Will the Minister join me in paying tribute to the campaigners who have fought so hard to move this campaign and search for justice forward for those victims?
Nick Thomas-Symonds
I certainly join my hon. Friend in doing that. As we speak today, we really should recognise that it took decades—a frankly unacceptable length of time—for people to achieve justice in this scandal. Not only did we have that profound moment when Sir Brian Langstaff announced the inquiry’s report, but it is so important that we now take the time that is necessary to learn the lessons for the future.
Oral Answers to Questions
Sonia Kumar Excerpts(4 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Kirith Entwistle (Bolton North East) (Lab)
Sonia Kumar (Dudley) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Georgia Gould)
The Government believe that public procurement is a key lever for enabling the delivery of our missions. Effective procurement will allow the public sector to deliver better services for citizens. Our ambitious programme to make work pay will drive genuine value for money in procurement, and support organisations to create local jobs, skills and wealth. The new digital centre of Government will ensure procurement drives uptake of new digital technologies to improve our public services.
Georgia Gould
The Government have launched a fraud commissioner, whose role will be to look at what went wrong and make sure that we are learning those lessons. The VIP lanes and the issues that we saw previously cannot happen again. The new digital centre of Government, working closely with the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, will ensure that procurement and market engagement are used as effective tools to drive the uptake of new digital technologies and protect us against the kinds of thing that we saw previously.
Sonia Kumar
As an NHS physiotherapist who worked during the covid-19 pandemic, I had the misfortune of witnessing at first hand how crony contracts resulted in wasted resources. Although those contracts may have been intended to reinforce the NHS during the unprecedented crisis, they did a disservice both to our NHS professionals and to patients. Will the Minister outline what tangible steps the Government are taking to avoid such a waste of resources in future and reassure the constituency of Dudley and the wider nation that the Government will take public spending seriously?
Georgia Gould
I thank my hon. Friend for her service during covid, and I thank all the health and care staff who risked their lives to protect us. Billions were spent on personal protective equipment that was unusable, overpriced or under-delivered. This Government are determined to learn those lessons and safeguard every pound of taxpayers’ money. I have met the Public Sector Fraud Authority and have set out our commitment to driving down fraud across Government. We are determined to learn the lessons from the work of the covid commissioner, who will report to Parliament.