PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Topical Questions - 6 March 2025 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

Since the last Cabinet Office questions, new procurement rules have come into force, which will help to deliver growth, drive value for money and, crucially, give small businesses greater access to the nearly £400 billion of Government procurement. They also include stronger new powers to exclude and debar suppliers on national security and performance grounds. We are also seeking out and reducing wasteful spending, including by using artificial intelligence to go through departmental spending line by line, because it is important that taxpayer funds are used for good public service outcomes. We are seeing the initial fruits of that in the first reduction in NHS waiting lists for years.

Women in rural areas often face additional barriers to their engagement in politics, at both local government and national Government levels. The reasons can vary: they may be social, cultural, structural, institutional, or often a perceived lack of knowledge. As we celebrate International Women’s Day, what steps is the Minister taking to address those barriers and encourage women in rural areas to access and engage with politics?

I thank the hon. Member for that important question. She is absolutely right to highlight the barriers to politics that women in rural areas can face. We want more women in rural areas and around the country to be elected to local government and to Parliament. We should be proud that this House now has its highest ever number of elected women, including many outstanding women representing rural areas, but we know that there is much more we can do.

I am delighted to hear about the falling waiting lists in my hon. Friend’s constituency. Waiting lists are indeed falling. Last month we announced that we had met our first step pledge to deliver 2 million additional NHS appointments seven months early. We are determined to keep up the pace of delivering our plan for change, for which the public voted.

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

Why are the Government scared of allowing the National Security Adviser to give evidence to the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy?

The shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster will be aware that accountability to Parliament is through Ministers. The Prime Minister is regularly accountable to Parliament, and I am very happy to appear before the Committee at any convenient time.

I am sure the Committee will be delighted to hear that. However, there is a precedent in this area: David Frost, now Lord Frost, was an adviser when he gave evidence to the Committee in May 2020. The Committee is unanimous: the new adviser must appear. The Government’s own Osmotherly rules say that Ministers should agree to a request for evidence from any

“named official, including special advisers”.

This Government promised greater transparency. Why are they breaking another promise?

Special advisers are appointed by the Minister whom they advise, and the line of accountability is through Ministers to Parliament. That is why the Prime Minister takes questions every week at this Dispatch Box. The National Security Adviser is an adviser to the Prime Minister, and as I said, I am also very happy—as are other Ministers, I imagine—to appear before the Committee at a convenient time.

The Government take the security of critical national infrastructure extremely seriously. The UK’s national technical authorities, including the National Protective Security Authority, the National Cyber Security Centre and the UK National Authority for Counter-Eavesdropping, already provide expert guidance and best practice to owners and operators of UK critical national infrastructure, including on risk assessments and supply chains. I am happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss this further.

The right hon. Gentleman has great experience in this area, and I respect his judgment very much. He will also have seen the world rapidly change before our eyes in recent weeks. The leadership task when the world is changing so fast is to understand the change, respond to it and explain it. I believe that in the decisions the Prime Minister has taken in this area in recent weeks he has fulfilled those obligations in full and in a way that this House is proud of.

I know how hard my hon. Friend works for his constituency, and I very much understand his concerns. My understanding is that there are no changes expected at the Smedley Hydro site in the first instance. The Government Property Agency is actively working with the Home Office and NHS Digital to understand the future workforce requirements, but I would welcome a conversation to discuss that further.

The hon. Member is absolutely right: the people who are attacking us are trying constantly to probe our defences, and as I have said a few times in the past hour, this is therefore a constant challenge. It is a combination of hardware, software and good practice, and that applies to central Government, local government, public bodies and—crucially—businesses. It is a national effort to protect the business that we do and the processes that we take for granted every day.

I thank my hon. Friend for raising this critical issue. The Employment Rights Bill will introduce new measures that will give staff and their chosen trade union a meaningful shot at gaining statutory recognition. I hope those provisions will ensure that GMB Union members across the country can have their voices heard in their workplaces.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for reading my speeches so closely, but what he has misunderstood is that the teams are on the ground, and the process is to learn every week. I am glad to report that I have already visited a couple of those areas, and good work is under way. The whole point is that this will develop, it will adapt, and perhaps it will be different from the record of the Conservative party, which saw a growth of 131,000 public officials over the last—

Order. I know we have mentioned Thursday and Friday, but I think we are on Sunday already.

The York Central development site is pivotal in driving forward York and North Yorkshire’s economy, and at the heart of that site will be a Government hub. Will the Minister meet me to ensure that that hub is not separate from the rest of the site, but integrated in the economic vision that we have for York?

It is critical that Government property and Government assets support economic growth in constituencies, including that of my hon. Friend, and I would be delighted to meet her to discuss that further.

To great fanfare the Government cancelled the previous Government’s contract for ministerial travel by helicopter, describing £40 million as “grossly wasteful”. We now learn that the Government have signed their own contract for ministerial helicopter travel, but it is a secret contract—so secret that we do not know how much it will cost. Will the Minister confirm whether it will cost more or less than £40 million?

I think on this one I had better write to the hon. Gentleman.

Local people across my constituency have said how much they value and welcome the vast investment that we have seen in our public services, from our NHS to our schools and beyond. Will the Minister please set out what steps are also being taken to reform our public services, working with other Cabinet colleagues?

As I have said a few times this morning, reform is important, particularly when the taxpayer is being asked to put in extra investment. That is true in schools as well as in the NHS, because we want to ensure that teachers can do what they want to do, which is teach children in the classroom. That is also why the best start in life is one of the targets in the Government’s plan for change, which was published in December.

During their eight months in government, what assessment have the ministerial team made of the productivity of the civil service? What measures are they putting in place to improve it, and will the Minister report back to the House?

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for the work that he did on public sector productivity. It was probably essential given that in the eight years between 2016 and 2024 the previous Government employed an extra 131,000 civil servants, so it is quite right that we look at the productivity for the extra employment sanctioned by the last Government.

Does the Minister have an appetite for a policy of like-for-like retaliation when a cyber-attack by a hostile state is confirmed?

I have both appetite and full faith in our excellent intelligence and security services, who protect us every day.

That completes questions—after Jim Shannon.

The best is always last.

What assessment has the Minister made of the volume of apprenticeships offered within the cyber-security industry, specifically in relation to digital software and hacking prevention online?

We want to see more apprenticeships. The numbers have come down, compared with where they should be. The area that the hon. Gentleman highlights would be a very good and fruitful one for people to learn more about and get the skills they need.