Asked by: Mike Wood (Conservative - Kingswinford and South Staffordshire)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the Answer of 25 September 2025 to Question 74509 on Members: Pay, whether the pay freeze for ministers who continue to claim a lower salary to their entitlement under law will be maintained for Ministers who are Members of the (a) House of Commons and (b) House of Lords for the rest of this Parliament.
Answered by Nick Thomas-Symonds - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
The pay freeze for ministers remains in place.
Asked by: Mike Wood (Conservative - Kingswinford and South Staffordshire)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, with reference to the National Audit Office's report entitled Government exits and redundancies, published in September 2025, if he will publish the latest dataset on civil service exit scheme applications provided to the National Audit Office by his Department.
Answered by Anna Turley - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
Data contained in the current National Audit Office’s (NAO’s) Good Practice Guide was provided to the NAO to help explain the context of the guidance that the NAO has issued.
There are no plans to publish further data as this information is held by individual departments, and will be reported in their Annual Report and Accounts.
Asked by: Mike Wood (Conservative - Kingswinford and South Staffordshire)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, with reference to his Department's press release entitled Civil Service staff networks to only meet outside working hours and have all events signed off by senior managers, published on 23 September 2025, whether guidance on staff diversity networks will be issued to (a) local government, (b) the police, (c) the NHS, (d) the armed forces and (e) other parts of the public sector.
Answered by Anna Turley - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
The Cabinet Office does not have responsibility for public sector organisations outside of the Civil Service.
Asked by: Lord Kempsell (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what were the total severance payments made to (1) ministers, and (2) special advisers, who left government in the past 12 months; and what was the total amount of those payments.
Answered by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The cost of severance payments for Ministers is not held centrally by the Cabinet Office as individual departments are responsible for administering severance payments to their Ministers.
The cost of severance payments for special advisers between 1st April 2024 and 31st March 2025 was £3.1 million.
Asked by: Mike Wood (Conservative - Kingswinford and South Staffordshire)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the Answer of 2 September 2025 to Question 70506 on Cabinet Office: Contracts, whether the Crown Commercial Service has made an estimate of the number of suppliers increasing prices as a result of the increase in National Insurance.
Answered by Chris Ward - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
Crown Commercial Service (CCS) does not hold information that would show whether suppliers have increased prices in response to the April 2025 National Insurance rise, so cannot make an estimate. Pricing under CCS arrangements is determined at contract level by contracting authorities.
Oct. 23 2025
Source Page: Cabinet Office annual report and accounts 2024 to 2025Oct. 23 2025
Source Page: Infected blood interim estates payments: compensation application form where a company is the personal representativeOct. 23 2025
Source Page: Infected blood interim estates payments: compensation application form where a company is the personal representative