Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what estimate he has made of the cost to the public purse for Senior Civil Service pay in the (a) 2024-25 and (b) 2025-26 financial years.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The latest paybill information for the Senior Civil Service can be found in the 2025/26 annual report by the Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB).
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the Answer of 9 June 2025 to Question 54822 on Cabinet Office: Directors, whether Baroness Casey will be a member of the Cabinet Office Board.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
I refer the Hon. member to PQ 54822.
Asked by: Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative - Thirsk and Malton)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, for what reason council tax is not included in the measure of consumer price inflation.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.
A response to the Hon gentleman’s Parliamentary Question of 1st July is attached.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will reintroduce Lords Spiritual from the Church of Ireland to the House of Lords.
Answered by Nick Thomas-Symonds - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
Bishops of the Church of Ireland previously sat in the House of Lords as Lords Spiritual, from the coming into force of the Union with Ireland Act 1800 until the disestablishment of the Church in 1871. Given the Church of Ireland is no longer part of the established church, there are no plans to reintroduce Church of Ireland bishops to the House of Lords as Lords Spiritual.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many (a) unauthorised and (b) sickness absences there were in the civil service in each of the last five years.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
Sickness absence data for the Civil Service is published annually, and is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/sickness-absence.
Individual departments are responsible for managing their workforces, including any instances of unauthorised absence. This information is not held centrally by the Cabinet Office.
Asked by: Graeme Downie (Labour - Dunfermline and Dollar)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on compensation for people impacted by infected blood and also by variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
Answered by Nick Thomas-Symonds - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
In his 2022 Compensation Framework Study, Sir Robert Francis recommended that variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) was not included in the Infected Blood Compensation Scheme. He noted that “this is a rare disease for which there is a separate compensation scheme. It is unlikely, therefore, that a separate category is justified in this scheme. However, many of the infected have been warned there is a risk of their having vCJD. Assuming that risk, insofar as it exists, is shared by all who have received blood or blood products in the relevant period, there is no special case for taking it into account in this scheme."
Chapter 5 of the Infected Blood Inquiry’s May 2024 Report examines the Government response to vCJD.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what guidance has been given to Cabinet ministers by the (a) Independent Adviser on Ministerial Standards and (b) Cabinet Office on whether Ministers who personally receive donations from trade unions (i) must and (ii) need not recuse themselves from (A) official government meetings and (B) decisions relating to those specific trade unions.
Answered by Abena Oppong-Asare - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
As set out in the Ministerial Code, there is an established process in place for the declaration and management of private interests held by ministers. This ensures that steps are taken to avoid or mitigate any actual or perceived conflicts of interest. Any advice given to ministers as part of this process would be in confidence.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the Answer of 9 June 2025 to Question 54828 on Civil Servants: Training, if he will publish the full training (a) documentation and (b) modules prepared for the course.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
It is not possible to share these products as they are interactive e-learning and videos that need to run on learning management systems. We would not publish learning content or materials themselves, as they might contain internal policy details, or intellectual property owned by a third party.
Asked by: Baroness Finn (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many Assessment Advisory Panels for public appointments (1) the Director General, Propriety and Constitution Group, and (2) the Director General, Propriety and Ethics, have served on since 2019; what assessment they have made of the appropriateness for individuals in those roles to sit on Assessment Advisory Panels given their responsibilities for sponsoring the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments and advising on ethical issues in the appointments process; and whether they have made an assessment of the risk of conflict of interest where individuals in those roles may later be required to investigate or advise on complaints relating to campaigns on which they have served.
Answered by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The Director General of the Cabinet Office's Propriety and Constitution Group (previously Director General of Propriety and Ethics), since taking up the role in March 2021, has served as a member of an Advisory Assessment Panel on seven (7) public appointment recruitment campaigns.
The Governance Code on Public Appointments has a rigorous and well established process for assessing and managing potential conflicts of interest in all regulated public appointments processes, which has been in effect across a number of administrations. The process covers potential personal and professional conflicts of interest for both independent panel members and the departmental or sponsor body representatives. As per the Governance Code on Public Appointments, ministers must agree the composition of all Advisory Assessment Panels.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, when he plans to publish the Resilience Strategy.
Answered by Abena Oppong-Asare - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The Government will set out its resilience strategy in due course.