Asked by: Kevin Hollinrake (Conservative - Thirsk and Malton)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the answer of 13 October 2025 to Question 77563,on Palantir, why the visit to the offices of Palantir Technologies in Washington with Lord Mandelson on 27 February 2025 was out of scope of the Prime Minister's transparency return of the publication Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer KCB KC MP meetings, January to March 2025.
Answered by Nick Thomas-Symonds - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
I refer the Hon Member to the answer of 13 October 2025, Official Report, PQ 77563.
Asked by: Chris Coghlan (Liberal Democrat - Dorking and Horley)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, following the closure of Voluntary Repayment of COVID-19 Funding, if he will publish full data on which companies took Covid support, and which companies subsequently made repayments.
Answered by Josh Simons - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The details of many companies who received certain forms of Covid support have previously been published. However, the government does not intend to publish full data on the recipients of support across every Covid scheme.
Whether companies made repayment of Covid support, either through the Voluntary Repayment Scheme or through other means, will also remain confidential. We do not want to discourage repayment. Voluntary repayment does not necessarily indicate fraud.
Asked by: Manuela Perteghella (Liberal Democrat - Stratford-on-Avon)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will make it his policy that digital identity would only be made a condition of access to employment, public services, or social security with Parliamentary approval.
Answered by Josh Simons - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Where legislation is required, Parliament will scrutinise this in the usual way.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what the title is of the Senior Responsible Owner leading on the (a) Home Defence Programme and (b) Resilience Action Plan.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
The Resilience Action Plan and Home Defence Programme are led by the COBR Director and COBR Directorate, with oversight by the Deputy National Security Advisor (DNSA) for Intelligence, Defence and Security. Ministerial oversight is provided by the Security Minister.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what part of his Department is leading on the Home Defence programme.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
The Resilience Action Plan and Home Defence Programme are led by the COBR Director and COBR Directorate, with oversight by the Deputy National Security Advisor (DNSA) for Intelligence, Defence and Security. Ministerial oversight is provided by the Security Minister.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, following the decision to disband the Resilience directorate in the Cabinet Office, who is responsible for implementing the Resilience Action Plan.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
The COBR Directorate in the Cabinet Office is responsible for the coordination of resilience, civil contingencies planning, and crisis management across the system.
This brings together the former Resilience Directorate and the former COBR Unit, which will ensure that all phases of the crisis management cycle report to a single Director and is in line with the Cabinet Office vision for a specialist, smaller and more strategic centre.
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 VIP International Flights privacy notice, published 2 January, whether the Cabinet Office holds information on the (1) number, (2) cost and (3) destination of VIP flights for (a) the Prime Minister, (b) Cabinet Office Ministers and (c) other Ministers.
Answered by Chris Ward - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
In accordance with the Ministerial Code, the Government is committed to transparency regarding official travel. Information relating to relevant ministerial travel is published on a quarterly basis and can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/ministers-transparency-publications#2024
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many civil servants FTE work on the Home Defence Programme within the Cabinet Office.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
The Home Defence Programme (HDP) is led by the COBR Directorate in the Cabinet Office. COBR is responsible for coordinating preparedness and response to a range of risks facing the UK, including potential hostilities affecting the UK. For national security reasons, the government does not routinely comment publicly on the size of such teams.
Asked by: Adam Dance (Liberal Democrat - Yeovil)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what estimate he has made of the number of retired civil servants that have been required to repay overpaid pension benefits due to administrative errors made by civil service pension providers in the last ten years; and what assessment he has made of the potential impact of these instances on the people affected.
Answered by Anna Turley - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
The administration of the Civil Service Pension Scheme is the responsibility of the Cabinet Office. While the scheme does not publicly report overpayments due to administrator errors, in the last ten years overpayments caused solely by ‘administrative errors’, resulted in a total of 381.
The scheme follows the HM Treasury guidance on “Managing Public Money” which requires the scheme, where possible, to recover any money that a member is not entitled to. Recognising that recovery of overpayments may cause distress we work closely with individual members to ensure that payment recovery plans are affordable, take account of hardship and minimise the impact for the member both in terms of finances and wellbeing. This usually includes setting payment plans to recover monies owed over a reasonable period of time.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what estimate his Department has made of the number of premature deaths in (i) England and (ii) the UK attributable to (a) smoking, (b) air pollution, (c) alcoholism and (d) obesity in the last 12 months.
Answered by Josh Simons - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.
A response to the Hon gentleman’s Parliamentary Question of 5th of January is attached.