Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Stamford)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether the National Security Advisor discussed the case on Chinese espionage recently dropped by the CPS with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi during their meeting in Beijing on 14th July 2025.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
The Government has a clear and consistent policy to not comment on the NSA’s meetings to protect sensitive information pertaining to this country’s national security. This has been the case under successive governments.
Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Stamford)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether minutes were taken of the meeting between the National Security Advisor and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing on 14th July 2025.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
The Government has a clear and consistent policy to not comment on the NSA’s meetings to protect sensitive information pertaining to this country’s national security. This has been the case under successive governments.
Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Stamford)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will provide guidance on how Parliamentarians may scrutinise the visit of the National Security Advisor to Beijing, in the context of his decision not to give evidence to Parliamentary Committees.
Answered by Abena Oppong-Asare
The Government has confirmed that the National Security Adviser will attend a private session with the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy in Parliament.
Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Stamford)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if the National Security Advisor will give evidence to a Parliamentary Committee following his meeting with the Chinese Foreign Minister on 14 July 2025.
Answered by Abena Oppong-Asare
The Government has confirmed that the National Security Adviser will attend a private session with the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy in Parliament.
Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Stamford)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether the Prime Minister authorised the National Security Advisor to meet with the Chinese Foreign Minister in Beijing on 14 July 2025.
Answered by Abena Oppong-Asare
The National Security Adviser discusses a wide range of national security matters with the Prime Minister. The Government does not routinely comment on the meetings of the National Security Adviser, which are often sensitive in nature.
Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Stamford)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will publish a summary of the discussions held by the National Security Advisor and Chinese Foreign Minister in Beijing on 14 July 2025.
Answered by Abena Oppong-Asare
The Government does not routinely comment on the meetings of the National Security Adviser, which are often sensitive in nature.
Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Stamford)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether he plans to reduce the number of people working (a) on national security and (b) in the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre.
Answered by Abena Oppong-Asare
As set out in the Plan For Change, this Government’s first duty is to make the UK safer, more secure, and resilient against growing and interconnected threats.
The Cabinet Office Permanent Secretary has announced plans to restructure and reorganise the Cabinet Office to make it more efficient and more effective. This programme is currently underway.
Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Stamford)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment the Government has made of the potential implications for his policies of the decision by the Australian government to ban DeepSeek from all government devices and systems.
Answered by Abena Oppong-Asare
The UK government keeps new technologies under review to ensure that our existing policies and guidance are appropriate to mitigate any emerging risks. In the case of new Artificial Intelligence tools, we have a robust set of security policies in place to manage how information is handled.
The recently updated Artificial Intelligence Playbook for the UK Government outlines that only corporately assured Generative AI tools should be used to process government information. The Mobile Device Management policy mandates that any application downloaded onto government devices must first be approved by security and technology teams. Everyone who works in government is also made aware of their responsibility to safeguard any government information or data that they process, access or share.
Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Stamford)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of banning the use of the DeepSeek artificial intelligence model (a) on government devices, (b) in government buildings and (c) by government employees.
Answered by Abena Oppong-Asare
Everyone who works with government has a duty of confidentiality and a responsibility to safeguard any government information or data that they process, access or share, and all government departments are required to meet a range of mandatory security standards.
Government has a robust set of security policies in place to oversee how information is handled, within our buildings, on our IT and by our staff. We keep these policies under constant review to ensure they are applicable to new technologies.
In conjunction, the Government's Generative AI framework outlines that only corporately assured Generative AI tools should be used to process HMG information.
Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Stamford)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many people worked in the No. 10 foreign policy team on (a) 31 October 2024 and (b) 11 December 2024.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
For management and staffing purposes the Prime Minister’s Office is part of the Cabinet Office. All staff in the Prime Minister’s Office support the work of the Prime Minister to ensure the effective running of government.