Asked by: Bob Seely (Conservative - Isle of Wight)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what plans his Department has to increase the Government’s strategic resilience in relation to matters of national importance.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
With the increasing volatility and interconnectedness of risks, strong national resilience is more important than ever. The UK Government’s Resilience Framework, published in December 2022, sets out a strategic approach to strengthening the systems and capabilities that underpin our collective resilience to all risks.
Work is already underway across Government to deliver on the principles and approach in the Framework and to act on lessons from recent crises. We have already refreshed the National Security Risk Assessment and will be updating the public National Risk Register later in the year. The Prime Minister has approved a new sub-committee of the National Security Council dedicated to resilience, led by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. We have also strengthened Cabinet Office crisis and resilience structures. The new Resilience Directorate leads on longer-term resilience planning, alongside the COBR Unit which leads on national crisis response and contingency planning.
Asked by: Bob Seely (Conservative - Isle of Wight)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, for what reason (a) weddings and (b) weddings with the minimum number of five people are not being allowed to be conducted during the current stage of the easing of the covid-19 lockdown restrictions.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt - Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons
The Government understands the huge significance of weddings. We recognise that because weddings have not been able to take place in recent months this has caused difficulty and distress for many people. As set out in the Government’s COVID-19 recovery strategy, published in May, the Government has been examining how to enable people to gather in slightly larger groups better to facilitate small weddings. We have worked closely with faith leaders and local government on how best to achieve this. The Prime Minister announced on 23 June that wedding and civil partnership ceremonies will be able to take place in England from 4 July. People should avoid having a large ceremony, and should invite no more than thirty family and friends. Venues should ensure they are COVID-19 secure.
Asked by: Bob Seely (Conservative - Isle of Wight)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how much funding his Department has allocated to programmes overseas that is not part of Official Development Assistance in each of the last three years; and how much such funding his Department plans to allocate in each of the next two years.
Answered by David Lidington
Cabinet Office has a number of Business Units which have involvement with overseas programmes. However, the data is not held centrally and it would therefore be a disproportionate cost to collect the data.