Reporting Ministerial Gifts and Hospitality
Ellie Reeves Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Minister to make a statement on the reporting and acceptance of ministerial gifts and hospitality.
The Minister without Portfolio (Ellie Reeves)
I wish to update the House on the action that the Government will take to enhance transparency in relation to ministerial gifts and hospitality.
Transparency is a critical part of restoring public faith in politics, and the Government recognise that changes are needed. Under the last Government, the rules for Ministers declaring hospitality were less transparent than those for other Members of Parliament. Lists of hospitality received by Ministers were published by Whitehall Departments only once a quarter and did not include the value. In contrast, MPs’ and shadow Ministers’ interests must be declared within 28 days, and must include the cost of the hospitality. Tory Ministers used this loophole even when events appeared to have had little connection with their Government roles. Both the House of Commons Committee on Standards and the Committee on Standards in Public Life have called for that disparity to be removed.
Under the last Government, Labour Front Benchers who attended events could end up sitting next to their Tory counterparts. Labour MPs had to declare details in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests—importantly, including value—while Tory Ministers did not, under the equivalent ministerial process. The Government will correct this imbalance: the Tory freebies loophole will be closed. In the future, the Government will publish a register of Ministers’ gifts and hospitality on a basis broadly equivalent to that which is published in the registers of Members’ and Lords’ interests. This will bring the publication of ministerial transparency data more closely into line with the parliamentary regime for gifts and hospitality. The Government intend that these arrangements should be in place as soon as possible and will set out further details in due course.
The Prime Minister intends shortly to issue and publish an updated version of the ministerial code, in which he will set out his expectations for the conduct of all who serve in Government as Ministers. As well as confirming these new reporting arrangements, this will include additional guidance for Ministers on the principles that they should apply when considering whether to accept gifts of offers of hospitality, as part of the Government’s work to restore public faith in politics as a force for good.
John Glen
I thank the hon. Lady for her response. On the steps of Downing Street on 5 July, the Prime Minister pledged to put
“country first and party second”.
Labour Ministers have been beset by a series of scandals involving freebies. The Prime Minister has claimed that this was all a “perfectly sensible arrangement”. Does the right hon. Lady still believe that?
What gifts and hospitality can Ministers now accept? Can Cabinet Ministers continue to party in DJ booths in Ibiza? Will Ministers be banned from Oasis 2025 tour junkets, or was it just Taylor Swift that was a handout too far? What role did Downing Street play in the VIP escort for Taylor Swift, further to the free Taylor Swift tickets from Universal Music? Have all the political staff in the Prime Minister’s parliamentary office correctly declared their financial interests and hospitality received? The new chief of staff’s entry seems very empty. Have all ministerial donations in kind been declared at their full market value? Why do Ministers refuse to say, in answer to parliamentary questions, when the new ministerial transparency platform will go live? Is the sheer scale on which the Prime Minister benefits from others’ largesse now a conflict of interest? Will the hon. Lady confirm that the Prime Minister is taking a donation in kind of £100,000 a year from Arsenal football club, and will he now recuse himself from involvement in the football governance Bill?
Amid scandals such as “cash for croissants”, “free-gear Keir” and “passes for glasses”, where is Labour’s new ethics and integrity commission, and what have Labour donors got in return for their generosity? What discussions did the Prime Minister’s former chief of staff and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster have with Lord Alli on ministerial and public appointments? Will Ministers place in the Library all the documents relating to Lord Alli’s “Operation Integrity”? Finally, can the Minister explain to this House why the millionaire Prime Minister cannot clothe himself without gifts from others?
Ellie Reeves
As I said to the right hon. Gentleman in my first response, this Government are committed to rebuilding trust in politics. The Prime Minister has commissioned a new set of principles on gifts and hospitality, which will be published shortly. That will outlaw the Tory freebie loophole, because this Government are committed to being more up front and open than our predecessors.
We will take no lectures from the Conservative party on gifts and hospitality, standards in public life or trust in politics. Let me tell the right hon. Gentleman what shattered trust in politics: the behaviour of the Conservatives in their 14 years in power. They partied in Downing Street while the whole country sacrificed its freedom. They handed lucrative covid contracts to friends and donors, and failed to expel MPs who were caught breaking the rules. That is the difference between this Government and the last one.
We are strengthening the rules. When Owen Paterson was found to have broken the rules, the Conservatives tried to rip them up, and now they want us to believe that they care about trust in politics. This is utterly shameless. Of course, it was not just Tory sleaze and scandal that eroded trust; just as corrosive has been the complete and utter failure of Conservative politicians to keep the promises they made to the British people. Now the work of change begins. As I have already set out, it starts with rebuilding trust in our politics, which we are committed to doing. The cynical and confected outrage that we have heard from the right hon. Gentleman today is fooling no one. If Conservative Members really want to help repair the damage they caused to trust in politics, they would do well to back the changes we are making, and to say sorry for the sleaze and scandal that plagued their 14 years in power.
Clive Efford (Eltham and Chislehurst) (Lab)
The Conservatives have some brass neck criticising the Government on this subject when it was the Conservatives who set up the VIP lane for contracts during covid, and who accepted many gifts that they did not have to declare. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to close the loophole. I point out to the right hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen) that he refused to vote for the Committee of Privileges report on Boris Johnson, who lied to this House. How is that improving standards in political life? What a performance!
Ellie Reeves
My hon. Friend is right to point out the VIP lanes for covid contracts. The fact is that Conservative Members had the opportunity to take a stand when Owen Paterson broke the rules, and they voted instead to rip up those very rules.
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
I must say that I am startled to see Conservative MPs acting as though they were defenders of standards in public life. Under the last Government, Ministers were subject to less transparency than Back-Bench MPs. We will never know the interests of some of the Ministers who served under Liz Truss, because their ministerial interests were never published. However, I say to the new Government that if Ministers do not treat the need to restore standards with the urgency that it deserves, there will be no sympathy for them from the public, either. The independent adviser on ministerial interests has made it clear that the current system produces a list of interests, not a full register. Will the Minister guarantee that we will now see a full register published, just as there is for MPs, and set out the timescale? Will the Government rectify the fact that we went months under the previous Government without a list of interests being published by retrospectively publishing those interests? Will the Government enshrine the ministerial code in law, and include in that law timescales for regularly publishing a register of interests, so that we can have confidence that it will be published? Finally, will the Government make the role of the ethics adviser truly independent by empowering the adviser to begin their investigations and publish their own reports?
Ellie Reeves
The hon. Member makes a number of important points. In relation to value, yes, this is about a closer alignment of the two schemes. MPs need to declare value at the moment, but value does not need to be declared under the ministerial scheme. That is the loophole that we are looking to close, and we will do so as soon as possible.
Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)
Will this Government’s ethics and integrity commission end the grotesque situation that arose under the endemic corruption of the Conservative Government, which saw a relative of someone who extended lavish hospitality to disgraced former Prime Minister Boris Johnson put in the House of Lords against the advice of our security services?
Ellie Reeves
My hon. Friend will know that, as well as dealing with these issues, we are seeking to reform the House of Lords and improve the transparency of the appointment process.
Sir Gavin Williamson (Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge) (Con)
On the tickets that were given away for free, there is a lot of concern among constituents about the way that the Government seem to have been involved in compromising the operational independence of the police. I appreciate that the Minister cannot set out the Attorney General’s advice, but can she explain to the House why the Attorney General was asked to give advice, and what question the Attorney General was asked to answer?
Ellie Reeves
Policing is an operational matter for the police, and so not something that I can comment on directly.
Rachel Blake (Cities of London and Westminster) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the Minister agree that if the Opposition really wanted to make progress with standards in public life, they would reflect on their own record, including the VIP lane, partygate and their determination to lose by-elections as a result of the conduct of Members of Parliament from their party? Does she also agree that we are making progress on this issue through our plans?
Ellie Reeves
I thank my hon. Friend for those important points. The actions of the Conservative party have led to the erosion of trust in politics, and that is the issue that Labour Members now seek to clear up.
Mr Richard Holden (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
Thank you to Opposition Members for their support for those on the Government Front Bench today. [Hon. Members: “We’re the Government now.”] The Government have been totally tone deaf in their response to the situation, which was revealed not as a result of the Government’s transparency—[Interruption.]
Mr Holden
The situation was revealed not because of the Government’s transparency but through our popular press. The amounts of money declared in the register seem to be at odds with true market value, particularly for the short-term lease of flats. Will the Minister provide clarity on how we can ensure that the true figures are represented in the register?
Ellie Reeves
I am not sure about the right hon. Gentleman’s specific point, but at the heart of this is our aim to increase transparency in the reporting process. There is a disparity between what MPs declare and what Ministers declare. The Tories did nothing to fix that in 14 years in government, and that is what we now seek to change.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
I must have missed a trick, because it seems like just a couple of years ago, there was this sort of behaviour from Conservative Members on an industrial scale. Prime Minister Johnson received a £58,000 donation to turn his flat into some sort of crack den or party central, and then he was offered £150,000 by the same person to build a treehouse for his son. I welcome what the Minister says. Does she agree that the approach and the principles that she is setting out are totally different from what went before?
Ellie Reeves
I repeat that we want to make the rules more transparent. We have clearly set out how we intend to get transparency on gifts and hospitality, which has been lacking for too long.
Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
Government guidelines for the self-employed are very clear:
“You cannot claim for everyday clothing (even if you wear it for work).”
Yet we have heard that Cabinet Ministers declared clothing donations as donations in kind for undertaking parliamentary duties and, further,
“to support the Shadow Chancellor’s office”.
Does the Minister think that these were transparent donations, or were they designed to deceive?
Ellie Reeves
No Member sets out to deceive the House, and donations have been made in the right way. There is no suggestion that donations have not been declared properly or transparently. We are seeking to align the rules for Ministers with the rules for MPs, but I do not think there has been any suggestion that declarations have not been properly made.
Josh Simons (Makerfield) (Lab)
If the newspapers are to be believed, several Members on the sparsely populated Conservative Benches are considering standing down if the Government’s reforms to clamp down on second jobs are delivered. Will the Minister confirm her commitment to delivering these reforms to restore standards in public life, despite the sad possible loss of Conservative Members?
Ellie Reeves
Of course the Modernisation Committee will look incredibly closely at the issue of second jobs.
Brendan O’Hara (Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber) (SNP)
In June 2022, the now Deputy Prime Minister said:
“Honesty matters, integrity matters and decency matters. We should be ambitious for high standards, and we should all be accountable”.—[Official Report, 7 June 2022; Vol. 715, c. 680.]
Labour promised change, but the truth is that this is not that different from the sleaze that went before. What the public see is the Labour party saying, “It is our turn now.” The parties are acting like peas in a pod. Can the Minister tell us why, having showered an assortment of gifts on the Prime Minister and other Cabinet colleagues, Lord Alli was given a triple-A pass to Downing Street? Who requested that the pass be given, and exactly what was the pass used for?
Ellie Reeves
I agree with those words from the Deputy Prime Minister. What I do not accept is the suggestion of equivalence with those on the Conservative Benches, when the former Prime Minister was fined for breaking lockdown rules. While people up and down the country were sticking to the rules, often at great personal sacrifice, those in No. 10 were partying and breaking the rules, and at the same time their friends and donors were given fast-track routes for their covid contracts, so I do not accept that there is equivalence. Everything has been properly declared and we want to make the rules around transparency even greater.
Mark Ferguson (Gateshead Central and Whickham) (Lab)
Will the Minister remind Members of this House which Prime Minister was rewarded with a holiday to Mustique? As hon. Members may remember, there was a lot of mystique about Mustique at the time. I will give the Conservatives a hint: it was not a Member on the Labour side of the House.
Ellie Reeves
As I recall, it was former Prime Minister Boris Johnson who benefited from that holiday to Mustique.
Dr Luke Evans (Hinckley and Bosworth) (Con)
The Prime Minister has said he has been transparent, broken no rules and followed all ordinances, yet he has paid back £6,000 out of that £100,000. Can the Minister tell us why he has chosen to do that, which rules he was following, which guidance he means and which other member of the Cabinet will also be paying back money for tickets?
Ellie Reeves
That is a personal matter for the Prime Minister, but we have made it clear, and the Prime Minister has made it clear, that we are going to make the rules around transparency more aligned with those for MPs and reform the code, with a clear set of guidance in relation to the receipt of gifts and hospitality. In the meantime, the Prime Minister has paid back a number of items while the new code is being finalised.
David Pinto-Duschinsky (Hendon) (Lab)
If brass neck were an Olympic sport, the Conservatives would all be gold medallists. They presided over a carnival of corruption. Does the Minister agree that it was their partying in Downing Street, their contracts for their mates and their constant failure to deliver that undermined trust in government, and will she join me in calling on them to apologise for their years of mismanagement?
Ellie Reeves
Of course, the Conservatives created and presided over this loophole in the rules. They broke the rules during covid lockdown and gave fast-track passes to their friends and donors for covid contracts, so we will not take lectures from them on this.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that the use of police outriders, whistles and sirens to facilitate the ferrying of the favoured few around capital cities characterises the capital cities of less enlightened realms and not—until this point—our own? Does she also agree that the special escort group needs to be used sparingly, and not to ferry entertainers around, regardless of the number of free tickets dispensed to senior members of the Government?
Ellie Reeves
As I said in a previous answer, that is an operational matter for the police and not something I can comment on further.
Lewis Atkinson (Sunderland Central) (Lab)
On the Prime Minister’s first day in office, he prioritised meeting the independent adviser on ministerial standards. Does the Minister agree that that stands in stark contrast to the approach of the previous Government, which saw two independent advisers on ministerial standards resigning and the post sitting vacant for six months?
Ellie Reeves
The Prime Minister has it made clear, both in those meetings and in what he has said, that cleaning up and restoring trust in politics is incredibly important. I know that the Modernisation Committee is looking at a number of measures. We have also set out how we intend the ministerial code of conduct to strengthen things. I think that is incredibly important, particularly in restoring the trust that has been eroded so much over these past 14 years.
Mr Joshua Reynolds (Maidenhead) (LD)
After years of Conservative sleaze and scandal, we need to reset MPs’ and Ministers’ relationship with standards in public life. Therefore, will the Minister commit to enshrining the ministerial code in law?
Ellie Reeves
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. There are no plans to do that at this stage.
Alistair Strathern (Hitchin) (Lab)
I am sure that many Members will share my disbelief and that of my constituents at reports in The Times today that as many as one in 10 Conservative Members are considering standing down early because of the closing down of loopholes on second jobs. Regardless of political affiliation, one of our most important responsibilities is making sure we build and maintain our constituents’ trust in politics. Whether it is by tightening up the rules on second jobs or making sure we clamp down on some of the loopholes on Ministers’ declarations that we had under the last Government, will the Government remain resolute in ensuring that when we come to this House, we do so to serve our constituents and not ourselves?
Ellie Reeves
As I said in answer to a previous question, the Modernisation Committee is looking at the matter very closely. Being a Member of Parliament is a huge privilege and an honour. It is a full-time job, and then some. It is important, and it is also important that we look closely at the appropriateness of second jobs for Members of Parliament.
Bradley Thomas (Bromsgrove) (Con)
Why has the Prime Minister paid back some gifts that he has received since he became Prime Minister but not those he received as Leader of the Opposition? Is there a different standard for Government Ministers and for the Opposition?
Shaun Davies (Telford) (Lab)
Is this not another example of this Labour Government having to clear up the Conservatives’ mess? They voted against suspending Owen Paterson from this House when wrongdoing was demonstrated. Does the Minister agree that both candidates for the leadership of the Conservative party should declare their full hospitality over the past 12 months or more?
Ellie Reeves
I thank my hon. Friend for that interesting suggestion. It is right that we look at all those things. He referred to Owen Paterson. After that, it felt like lessons had not been learned, because soon afterwards Scott Benton had to stand down from Parliament for breaching lobbying rules as well. It seems like there was something of a pattern.
Gregory Stafford (Farnham and Bordon) (Con)
Does the Minister not agree that this is about not just transparency but hypocrisy? When my constituents, because of Labour’s scrapping of the winter fuel payments, have to choose between heating their homes and clothing themselves, they can see the hypocrisy of the Prime Minister in getting tens of thousands of pounds for clothing and glasses. When they have to decide whether to send their children to an independent school for special educational needs and disabilities because the Labour party is going to add VAT to school fees, while the Prime Minister can rent out a flat costing tens of thousands of pounds for his children, they smell hypocrisy. When will the Prime Minister come and apologise for that and when will he return all of that money?
Ellie Reeves
Let me say something about hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is when people in Downing Street, including the former Prime Minister, were partying during lockdown as my constituents and people up and down the country were making the greatest sacrifices, with fathers not being at the birth of their children and people not being able to say goodbye to their loved ones. I will not take lectures on hypocrisy from the Conservatives.
Phil Brickell (Bolton West) (Lab)
Does the Minister agree that it is shameful that the Conservatives left the role of the Prime Minister’s UK anti-corruption champion vacant for two years?
Ellie Reeves
Is it any wonder, given the sort of things that went on over the past 14 years? The former Prime Minister Boris Johnson had to apologise to the Commons for failing to declare more than £50,000 in outside income. There was also that £15,000 trip to a luxury villa on Mustique. No wonder they could not keep their ethics advisers in place when that sort of behaviour was going on at the heart of Government.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
There is a duty on all Members and Ministers to ensure transparency regarding gifts received. Does the Minister agree that more work needs to be done to clarify the rules around the declaration of hospitality and gifts to ensure that the rules are equal and fair for all, regardless of parliamentary status?
Ellie Reeves
I thank the hon. Member for his helpful contribution. That is exactly what we seek to do through these changes.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome the conversion of the Conservative party to transparency and ethics. Whether it was wallpaper or weddings, or Pincher, Paterson or Benton, Conservative Members were sadly silent when they thought that one of their own should get away with things. May I suggest that my hon. Friend retrospectively apply the new rules to the last 12 months of every serving Member who was a Minister? They should have to declare every piece of hospitality and gift that they received as Ministers, so that we can see exactly what their own record was compared with our cleanliness.
Ellie Reeves
I thank my hon. Friend for his observations. That is certainly something that I can take back to be looked at.
Andrew Lewin (Welwyn Hatfield) (Lab)
I listened with interest to the shadow Minister, the right hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen), talk about integrity in politics. My mind went back to a defining image from the last Parliament: Her late Majesty saying goodbye to the Duke of Edinburgh in April 2021, abiding by every single rule, as she always did. We found out later that the previous night there had been parties in Downing Street. Does my hon. Friend agree that there is absolutely no comparison between this Government, who are clearing up the mess, and the one that went before us?
Ellie Reeves
I thank my hon. Friend for his important comments. I do not think that the public will forget that image of the Queen sitting on her own. The idea that there is any equivalence between the rule breaking during covid, and the fast track for VIPs, and us now trying to sort things out by making the process more transparent is frankly indefensible from Conservative Members.
Joe Powell (Kensington and Bayswater) (Lab)
The shadow Minister may remember that he failed personally to support the suspension of Owen Paterson after he was found guilty of lobbying and being paid thousands of pounds to raise questions in Parliament. Does the Minister agree that today’s conversion to standards and integrity rings completely hollow?
Ellie Reeves
I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution. I had a look recently at the record of Conservative MPs in that vote to rip up the rules on standards, in effect, to get Owen Paterson off the hook. Overwhelmingly, those on the Opposition Front Bench voted to rip up the rules on standards.
Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)
Later today, we will debate a Bill to protect entertainment events from terrorism. It comes in the aftermath of the terrible terrorist attack on an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester. In more recent months, Taylor Swift has had to cancel a concert, owing to the risk to her life and the lives of concert-goers. Does the Minister agree that when we debate the Bill, it is important that we take the politics out of the debate, recognise the real risk to life, proceed with due caution, properly talk about the loss of life in Manchester, and aim to avoid any future loss of life at entertainment events?
Ellie Reeves
I thank my hon. Friend for that incredibly important point. The Bill will put Martyn’s law on the statute book, for which victims of the awful Manchester Arena terror attack have campaigned long and hard, and I hope that it will be debated in the tone and spirit that my hon. Friend set out.
Oral Answers to Questions
Ellie Reeves Excerpts(1 year, 6 months ago)
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Kim Johnson (Liverpool Riverside) (Lab)
The Minister without Portfolio (Ellie Reeves)
The Government will always aim to secure value for money in meeting their facilities management requirements. Our plan to make work pay is clear that we will call time on the previous Government’s ideological approach to outsourcing and ensure that decisions are based on robust assessments of value for money, service quality, social value and, crucially, delivering the best outcomes.
Jon Trickett
I thank the Minister very much for her response and I welcome the whole team to the Front Bench. The problem with outsourcing is that, normally, the outsourcers will drive down pay and conditions for the workforce, thereby creating a two-tier workforce; they are not properly accountable to Ministers; they are exempt from freedom of information requests; and finally, there is the question of public service centres. Will the Minister confirm that we will proceed with abandoning the previous Government’s ideological obsession with outsourcing?
Ellie Reeves
My hon. Friend is right that too many decisions about outsourcing were ideologically driven under the previous Government, without consideration for things such as social value or service quality. That is why we have said that we will do things differently. Social value and outcomes will be at the heart of that. Our new deal for working people will transform the world of work.
Kim Johnson
The outsourcing of facility management services roles such as cleaning, catering and security has disproportionately impacted women and black workers, who have suffered a reduction in their pay, terms and conditions. The Government have promised to bring about the biggest wave of insourcing of public services in a generation. With that in mind, will the Minister agree to examine the benefits of insourcing facilities management services, particularly with regard to performance and tackling discriminatory outcomes on pay? Will she meet representatives of the Public and Commercial Services Union to discuss this matter further?
Ellie Reeves
My hon. Friend is right that under the previous Government, too many jobs such as cleaning and security were insecure, with a race to the bottom on standards and pay. Our plan to make work pay will ensure that all jobs are secure, fulfilling and well-paid. My hon. Friend also mentioned the disproportionate impact on ethnic minorities and women; that is why we said in the King’s Speech that we would introduce an equality Bill to enshrine in law the right to equal pay for ethnic minorities and disabled people, and introduce mandatory ethnicity and disability pay reporting.
Lucy Rigby (Northampton North) (Lab)
Patrick Hurley (Southport) (Lab)
The Minister without Portfolio (Ellie Reeves)
The commitment to a mission-led Government sets out a new approach to governing that is focused on the outcomes that will make a meaningful difference to people’s lives. It means a new way of doing government that is more joined-up, breaks down silos and pushes power out to communities. Earlier this week, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster sat as deputy chair on the first mission board on growth, chaired by the Chancellor. As part of our plans to deliver mission-based government, we will hold further mission boards as we approach the summer recess.
Patrick Hurley
I thank my hon. Friend for her reply. Earlier this month, the Prime Minister announced that he would personally chair new mission delivery boards to ensure that Labour’s key manifesto pledges are implemented. But if we want to deliver our manifesto pledges effectively, we are going to need effective communication between central Government and devolved bodies. Could my hon. Friend tell me what steps are being taken to ensure that devolved Governments are involved in the new Government’s mission delivery process?
Ellie Reeves
I thank my hon. Friend for his question, and he is right to point out that we have started to deliver on our promises. For example, the Chancellor launched our national wealth fund just this week. He is also right to say how important it is that we work with the devolved Governments to deliver missions. The Government have set out our intention to work closely with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as metro mayors and local council leaders in England, to deliver the missions. One of the Prime Minister’s first actions was to meet all the First Ministers on his tour of the UK. We know that meaningful co-operation will be key to delivering change across the entire United Kingdom.
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
Adam Jogee (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)
The Minister without Portfolio (Ellie Reeves)
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. I made a statement on the CrowdStrike IT outage in this House on Monday. There will be a lessons-learned process as a result of that, and also a Bill going before Parliament to ensure that we are resilient in relation to our cyber-security. That will strengthen our defences and ensure that more digital services than ever are protected.
CrowdStrike: IT Outage
Ellie Reeves Excerpts(1 year, 6 months ago)
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The Minister without Portfolio (Ellie Reeves)
On Friday 19 July, we saw a CrowdStrike software update on Microsoft systems result in a major global IT outage. It caused significant impacts around the world. Impacts were seen in the transport sector, with flights grounded in Europe and the US, and delays and cancellations here in the UK. Live train departure boards were impacted during the morning rush hour, and some media outlets lost the ability to provide live coverage. The outage caused substantial inconvenience for passengers hoping to travel for the summer holiday getaway on the busiest travel weekend of the year. Airports and airlines across the UK had measures in place to maintain safe operations, support passenger welfare, extend operating hours and deploy additional staff to support late-running operations and keep people moving where possible. As with all incidents, the sector will review its response and implement any learnings.
More concerningly, large parts of the local UK healthcare system lost access to test results and appointment information, affecting mostly GP services. Tried and tested NHS contingency plans were enacted and services are expected to be operating at full capacity in the next few days. Small businesses without dedicated IT support systems were heavily impacted due to disruption to card-only payment systems and ATMs, with many resorting to operate cash-only while firms worked to fix their systems. Many firms were able to get back online quickly and the remainder are expected to restore operations this week.
Officials from the National Cyber Security Centre quickly established that the outages were not the result of a security incident or malicious cyber-activity. The cause was instead identified to be a flawed CrowdStrike software update that caused Windows machines to crash.
On Friday morning, CrowdStrike issued guidance on how to solve the problem, giving users a manual fix for each affected device or system. I now believe that CrowdStrike is in the process of implementing an automated update, which can be applied remotely and should therefore speed up recovery. However, there are still residual impacts from the failed update, and it is important that we continue to monitor the situation and the longer-term impacts to UK sectors and secondary impacts from international disruption.
Ever since the incident occurred, the Government have worked closely with both Microsoft and CrowdStrike. My Cabinet Office officials have been leading co-ordination of the Government response across all impacted sectors of the economy. That included close monitoring of affected public services to ensure that business continuity plans were enacted and services were supported as they came back online. Two Cobra senior officials meetings were also convened on Friday to co-ordinate the response, and officials from across His Majesty’s Government met over the weekend to continuously monitor the impacts and the recovery process. I am pleased to say that Government services and the online services that the Government provide were and remain largely unaffected. My colleagues including the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, the Health Secretary and the Transport Secretary attended briefings with officials throughout, and the Prime Minister was kept informed.
The majority of the sectors that were impacted have now mostly recovered. The UK transport system—aviation, rail, road and maritime—is running normally. NHS staff worked hard over the course of Friday and the weekend to quickly apply the fixes required, and my colleagues in the Department for Health and Social Care have confirmed that systems are now back online, including for GPs. Their advice is that patients should continue to attend their appointments unless told not to. There may still be some delays, and GPs will need to rebook appointments that could not be made during the IT outage. The public should continue to contact their GPs in the normal way.
As IT systems are complex, we can expect that minor disruption will continue in some areas while systems continue to recover, but my officials expect those to be resolved in the next couple of days. I would like to thank everyone who has worked so hard to get systems up and running again, and all staff who have worked tirelessly to support individuals impacted by the outage.
Following this incident, the Cabinet Office will work with the National Cyber Security Centre and other partners across Government to review the lessons learned. The Central Digital and Data Office will work with the NCSC to implement any improvements to the existing response plans to cover both technical resilience features as well as cyber. The Cobra unit will work with Departments to support their processes for establishing how the organisations and sectors they represent manage the impacts of the outage and what lessons have been learnt.
As soon as the Government were elected, we took immediate steps to begin legislating to protect public services and the third-party services they use. Our cyber-security and resilience Bill, included in the King’s Speech, will strengthen our defences and ensure that more essential digital services than ever before are protected. For example, it will look at expanding the remit of the existing regulation, putting regulators on a stronger footing and increasing reporting requirements to build a better picture in Government of cyber threats. Technology failures can be as disruptive as cyber-attacks, and the move to create the centre for digital government within the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology is aimed at creating a more resilient digital public sector.
What this incident shows is how dependent the modern world is on complex and interconnected IT systems and how essential preparedness for such events is, including business continuity planning. Notwithstanding the immense frustration and inconvenience that the outage has caused, I am pleased to see that effective contingency plans mitigated the very serious impacts that the outage could have had. I am pleased also that there is to be a comprehensive process to identify the lessons from this episode. I hope that they will lead to improvements that both help prevent similar incidents and further improve our resilience to system outages and the impacts they can have. In that spirit, I commend the statement to the House.
Sir Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere) (Con)
May I begin by welcoming the hon. Lady to her role and thanking her for advance sight of the statement? In that role I know she will be supported by a dedicated team of civil servants, who represent the very best of public service. I have no doubt that they will serve her as well as they did me.
The hon. Lady will be aware of the enormous challenges facing this Government and those around the world in relation to cyber-security. As I warned when I was the responsible Minister, threats to public services and critical national infrastructure come from a range of challenges, from hostile state actors to human error and design flaws. Last week we saw those challenges vividly brought to life. Following the corrupted antivirus update by CrowdStrike on Friday, 8.5 million Microsoft devices globally were rendered unusable. That left airports disrupted, patient records temporarily lost and GPs unable to access important patient data, creating significant backlogs. That is more than an inconvenience.
I pay tribute to all those working in our public services for the efforts they undertook over the weekend to restore those services, and to the work of dedicated cyber specialists across Government, including in the National Cyber Security Centre. In government we undertook a wide range of measures to enhance the nation’s cyber-security: creating the National Cyber Security Centre, introducing secure by design, setting cyber-resilience targets, launching GovAssure and transforming the oversight of governmental cyber-security.
I note, as the hon. Lady said, that the Government intend to build on that progress by bringing forward a cyber-security and resilience Bill. Will she therefore outline the timetable for the Bill, and will the Government consider mandatory cyber-security targets for the UK public sector? Are the Government considering obligations to ensure that infrastructure is designed to be resilient against common cause problems, such as this one? What steps are being taken to enhance cyber-security in the devolved Administrations and in parts of the public sector such as the NHS, which are operationally independent?
Specifically in relation to this incident, what assessment has been made of the prevalence of CrowdStrike within critical national infrastructure? What further reassurance can the Government give in relation to the timetable for full recovery of key systems and data? In particular, can the Minister assure employees that this month’s payroll will not be adversely affected?
Britain’s cyber industry is world leading. Cyber-security now employs more than 60,000 people and brings in nearly £12 billion-worth of revenue annually. This transformation was in part due to our £5.3 billion investment, which launched the country’s first national cyber-security strategy. I therefore urge the Government—I see the Chancellor in her place—to continue such investment.
Incidents such as that of CrowdStrike should not deter us from the path of progress. We must embrace digitalisation and the huge improvements to public services that it offers. The adoption of artificial intelligence across Government is the closest thing we have to a silver bullet for public sector productivity. However, if we are to command public confidence, people must be assured that technology is safe, secure and reliable. Such incidents demonstrate how reliant the Government and public services are on large technology companies, and how much responsibility they have for the services that have become critical to people’s lives and livelihoods. That is why, in government, I called for us to work more closely with leading technology firms to address these shared challenges. The best solution is partnership. To that end, what further engagement will the Minister undertake with Microsoft, CrowdStrike and the wider sector to ensure that there is no such recurrence?
The task for us all is to build on existing progress that has transformed Britian’s cyber defences, and to enhance protections for British families, businesses and the very heart of Government. In that mission, the Government can rely on the support of the Opposition.
Ellie Reeves
I thank the shadow Minister for his contribution and his questions. In particular, I echo the thanks to all those in Departments across the civil service who were involved in dealing with the outage last Friday and in mitigating its effects. I set out in my statement that our cyber-security and resilience Bill, which was included in the King’s Speech, will strengthen our defences and ensure that more digital services are protected. That is a priority for this Government. The Bill will look at expanding the remit of regulation, putting regulators on a stronger footing and increasing reporting requirements, so that the Government can build a better picture of cyber-threats. We will consider the implications of Friday’s incident as we develop that legislation, but rest assured that we are working across Government to ensure resilience.
As the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said in his statement on the covid inquiry module 1 report, he will lead a review assessing our national resilience to the full range of risks that the UK faces, including cyber-risks.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West) (Lab)
It is a great pleasure to see my right hon. Friend the Minister in her place. As she said, the CrowdStrike outage is a reminder not only that technology is so integrated into all our lives, making them better, but also of our dependence on the standard of development, deployment and integration of new technology, which is largely not visible to us. I was reassured to hear about the steps that the Government and businesses have been taking to mitigate the impact, but I fear that small businesses and consumers do not have the same resources. Does she agree that people should not have to be able to reboot from a blue screen in order to enjoy the benefits of technology? Will her Government move to ensure that consumers are better protected?
Ellie Reeves
I thank my hon. Friend for that contribution, and I want to acknowledge all the work that she has done in this area. It has been hugely valuable. She makes really important points about ensuring that consumers and small businesses are protected, as well as Government Departments and bigger businesses. I am sure that will form part of the lessons learned from this incident, and will feed into the Bill that we will introduce.
Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)
This is my first opportunity to welcome Ministers to their places. I thank the Minister for advance sight of the statement. I want to focus on the impact on the NHS. My thanks, and I am sure those of the entire House, go to all NHS staff who have been scrambling to deal with urgent inquiries from distressed patients.
I wonder if I might press Ministers for assurances on two patient groups who need time-critical care. First, some patients require blood test results before they can commence urgent treatment or have operations. Are there any assurances on the attention that they will be given by the NHS, both now and in any future scenarios? Secondly, there are patients at great risk of becoming extremely ill from getting covid. Since the previous Government scrapped the covid medicines delivery unit, many vulnerable patients have been struggling to get the anti-virals that they need from their GP in time. That situation is made much worse when this kind of disruption happens. Can the hon. Lady provide assurances about any attention that NHS England has given to those two patient cohorts? If not, is she willing to meet me to discuss what we might do in future?
Ellie Reeves
I thank the hon. Member for her question highlighting the issues facing vulnerable patients. I am pleased to report that there was no reported impact on 111 or 999 services, and that patients were able to access emergency care. The majority of the impact on GP services was in accessing patient records, GP appointments and prescriptions. Patients who could not access GP appointments were able to attend urgent care services, and GPs were able to issue paper prescriptions. However, I will pass on the hon. Lady’s concerns to my colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care, because they are incredibly important issues and we need to ensure that vulnerable patients are protected, going forwards.
Pamela Nash (Motherwell, Wishaw and Carluke) (Lab)
May I take this opportunity to welcome you, Madam Deputy Speaker, to your very temporary position, and to welcome my hon. Friend the Minister to her role? Can she give the House any further details of the impact of this outage in Scotland, and what conversations has her Department had with the Scottish Government in recent days?
Ellie Reeves
I welcome my hon. Friend back to the House; it is fantastic to see her, rightly, in her place. I thank her for the points that she raised, which are important and will be taken into account in the review of the lessons learned.
David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)
I congratulate the Minister on her appointment. Does she agree that these events demonstrated that we are very far from being in a position to move to a cashless society? Given that the Chancellor is present, will the Minister confirm that her Government will do everything that they can to support the continued use of cash, which is so important to some of the most vulnerable people in society?
Ellie Reeves
Cash remains the second most commonly used form of payment in the UK, and we remain committed to ensuring that individuals and businesses have access to it. We have committed ourselves to providing 350 banking hubs, so that cash remains available to them.
Mark Ferguson (Gateshead Central and Whickham) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to welcome the Minister to her position, particularly as she is sitting alongside the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I welcome the points made about resilience in public services, but can she assure me that similar efforts are being made to ensure resilience of IT in a defence context?
Ellie Reeves
As I said in answer to an earlier question, as soon as this Government were elected, we took immediate steps to start legislating to better protect all our public services and the third-party services that they use, and the cyber-security and resilience Bill will come before Parliament.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I welcome the Minister to her position. Congratulations are due to her: I understand that she was in charge of the Labour party’s election campaign, so she can take some credit for its success. It is good to see a reward for endeavours, and for hard work. I say to her: well done.
On airlines, as 171 flights were cancelled, some of my constituents were stuck in London and could not get home to Belfast. When it came to banks, some of my constituents who were out shopping found that their credit cards did not work because the system was down. When it came to the health system, the Department of Health in Northern Ireland said that hospital services and about two thirds of GP surgeries faced problems; there had been, for instance, problems getting patients into operating theatres and with accessing staff rosters. The whole system was in absolute chaos.
Does the Minister not agree that the issue has underlined the necessity of ensuring that we are prepared for cyber-breakdown, whether caused by an intentional attack or caused unintentionally? Can she say something about our preparedness for situations such as this, and about our resilience in moving forward from these technological problems, for the benefit of those in all parts of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?
Ellie Reeves
I thank the hon. Member for his kind comments. I am sorry to learn that some of his constituents were unable to secure flights home or GP appointments. In my statement, I spoke about ensuring that we expand our cyber-resilience, put regulators on a stronger footing and obtain a clear picture of cyber-threats and how they can be dealt with, and he raises important points in that regard.
Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)
This was an extremely serious incident that I suspect may well be detectable in the next GDP figures that come out of the Office for National Statistics. I have two questions. The hon. Lady said that she was “pleased to say that Government services, and the online services that the Government provide, were and remain largely unaffected.” Could she tell us which services were affected, or is “largely” just a euphemism for “not affected at all”?
Secondly, it is quite difficult for Members to get a handle on the full impact and spread of this contagion. Will she commit to laying before the House some kind of report detailing the sectors that were affected, how seriously they were affected—including Government systems—and whether and how there will be any resolution in the future? Obviously, we need to report to our constituents that these things are less likely to occur in the future.
Ellie Reeves
I set out the impact that the incident had on, for example, GP services, but things like the emergency services remained unaffected, as far as we are aware. We are learning the lessons from the incident, and I am sure that we will report back once that has been completed.
Mr Joshua Reynolds (Maidenhead) (LD)
Like so many others, GPs in my constituency were affected on Friday, and I thank them for the work they did. Even though patients were not able to get test results and appointments were missed, GPs managed to make sure that people received the best care possible. What assurances can the Minister give me that the lessons learned from Friday will mean that patients can continue to receive care when they need it?
Ellie Reeves
I welcome the hon. Gentleman to the House, and I place on record my thanks to GP surgeries in Maidenhead, which did what they could to make sure that the disruption for patients was at a minimum. We will undertake the lessons learned exercise from this incident; I hope that offers some reassurance to his constituents, as well as the Bill that will be going through Parliament.
Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)
I am aware that the Minister is new to her role, so I will ask her to consider things, rather than to commit to doing things. Will she please consider continuing with the annual statement to Parliament on civil contingencies and risks, which the previous Government committed to? When she looks at the cyber-security and resilience Bill, will she consider assessing whether there is widespread use of certain software or hardware that could cause mass outages in the event that it is affected, as happened with CrowdStrike? I am not aware that we have seen an analysis of that in previous outputs by the Cabinet Office, and it would be incredibly helpful for us to be aware of where those risks are.
Ellie Reeves
I thank the hon. Member for those suggestions. I am very happy to consider the points that she has raised.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Siobhain McDonagh)
I cannot be the only Member who thinks how proud Mr and Mrs Reeves must be today.