Asked by: James Wild (Conservative - North West Norfolk)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether Fujitsu has brought a legal claim against his Department since 2016.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
Fujitsu has not brought a legal claim against the Cabinet Office since 2016.
Asked by: James Wild (Conservative - North West Norfolk)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, with reference to his Department's publication entitled UK Covid-19 Inquiry Management Statement, published in August 2022, what steps he is taking to ensure the Covid-19 public inquiry represents overall value for money.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The UK Covid-19 Inquiry is an independent public inquiry.
In line with the UK Covid-19 Management Statement, the Inquiry’s Accounting Officer must conform to value for money and good financial management requirements and must provide financial updates to the Cabinet Office as its sponsor department.
The Chair is under a statutory obligation to avoid unnecessary costs in the Inquiry’s work and she has been clear that she intends to complete her work as quickly and efficiently as possible.
The Inquiry publishes regular financial updates, the latest from November 2023 can be found at the link here: https://covid19.public-inquiry.uk/documents/uk-covid-19-inquiry-financial-report-for-quarter-2-2023-24/. The total expenditure for the financial year to 31 March 2023 was £22.4m.
Asked by: James Wild (Conservative - North West Norfolk)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether any (a) severance and (b) exit payments have been made to the former Second Permanent Secretary of the Cabinet Office, Sue Gray following her resignation.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
Sue Gray resigned from the Civil Service with effect from 2 March 2023. She was paid for the salary and untaken annual leave she had accrued up to this date. She did not receive any severance payment.
Asked by: James Wild (Conservative - North West Norfolk)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many contingent labour contracts (a) for people with day rates of £1,000 or over, excluding recoverable VAT and (b) durations of 18 months or over his Department has approved in the last five years, by department.
Answered by Michael Ellis
The approval of consultancy and professional services spend of over £500k or 9 months duration by Cabinet Office is subject to central government spending control since October 2021. Prior to this, approval of consultancy and professional services spending of up to £10m was delegated to departments and other central government bodies. As a result, the data requested is not available.
The approval of contingent labour spend for engagements with day rates of £1,000 or over, excluding recoverable VAT and (b) durations of 18 months or over by Cabinet Office is subject to central government spend control since November 2021. Prior to this, spend decisions were fully delegated to departments and therefore no central dataset was collected on this specific spend.
Asked by: James Wild (Conservative - North West Norfolk)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many consultancy and professional services contracts of or over £500,000 in value or at least 9 months in duration his Department has (a) approved and (b) rejected in the last five years, by department; and what the total value of those contracts are.
Answered by Michael Ellis
The approval of consultancy and professional services spend of over £500k or 9 months duration by Cabinet Office is subject to central government spending control since October 2021. Prior to this, approval of consultancy and professional services spending of up to £10m was delegated to departments and other central government bodies. As a result, the data requested is not available.
The approval of contingent labour spend for engagements with day rates of £1,000 or over, excluding recoverable VAT and (b) durations of 18 months or over by Cabinet Office is subject to central government spend control since November 2021. Prior to this, spend decisions were fully delegated to departments and therefore no central dataset was collected on this specific spend.
Asked by: James Wild (Conservative - North West Norfolk)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, what the value of UK (a) goods and (b) services exports to China was in each of the last five years.
Answered by Chloe Smith
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority. I have therefore asked the Authority to respond.
Asked by: James Wild (Conservative - North West Norfolk)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment he has made of the effect of the Supreme Court ruling in R v Adams (Appellant) (Northern Ireland) UKSC 2018/0104 on the Carltona principle set out in the Cabinet Manual.
Answered by Chloe Smith
The Carltona principle is fundamental to the functioning of Government. We are considering the judgment of the Court carefully.
Asked by: James Wild (Conservative - North West Norfolk)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether he plans to bring forward legislative proposals to give statutory effect to the Carltona principle.
Answered by Chloe Smith
The Carltona principle is fundamental to the functioning of Government. We are considering the judgment of the Court carefully.