Asked by: John Spellar (Labour - Warley)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, when he plans to allow weddings and civil partnership ceremonies to recommence.
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: John Spellar (Labour - Warley)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, for what reason the Threats, Hazards, Resilience and Contingency Committee was disbanded.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt - Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons
The body referred to in the Hon. Members' questions was one of a number of sub-Committees of the National Security Council. Since July 2019, the National Security Council itself now consider matters relating to national security, foreign policy, defence, international relations and development, resilience, energy and resource security. This includes oversight of the National Security Risk Assessment. This administrative measure simply reflected a wider consolidation of Cabinet Committee sub-Committees.
Asked by: John Spellar (Labour - Warley)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps he is taking to prevent individuals seeking information from Government Departments being diverted to fee-charging websites.
Answered by Chloe Smith
Government Departments have processes in place to ensure users seeking information from Government Departments are not diverted to fee-charging or misleading websites.
We work to ensure that government information and services are correctly listed and rank highly in search engine results so that they are easy for people to find and identify as government information and services.
We also challenge sites that pay for prominent positioning in search returns, by reporting them to the relevant search provider.
If fee-charging websites are operating outside of legal boundaries, we will pursue site owners through trading standards bodies or legal challenge.
GOV.UK is the government's website and online brand. We take steps to ensure people can rely on it as a trusted source for information.