Oral Answers to Questions

Julia Lopez Excerpts

Wednesday 17th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

3. What steps her Department is taking to help protect the personal data of individuals.

[The Minister for Data and Digital Infrastructure (Julia Lopez)]

The Data Protection and Digital Information Bill before Parliament builds on the high standards that we already have for personal data protection. It strengthens and modernises the regulator so that it can enforce standards must more robustly, to protect people. We are looking at what we can do to strengthen our cyber-resilience and data infrastructure all the time as new technology develops.

[Bob Blackman]

I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. It is clearly vital that the enormous amounts of personal data collected by Departments and private companies are safeguarded. I have received a number of complaints about people’s personal data being abused by companies, and indeed about public sector data being sold to companies who then use it. Just this weekend, our Greater London Authority candidate had his phone hacked and his social media destroyed. That is equally important as a demonstration of what can happen to democracy when data is abused. Will my hon. Friend take further action to safeguard people’s personal data?

[Julia Lopez]

I thank my hon. Friend for highlighting that case. I regret what has happened to the GLA candidate, which highlights some of the risks in relation to technology. That is why we have high data protection standards, but there is a range of ways in which we need to tackle this problem. We have the national cyber strategy, which is working to ensure that we can deal with the cyber-threats we face. We are taking measures to protect our data infrastructure and trying to do things to stop fraud in the national “Stop! Think Fraud” strategy, as well as new laws on security of devices, such as connected devices. We need to do a whole range of things, but we need to keep making sure that we are vigilant about the risks.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

When my 91-year-old mother died, I took on her landline for purely sentimental reasons. For months and months after that, I kept getting scam calls offering all sorts of dodgy products. Does the Minister agree that the elderly almost more than anyone else must have their personal data protected?

[Julia Lopez]

I am sorry to hear of that experience, which I am afraid is shared by constituents across the country. That is why we have taken new measures in the data Bill to try to deal with scam calls by trying to ensure that we can see where those numbers are and take action by blocking them on bulk. I appreciate what the hon. Member said; it is something that we must tackle.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)]

We are told that this is the general election year. In other countries, we already see those who want to manipulate democracy using AI to scrape together personal details, including someone’s face and voice, allowing them to falsify candidates’ views. What the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) raised about the GLA candidate is pertinent. As we quickly approach the second half of the year—when we are told the Prime Minister will finally call the election—will the Government commit to ensuring that personal details are protected for candidates, voters and, above all, democracy as a matter of urgency?

[Julia Lopez]

We absolutely share those concerns. That is why we have a defending democracy taskforce working across every Department to look at the threats to our democracy. We face a substantial threat, and it is one that we must all be mindful of in how we conduct ourselves as candidates. AI, fakes and the protection of data is one element of that, but I assure the House that we are taking a whole range of measures to ensure that the protection of the coming general election is robust.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

Individuals’ personal data is not safe in Tory hands. A recent article in The Guardian reported that senior Tory party officials planned to make millions from selling off their own members’ data through the “True Blue” app. If the Tory party is happy to sell off its own members’ personal data, how can the public possibly have confidence that their data is safe under the Government?

[Julia Lopez]

The allegations that the hon. Lady has put forward were written in The Guardian, and I have not seen them myself. I am presiding over the data Bill, and I have seen no evidence to suggest that we are trying to bring forward laws that would do such a thing.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

5. What steps her Department is taking to implement the Online Safety Act 2023.

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Jupp]

A fast and reliable internet connection is vital for everyday life and so many local businesses. I conducted a broadband survey in East Devon, which showed that some rural parts of my constituency sadly still lag behind, such as Sidbury, Fluxton, Marsh Green and Talaton. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that broadband providers improve connections across our county?

[The Minister for Data and Digital Infrastructure (Julia Lopez)]

I am glad to say that over 75% of premises in my hon. Friend’s constituency can access gigabit-capable broadband. That is up from 6% in 2019, but we want to do more, so we have included mid and east Devon in our cross-regional framework for Project Gigabit. That is currently undertaking pre-procurement market engagement. We hope to give him news very soon.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

T7. Following the confidence and supply agreement with the previous Government, Northern Ireland should have virtually 100% access to fibre broadband, which is a first in any of these islands. Does the Minister agree that Northern Ireland and other regions in the UK should take full advantage of that broadband access to maximise employment opportunities across these islands?

[Julia Lopez]

Absolutely. The hon. Gentleman is right about the importance of gigabit broadband to the economy. I am very glad to say that 95% of Northern Ireland has that access—the highest percentage in the country. That is a tribute to the work done between central Government and the Northern Ireland Assembly.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

T4. Why should people living in rural areas be second-class citizens when it comes to mobile phone coverage?

[Julia Lopez]

We agree; that is why we have the shared rural network programme, which is dealing with a lot of those notspot problems.

[Kim Johnson (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab)]

Black students studying science, technology, engineering and maths subjects are leaving education in great numbers. What is the Minister doing to identify the challenges and help the progression of black students in STEM subjects?

Oral Answers to Questions

Julia Lopez Excerpts

Wednesday 21st February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Atherton (Wrexham) (Con)]

9. What steps her Department is taking to improve rural connectivity.

[The Minister for Media, Tourism and Creative Industries (Julia Lopez)]

We have made huge progress in connecting the countryside. In 2019 only 6% of premises had gigabit-capable broadband; now it is 80%, and the UK is building gigabit networks faster than any country in the EU. This month we launched another six Project Gigabit contracts to connect another 690,000 rural homes. The shared rural networks are tackling mobile notspots and we have satellite trials for the very hardest to reach.

[Rachel Maclean]

I am grateful to the Minister for all the work that her Department is doing, but my constituents in Inkberrow have contacted me because they are really concerned that the infrastructure for their much-needed broadband is being put in using poles in the street rather than underground as they were promised. We must upgrade our infrastructure, but we must not damage our beautiful countryside in the process, so what can she do to support my constituents in Inkberrow to ensure that this much-needed infrastructure is buried underground?

[Julia Lopez]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising this point, and I agree that we want to build underground where possible. It is important that she is advocating on behalf of her constituents, because we have had issues relating to poles. We encourage sharing, but that is not always happening. It seems to be an issue in particular pockets of the country, and we are talking to Ofcom about this to see what more we can do.

[Trudy Harrison]

It is brilliant to hear about all of this progress. What assessment has the Minister made of the value for money cap in connecting the hardest-to-reach households and businesses, of which I have many in my very rural, incredibly beautiful but sparsely populated constituency?

[Julia Lopez]

My hon. Friend’s constituency has very low gigabit connectivity, partly because its geography makes connections very expensive. That is why we launched one of our very first contracts in Cumbria. Some 15,000 premises are going to be connected across Copeland, and we are trying to stretch the contract as far as it will go. For premises that will not be reached, we will look at other technologies so that we can get to them as quickly as possible.

[Dr James Davies]

I work closely with Philip Burrows, Denbighshire’s excellent digital officer. He tells me that Openreach can still impose significant excess charges to connect properties that are declared enabled for fibre. In those instances, people are unable to claim via the gigabit voucher scheme. Will my hon. Friend outline what steps she is taking to address this matter?

[Julia Lopez]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising the experience of Mr Burrows, who sounds like a very experienced officer. I would like to hear a bit more detail, because it sounds like the properties he cites have access to a fibre connection and would not be eligible for a voucher. I would like to know a bit more about the excess charges so that we can deal with any problems.

[Sarah Atherton]

Rossett, outside Wrexham, has little to no connectivity, despite the Ofcom checker predicting that it has a good signal. This significantly limits residents’ lives. Ofcom acknowledges that it is a prediction, but Building Digital UK says that, because the Government rely on this prediction, there is little chance of Rossett receiving any benefit from the shared rural network programme. What would the Minister advise my residents to do?

[Julia Lopez]

My hon. Friend highlights the challenge I have had in answering this question. The mobile connectivity figures I have for her constituency are extremely high. This highlights the issue we have with Ofcom’s reporting maps, which are simply not good enough. We have consistently raised this with Ofcom, and we hope to make progress.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

There has been significant improvement in rural broadband connectivity in Northern Ireland as a result of our agreement with the previous Government. Will the Minister take steps to ensure that small businesses in rural areas across the country can further develop themselves by maximising this advantage?

[Julia Lopez]

The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight the fantastic connectivity in Northern Ireland. In fact, I think it has some of the very best connectivity in the entire country. I will look into any spots that are still not covered, and I will happily get back to him.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Minister for that answer. Will she outline how rural businesses can ensure that they have superfast broadband to secure their viability in an increasingly online market?

[Julia Lopez]

I thank the hon. Gentleman, but his businesses no longer want superfast. They want gigabit speeds and, thankfully, Northern Ireland has tremendous gigabit speeds. If there are any issues, particularly with access for small businesses, I am happy to look into them.

[Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)]

Devon County Council is spending its broadband clawback money on anything but broadband. That £7.8 million was intended for improving broadband in rural areas, including in villages such as Northleigh. Residents have encountered numerous pledges on poles, but they still do not have full fibre. Does the Minister think the clawback funding for broadband should have been ringfenced by Devon County Council?

[Julia Lopez]

These issues have been highlighted many times by Conservative Members from Devon. We thought we had worked through some of those challenges. The clawback challenge that the hon. Gentleman highlights has not previously been raised with me, and I will happily look into it for him.

[Sir Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Some 4.8 million people live in rural 5G notspots; rural areas are seven times more likely to have broadband speeds worse than those at base camp at Everest; one in five poorer homes have no internet to the home at all; and cardiac arrest phones and medical monitors still rely on analogue telephony. [Interruption.] Why are this Government such an abject failure?

[Sir Chris Bryant]

Let us just stick with the punchline, shall we? Why are this Government such an abject failure?

[Julia Lopez]

I know that the hon. Gentleman loves to stick the boot in, but he has chosen the wrong subject here. In 2019, there was 6% gigabit coverage, whereas the figure now is 80%. This is a massive infrastructure project, and it is one of the biggest successes that we have, so he has chosen the wrong thing to be snipey about.

[Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)]

5. What steps her Department is taking to support research and development in medical technology.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

T2. Recently, after some storms, residents in Hanbury and other rural parts of my constituency were without broadband for three weeks. The problem was fixed only when I, the local MP, got involved. What can the Minister do to make sure that these providers restore services much more quickly? Three weeks is a completely unacceptable delay.

[The Minister for Media, Tourism and Creative Industries (Julia Lopez)]

I am sorry to hear of the problems that my hon. Friend’s constituents experienced. Telecommunications companies are under certain obligations to Ofcom to keep networks up and running. We are testing those resilience measures. Thankfully, gigabit broadband is a much more resilient network which, has withstood floods in York recently for example, but we hope to be able to have a much more resilient network in future.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

T3. The area between Cockshutt and Welshampton in my constituency is one of the many total notspots in North Shropshire. Can the Minister update us on the progress she is making on total notspots? Will she meet me to discuss the progress of the shared rural network in North Shropshire?

[Julia Lopez]

I thank the hon. Lady for raising the issue of total and partial notspots. Our amazing shared rural network programme has £500 million from industry and £500 million from Government. We are going through all of those coverage areas that are shown wanting, and we hope to make progress in her own constituency.

[Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)]

T5. During recess, I took part in a cross-party Inter-Parliamentary Union delegation to the UN summit on conflict and security. One of the seminars was about AI security. I know the UK held the first ever summit on AI safety, with 28 countries coming together to put forward guidelines. What update do we have on bringing more countries on board to ensure that AI can be explored safely?

Oral Answers to Questions

Julia Lopez Excerpts

Wednesday 10th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)]

9. What steps her Department is taking to improve rural connectivity.

[The Minister for Data and Digital Infrastructure (Julia Lopez)]

Great digital connectivity is now absolutely vital to people’s life chances and we do not want rural areas to be left behind. That is why we are putting £2 billion into gigabit, so that it is in every corner of the country. We are putting cash into satellites for the hardest to reach bits. We have a plan for mobile operators to get much more phone coverage. The best bit, of course, is that we have a new rural connectivity champion, in my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (Simon Fell), to get the countryside connected.

[Eddie Hughes]

I am delighted to hear everything the Minister has to say, but what further advice can she give to a colleague keen to champion specific rural communities facing challenges with poor digital connectivity?

[Julia Lopez]

First, I want to reassure my hon. Friend that a lot of work is being done on gigabit and mobile reception for rural areas. There is a regional procurement under way that covers his constituency and a neighbouring one, but I also recommend that constituents elect great MPs who can hold me and Building Digital UK to account in the surgeries we hold in Parliament—they already have such an MP in him. He is clearly doing something right, because Walsall North has 92% gigabit-capable coverage, compared with a national average of 79%. All I would say to Tamworth is: take note.

[Mark Menzies]

My hon. Friend will be aware of the difficulty in securing a Project Gigabit contract for Lancashire. Once signed, a contract will help isolated premises and rural communities get a much-needed superfast connection. Last month, I spoke with BDUK about progress on the procurement process. What steps is she taking to ensure that timescales do not slip and that we can see installation under way for the second half of this year, as currently planned?

[Julia Lopez]

I thank my hon. Friend for holding me to account and I very much share his sense of urgency. His constituency has 86% gigabit-capable coverage, so it is above the average, but none the less I understand the frustration that people have when their premises are not covered. I reassure him that I raised this matter with BDUK yesterday. I want to get going as fast as possible. We expect that procurement to be sorted in the summer.

[David Duguid]

I welcome my hon. Friend back to her place. She will know what is coming, based on the multiple conversations that she and I, and various digital Ministers over the years, have had on the woeful delivery of rural broadband in Scotland, which is the responsibility of the Scottish Government. The Reaching 100% scheme was supposed to bring faster internet to 60,000 properties across the north and north-east by the end of 2021, but so far it has delivered only a little over 9,000, with over 50,000 still to go and zero R100 North contract delivery in the Banffshire and Buchan Coast constituency. Since my hon. Friend has returned to her post, what discussions has she had with the Scottish Government about dealing with the pause implemented on BDUK and Scottish Government—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I call the Minister.

[Julia Lopez]

I appreciate my hon. Friend’s work in this area. He is a tremendous champion for his constituency. He will be aware that I spoke to the Scottish Government before I went on maternity leave. I asked for an update on that work yesterday when I spoke to BDUK. I understand that progress is being made. I am anxious to get that sorted because Scotland is missing out and falling behind other parts of the UK. That is not good enough and I want to help him to do everything he can to get this moving.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

I have raised with the Minister over and over again the subject of the village of Bryncethin in my constituency, where three streets still do not have connectivity. BT Broadband has now come in to do the work, which it says it will complete in 2026. That is just not acceptable. Will the Minister point out to BT Broadband again that the position needs to be rectified quickly, and that the work on those three streets should not take two years?

[Julia Lopez]

As the hon. Gentleman will know, things are changing in Wales because the Welsh Government are starting to take some of the contracts in-house. That work is under way, but I am happy to look into that specific issue with Openreach on his behalf, because I appreciate the frustration felt by his constituents. Those Welsh Government contracts are being taken in-house because we think we will be better placed to deliver them.

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

When it comes to rural connectivity, nothing can be more important than connectivity for the emergency services. Does the Minister agree that it is a disgrace that the emergency services network upgrade programme is seven years late and now has a budget of more than £11 billion, which is nearly 10 times its original budget?

[Julia Lopez]

The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight the vital importance of ensuring that the emergency services network is up and running and that it is robust, particularly in rural areas. I am not aware of the specific issues in his constituency—I am happy to look into them—but as far as I am aware, the programme is on track.

[Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)]

The shared rural network is key to improving mobile coverage in rural areas, but the maps showing the partial notspots certainly do not reflect the lived experience of my constituents. What will the Minister do to improve the data that companies use for deciding where to put their improved services?

[Julia Lopez]

That is an important issue, and we have raised it with Ofcom because we share the hon. Lady’s concern that the data is not good enough and is not being reflected in constituents’ actual experiences. I am very alive to this problem and want it to be put right.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

5. What steps her Department is taking to support innovation in the technology sector.

Merthyr Tydfil: City Status

Julia Lopez Excerpts

Wednesday 15th September 2021 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Julia Lopez)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I congratulate the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones) on securing this debate, and on making a beautiful and compelling speech about a place he clearly feels a very deep connection with and passion for. I also thank him for his work to promote the idea of a city for the valleys. He is a great champion for his constituency, and I know that communities in Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney have long been supporters of royal events and occasions.

I am very pleased to hear that Merthyr Tydfil is considering putting in an application for the honour of city status. I know that the hon. Member launched the campaign earlier this month and that it has widespread support in his community—a key criterion in the competition. The Government look forward to receiving applications, not just from Merthyr but from all parts of the UK. I am delighted to say that, for the first time, the city status competition will also be open to applications from the Crown dependencies and overseas territories.

I found Merthyr Tydfil’s motto, often translated from Welsh as “Not Force but Fellowship”, a fitting description of the spirit of this competition. Yes, towns and cities will be competing for prestigious honours in this competition, but there is also an important opportunity for towns such as Merthyr to showcase their history, and for communities to rally their sense of civic pride—so ably described by the hon. Member in his compelling speech. It is a town that just keeps giving. Merthyr Tydfil’s achievements are not confined to forging the iron and digging the coal that powered the industrial revolution, or its role in the age of steam. They continue to this day, whether that is in the college that he talked about, or the town’s role in the Welsh tourism and cultural scene. Indeed, in this age of celebrity, Merthyr Tydfil’s achievements include the production of reality stars such as Liam Reardon, who, I understand, won this year’s “Love Island.” I wonder whether the hon. Member would consider as part of his application a twinning bid with my constituency borough of Havering, because Millie Court, the other winner of “Love Island”, is from there.

I will speak a little more broadly about the civic honours competition, and some of the Government’s other plans for next year’s very special platinum jubilee. However, let me begin by saying something about the history of city status. As the hon. Member is aware, it is a rare distinction. It is one of the civic honours granted by Her Majesty the Queen, under the royal prerogative, on the advice of her Ministers. Although the honour does not come with any additional funding, functions or powers, as the hon. Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones) described, its rarity and prestige makes it something that continues to be much sought offer when the opportunity arises.

There are 69 cities in the UK: 51 in England, seven in Scotland, six in Wales and five in Northern Ireland. The process of how a town can become a city has evolved considerably over time, as the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney recognised when he talked about cathedrals. Historically, city status was directly linked to the presence of a cathedral, stemming from the reign of King Henry VIII who, following the Reformation, re-founded former monastic cathedrals as bishoprics, giving many of them city status. This led to the precedent of the right of the monarch to grant such a status. As the hon. Member has noted, the presence of a cathedral is no longer a requirement, nor is there a population threshold below which an application cannot succeed. I hope he can provide those facts to the detractors on social media.

By the middle of the 19th century it was established that awards of city status should be made by letters patent; these were issued with the consent of the monarch, on the advice of the Home Secretary. A further convention developed in the 20th century, whereby the award of city status and other civic honours was open to competition. Indeed, since the 1970s there have been five such competitions, with the platinum jubilee competition marking the sixth. With the exception of the competition held to mark the millennium, all competitions were held to mark the anniversary of Her Majesty the Queen’s accession to the throne. I am delighted that next year we have another opportunity to celebrate.

Let me turn to the civic honours competition that was launched by the Government earlier this year, in celebration of Her Majesty’s platinum jubilee. We have already heard about the opportunity to be awarded city status, but the competition is also open for local authorities to apply for a grant of the civic honours of a lord mayoralty or a lord provostship. The competition, which closes on 8 December 2021, provides local authorities with a once-in-a-decade opportunity to enter and make the case for why their area deserves to be granted one of these rare honours. I hope that this debate is just the start of the speeches that will come from hon. Members who grasp the opportunity presented for their town. As part of the applications process, the Government are asking to hear about a number of factors, including what gives a place a distinct identity—I think that the hon. Member can tick that box—details about its record of innovation, its civic pride and cultural infrastructure, and any associations with royalty. The full details are set out in the entry guidelines, along with the application form, on gov.uk.

This is a fantastic opportunity for local authorities to showcase and celebrate their area’s culture, heritage and identity, and I entirely understand the hon. Member’s endeavour to secure city status for Merthyr Tydfil. As well as the town and the broader area’s association with royalty over the years, which he set out so clearly in his speech, I know that Merthyr has a lot to celebrate in terms of its record of innovation, as the cradle of the industrial revolution. I pay tribute to its mayor for coming today, because that signals the commitment of the area to that history and to Merthyr’s future as an exciting place in the UK.

As the hon. Member noted so proudly in his maiden speech in Parliament, Merthyr Tydfil was home to the largest ironworks in the world in the mid-19th century and at one point was the source of 40% of Britain’s iron exports. I know that there is a lot more to say about the town, which he has fittingly described today, and I wish him and his town the very best of luck with their application.

I will conclude by saying a little about some of the wider plans that we have for the platinum jubilee, because I know that communities across the UK are already thinking about it and are very excited about the chance to honour our monarch. As everybody will be aware, Her Majesty the Queen will become the first British monarch to celebrate a platinum jubilee; it is something that I think we should all mark. I understand that work is also under way to mark the occasion in Parliament itself.

Earlier in the summer, the royal household announced its exciting programme for next year’s extended bank holiday to mark Her Majesty’s jubilee. The plans mix ceremonial splendour and pageantry with cutting-edge artistic displays, and include the traditional nationwide fanfare and celebrations. The plans for the weekend include a chance on the Sunday for communities across the UK to come together with street parties or the Big Jubilee Lunch.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is co-ordinating the production of a platinum jubilee medal, which will be given to frontline public servants in the armed forces, the emergency services and the Prison Service. The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is leading the Queen’s green canopy project, which is a unique tree-planting initiative, so that people from across the UK can plant a tree for the jubilee and play their part in creating a lasting legacy, in addition to the very exciting civic honours competition. That is just a flavour of the plans for the platinum jubilee, but more announcements will be made in the coming months as momentum grows.

I will finish by thanking the hon. Member again for securing the debate and other hon. Members for their contributions to it. As I say, I hope that this is the first of many speeches from hon. Members who grasp the opportunity that the competition provides for their local area. The Government look forward to receiving applications not just from Merthyr but from other eligible places and to announcing the winners, hopefully early next year.

Question put and agreed to.

Debt and Fraud Powers: Statutory Review

Julia Lopez Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2021 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Julia Lopez)]

My noble Friend the Minister of State for Efficiency and Transformation (Lord Agnew of Oulton) has today made the following written statement:

The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Julia Lopez), and I are announcing the statutory review of chapters 3 and 4 of the Digital Economy Act 2017. Chapters 3 and 4 provide legal gateways which enable specified public authorities (and persons providing services to public authorities) to disclose information for the purposes of reducing debt owed to the public sector and combating fraud against the public sector respectively.

Cabinet Office Ministers are under a legal duty to review the operation of both chapters as soon as is reasonably practicable after the end of three years beginning with the day on which the chapters came into force (1 May 2018) for the purposes of deciding whether they should be amended, repealed or retained in their current form.

To commence that review, we are today publishing the criteria by reference to which that determination will be made, in accordance with sections 53 and 61 of the Act. Those criteria are set out below.

To determine if the debt and fraud powers of the Digital Economy Act 2017 should be amended, repealed or retained in their current form, the following criteria will be used:

a) What has been achieved in the three years since commencement and how has the risk of fraud and debt changed?

b) Have the powers been effective in managing and reducing debt owed to the public sector and in combating fraud against the public sector?

c) What positive and negative impacts (including societal impacts) have the DEA powers had? Due to their different characteristics, separate criteria will be used for fraud and debt:

 i) For debt: have the powers led to improved management and recovery of debt owed to Government authorities, increased fairness and better approaches to vulnerable debtors among such authorities and sustainable business-as-usual processes which allow recovered money to flow into the public purse?

 ii) For fraud: have the powers led to improved identification, prevention and recovery of fraud committed against Government authorities and sustainable business-as-usual processes which allow the prevention of fraud and recovered money to flow into the public purse?

d) Have the powers contributed to the effective delivery of Government policy, helped support manifesto pledges and supported the maintenance of the integrity of the Union and devolved Administrations?

e) Have the powers enhanced the willingness of public authorities to engage with and utilise data-sharing powers, reduced or created burdens for public authorities and/or given rise to any privacy concerns (such as in relation to reductions in privacy or the misuse of data)?

(f) Are there changes that can be made that would improve the effectiveness of the debt and fraud powers’ operations?

As part of this review, the Cabinet Office will include a consultation to obtain the views of all interested parties.

A copy of the review criteria is being placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

[HCWS214]

Cabinet Office

Julia Lopez Excerpts

Monday 12th July 2021 Ministerial Corrections

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

It is clear that nothing is clear about the way this Government are procuring goods and services with public money, and it is these dodgy deals that anger my constituents who play by the rules while government fails to. Following the National Audit Office report and the Boardman review’s recommendations on process and practice, process in governance, and conflict of interest and bias, what progress has the Minister made in implementing those recommendations? Will she publish an update on the Government’s actions and place it in the House of Commons Library? In auditing these contracts, will she ensure that they have fulfilled what they promised to do?

[Julia Lopez]

Yes, I believe that the Public Accounts Committee will be updated on the second Boardman report in July. With regard to the first Boardman report on communications contracts, we are working through all the recommendations. I believe we are up to 20 of 24, but we will endeavour to complete that process by the end of the year.

[Official Report, 29 June 2021, Vol. 698, c. 133.]

Letter from the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend/the hon. Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Julia Lopez).

An error has been identified in my response to a question from the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell).

The correct response should have been:

[Julia Lopez]

Yes, I believe that the Public Accounts Committee will be updated on the second Boardman report in July. With regard to the first Boardman report on communications contracts, we are working through all the recommendations. I believe we are up to 24 to 28, but we will endeavour to complete that process by the end of the year.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julia Lopez Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

What steps the Government are taking to improve (a) skills and (b) training within the civil service.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Julia Lopez) [V]]

As we set out in the declaration on Government reform last month, we are deeply committed to investing in training across the whole civil service, as we have to do better at providing public servants with the skills they need to serve others and tackle future challenges. Our new Government Skills and Curriculum Unit is in the process of establishing a campus for Government skills and will be focusing on creating a cross-civil service induction, a data masterclass for senior civil servants and transforming the fast stream so that it remains among the best graduate schemes in the world.

[Bob Blackman [V]]

Clearly, there is a time and a place for employing contractors and other consultants, but does my hon. Friend agree that alongside that we have to provide better training for civil servants and better recruitment of individuals with the skills that are needed by the civil service so that they can be retained within the civil service as a preference to its spending considerable sums of money on outside consultants and communication firms?

[Julia Lopez]

I thank my hon. Friend for his important and incisive question. The civil service, as he acknowledges, has historically used contractors to provide specialist skills and to manage short-term requirements. We really want to drive that down by improving our own capability. We are developing a pipeline of secondments into major organisations through a new secondments unit. We are building an in-house consultancy, we are creating a civilian reserve, and we are working with the Civil Service Commission to review how we attract entrants with specific high-demand skills, particularly scientists and engineers.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

What steps the Government are taking to implement their levelling-up agenda.

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[Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)]

What steps his Department is taking to increase transparency in the service delivery of public bodies.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Julia Lopez) [V]]

Accounting officer system statements already set out which public bodies a Department is responsible for, and their spending is set out in each Department’s annual report and accounts. Public bodies data is also published in the public bodies directory. The recent declaration on Government reform reasserts our commitment to transparency in government. The declaration includes specific commitments on public bodies, including increasing the effectiveness of departmental sponsorship of arm’s length bodies.

[Neale Hanvey]

As legislators, we have an important and indeed necessary relationship with upholding the spirit and the letter of the law. However, in my experience hon. Members seem more likely to be sacked for their attempts to uphold such a principle. What message does the continued opacity, prevarication and law-breaking of this Government’s most senior Ministers and advisers give to our children, public bodies and industry, or does the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster simply have no shame over his own unlawful conduct?

[Julia Lopez]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I appreciate your comments on language in this House. I am afraid I disagree with the hon. Member’s characterisation of this Government. As the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has already set out, there is a nuanced judgment from the Public First case in particular which does not agree with the way the hon. Member has characterised how the Government conduct themselves.

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

It would appear that my lack of donations to the Conservative party makes my chances of becoming a Government non-executive director rather slim, but my question to the Minister today is this: how many non-executive directors currently in post on those Government Department boards to scrutinise Ministers were appointed by Ministers? Will the Minister commit to overhauling that current system for appointing non-executive directors, so that these roles stop just being cushy jobs for friends of Ministers who are being paid over £1,000 a day each of taxpayers’ money?

[Julia Lopez]

I can speak for the Cabinet Office non-executive directors. We have a fantastic team that is drawn from across party political affiliations. She will be aware that we have Baroness Stuart, who is a former Labour Member. We also have people with no political affiliation whatever, including people such as Anand Aithal. We have Henry de Zoete, and we have Lord Hogan-Howe, who is a former Metropolitan Police Commissioner. They were appointed because of their merit, not because of their party political affiliation.

[Fleur Anderson]

I think that made my point for me, thank you.

Last month, an Information Tribunal said that there is

“a profound lack of transparency about the operation”

of the freedom of information clearing house. Can the Minister confirm categorically that every single freedom of information request received has been treated in exactly the same way, with no different approach for certain journalists or campaigners?

[Julia Lopez]

I can confirm that we treat those information requests on a case-by-case basis, and the background of who is asking is not a criterion for how we treat that request.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

Which Minister is responsible for authorising the installation of CCTV cameras in ministerial offices; and who receives notification of the installation of those cameras.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Julia Lopez) [V]]

The UK spends £290 billion on public procurement each year. Now that we have left the EU transition period we want to make it simpler, quicker and cheaper for small and medium-sized enterprises and social enterprises to bid for Government contracts, as set out in our ambitious procurement Green Paper. We have already introduced a policy that will allow below-threshold contracts to be reserved for smaller UK suppliers, and we hope that our new approach to social value will secure wider public benefit, allowing us to contract with firms that deliver more apprenticeships, local growth opportunities and environmental benefits.

[Henry Smith [V]]

Many companies in Crawley and across the UK have been forced to adapt because of the covid-19 pandemic. Does my hon. Friend agree that they should have greater opportunity and access to bidding for Government contracts over outside competition?

[Julia Lopez]

I agree with my hon. Friend. We want a much greater variety of companies, including those in Crawley, to deliver Government contracts from every corner of our country, not just because it benefits local economies and communities but because it helps us to diversify our risk, create a more resilient supply base and deliver some of our critical priorities. We are going to be requiring contracts to be divided into smaller lots, publishing contract pipelines more transparently, and improving our guidance to small businesses that are looking to bid.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

What recent assessment he has made of the potential effect of the introduction of voter ID on levels of enfranchisement.

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[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

What recent assessment his Department has made of the (a) viability and (b) value for money of the Verify scheme.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Julia Lopez) [V]]

Verify continues to work well and it supports 18 services. More than 8 million Verify accounts have been created, with over 2.6 million added since the start of the pandemic as citizens access critical online services. Building on the lessons and experience of Verify, and as we announced in last year’s spending review, the Government Digital Service is collaborating with other Departments to develop a new login and identity assurance system that will make it much easier for more people to use online services safely. While the new system is being developed, users and connected services will continue to rely on gov.uk Verify, so that means that the Government have decided to extend the current service until April 2022.

[Daniel Zeichner]

It has actually been a shambles—a huge waste of public money, an absolute Conservative failure. In the light of the recent report from the so-called regulatory reform taskforce sponsored by No. 10, which recommends reducing the protections for citizens under the GDPR, will the Minister assure the House that there will be no use of personal data for any purpose other than that which it has been explicitly given?

[Julia Lopez]

How we use citizens’ data is going to be absolutely critical to building trust in the new system that we are building. That new system will reuse parts of Verify, but we must have an open conversation about what we will do to protect people’s data. There will not be any data lakes, for instance, and we will be building a new Government data exchange that will look at these areas very carefully, because, as I say, any new system has to be based on trust between Government and citizen, and that will be key to its success.

[Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

If he will take steps to help ensure the enforcement of the ministerial code.

Emergency Covid Contracts

Julia Lopez Excerpts

Tuesday 29th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office if he will make a statement on the Government’s use of emergency covid contracts.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Julia Lopez)]

Urgent questions are appearing like buses for me this week.

I am grateful for the chance to address the House about the Government’s use of emergency covid contracts. I have previously responded to debates on this issue with as much detail and candour as I have been able to provide as someone who came to this brief last June and who has tried subsequently to understand what happened in the early months of the pandemic.

The right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) will know that all corners of our country have worked together to tackle covid. The public have all too often seen division between different regional authorities but, in truth, close collaboration with the devolved Administrations has been at the heart of our pandemic response, enabling swift policy action such as the roll-out of the vaccine programme UK-wide, the furlough scheme and a rapid increase in testing capacity.

At the beginning of the pandemic, over 13 million items of personal protective equipment were distributed to the devolved Administrations. Throughout the pandemic, the UK Government and the devolved Administrations have worked side by side on sourcing and supply of PPE such as FFP3 masks, and they continue to work together on meeting future demands on frontline staff. The existing procurement rules rightly allow the Government to procure at speed at times of emergency under the Public Contracts Regulations 2015. The rules predate covid-19, and there was no need for suspension or relaxation in order for them to be used. None the less, I understand and welcome questions that right hon. and hon. Members have about covid contracts, because how we spend taxpayers’ money matters very deeply to public trust.

It is true to say that the Government faced a number of challenges at the height of the pandemic, and we should be open about those. It is incumbent on all of us to understand not only the kinds of pressures that were on the system, but some of the shortcomings that desperately need to be addressed. That being the case, the Government are already adapting their commercial guidance and work. Following the first, independent Boardman review of procurement processes, looking at a small number of contracts in the Government Communication Service, 24 out of 28 recommendations have already been implemented, and the remainder will be met by the end of the calendar year. Following the second, wider Boardman review, which looked at PPE, ventilators, test and trace, vaccines and food parcels across Government, 28 further recommended improvements were identified, and progress on those is under way. Our Green Paper on transforming public procurement also sets out proposals to update the rules on procuring in times of extreme emergency or crisis.

Let me also briefly address the issue of Government polling during the pandemic. The Government regularly undertake research to support policy development, which includes work related to the impact of covid in areas across the UK. It is the sign of a responsible Government to understand the public’s views on how best to keep people safe to recover from the pandemic and to ensure that we will continue to deliver for all parts of the United Kingdom.

[Mr Speaker]

I call Ian Blackford, who has got two minutes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Blackford]

This morning I have written to the Cabinet Secretary urging him to launch an independent investigation into this blatant misuse of public money for political purposes. So finally, if this UK Government have nothing to hide, will the Minister join me in supporting that investigation by the Cabinet Secretary, and will she co-operate with it?

[Julia Lopez]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his questions, and I will try to address them with facts, not party political allegation. First, if I may, I would like to provide some context to the direct award of the Public First contract for communications during the pandemic. In March 2020, there was no vaccine, no test and trace, and very little knowledge of how to best manage this novel disease. Strong messaging of the kind that could alter behaviours was, at the outset of the pandemic, one of the few tools in our arsenal in the battle against transmission. It was in this context that rapid decisions were made on comms contracts, including a decision that was challenged in court recently.

Public First was taken on, alongside BritainThinks, as one of only two companies in the market deemed to have the scale, expertise and experience to provide focus group testing in March last year. Both were rapidly diverted from existing work to take a snapshot of public reaction, and that allowed us to test things such as the contain strategy, the early “Stop The Spread” campaign and the “Stay Home” message, alongside an understanding of how best to tailor messages to different audiences across the UK. These key communications campaigns were seen on television and social media, and I am sure we will all be familiar with them.

Ministers had no personal involvement in the decision to award this contract, and they do not, of course, personally approve contract awards. This contract did not relate to constitutional campaigning, and any suggestion that the Government carry out party political research is entirely false.

[Ian Blackford]

That’s a lie!

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am trying to listen. Minister, carry on.

[Julia Lopez]

The Government regularly conduct research in every part of the UK to support policy development. In this case, we were testing public attitudes relating to the covid-19 pandemic. This became particularly relevant as different regions of the UK began to diverge in their approach to tackling covid, and that created understandable confusion.

Focus groups, which were conducted by Public First but commissioned by the national resilience communications hub, looked at attitudes towards the virus, upcoming recovery and the wider context in which to interpret the results, and the results were shared with relevant policy and communications teams. They were involved in developing and delivering covid policy and communications across the devolved Administrations, enabling them to differentiate their content and messages as appropriate. We do not plan to publish the full results of the polling and focus groups that have been used to inform ongoing policy formulation. However, we regularly review all the data we collect, and we intend to publish the elements that are not sensitive in due course.

Separately, the Cabinet Office carries out polling on attitudes towards the Union on a regular basis, but this work was paused during the coronavirus crisis. We are aware that the Scottish Government also conducted polling on attitudes in relation to covid. We did not see this research, nor would we expect to. The Secretary of State for Scotland has already addressed some of the questions that the right hon. Gentleman has raised online on his Twitter account.

Finally, to return to the judgment on Public First at the recent court hearing, that judgment found in favour of the Government on two grounds, which were emergency award and contract terms, including length. It was recognised that

“everyone involved was acting under immense pressure and the urgency of the…crisis did not allow time for reflection. The time constraints justified…derogation from the usual procedures required under PCR 2015. But they did not exonerate the Defendant from conducting the procurement so as to demonstrate a fair and impartial process of selection.”

We have already recognised that there was an issue of process, where we could do much better. That is why we investigated what had happened to prepare for the court case. We launched an internal independent review—the subsequent Boardman review—which is published in full online. We have taken forward its recommendations in full, and have nearly delivered all of them. A steering group, chaired by our chief financial officer, has been tracking implementation.

I hope that the right hon. Gentleman feels reassured by my answers. I look forward to continued collaboration with the Scottish Government to the benefit of citizens across our Union.

[Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)]

Against unprecedented global demand for vital equipment, the UK Government secured over 32 billion items of PPE, including for our devolved Administrations. Also against the odds, and against the desire of some on the Opposition Benches who wished to remain in the EU vaccine programme, the UK again successfully secured a world-leading programme. The marketing budget for the vaccine programme was just 0.07% of the budget. Sensibly, it included work to ensure that messaging had the maximum impact in all parts of the United Kingdom to save as many lives as possible. This was rightly done at pace, and should this not be celebrated, rather than be used as a party political point-scoring urgent question by the Opposition SNP?

[Mr Speaker]

I think there is a question there!

[Julia Lopez]

I thank my hon. Friend for pointing out just how fantastic the co-operation has been between all parts of our United Kingdom. The UK Government have provided huge support to the Scottish Government and other devolved Administrations—that comes in testing capacity; we have helped with PPE; we have obviously helped with the furlough scheme—and, as he says, that should be celebrated, not denigrated.

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

I think it is worth reiterating that the Government have been found to have acted unlawfully over the contract with Public First. Their attitude is that the rules do not apply to them. Given that the judge found apparent bias, surely this must now be referred to the independent adviser and the Cabinet Secretary. What are they scared of?

I know all too well, on the point made by the hon. Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden), the need to secure PPE for our frontline NHS and social care workers, but while nurses were working in bin bags, others were filling their pockets at the taxpayer’s expense. The Minister quoted the National Audit Office, but the Comptroller and Auditor General said that the evidence shows that

“standards of transparency…were not consistently met”.

Perhaps the Minister can explain today why the National Audit Office found that PestFix, for example, was wrongly added to the high priority lane and awarded over £300 million after a shareholder reminded a senior official that he was a friend of his father-in-law.

The Minister claimed that a full eight-stage process always took place, but the NAO found over 70 contracts awarded before that process even existed. Can she confirm that Ayanda Capital was placed on the VIP list without that process, thanks to an adviser to the International Trade Secretary? Officials admitted that due diligence had not been carried out on Ayanda, and the bar seems to have been lowered in that case.

Mr Speaker, £150 million was spent on entirely useless PPE, so can the Minister confirm how much equipment bought this way was not fit for use? We already know that over £10 billion has been awarded without a competitive tender—for example, the £100 million given to Pharmaceuticals Direct Ltd after lobbying by the Home Secretary, with millions apparently ending up in the hands of her close associate, the “broker” to the deal. Will the Home Secretary be referred to the independent adviser—and if not, why not?

Yesterday, the Minister accepted that private emails were used by other Ministers in the process of awarding contracts, but the Prime Minister’s official spokesperson denied it. Will the Minister ensure that the record is now corrected?

Finally, the Minister promised that all such emails are covered by freedom of information. We have submitted such a request, but how will the former and current Health Ministers be prevented from permanently deleting the emails first? I urge her to refer the whole issue to the Information Commissioner. Surely she can see why only an independent process can restore trust. If Ministers want to be taken seriously by the public, then, quite frankly, they need to stop taking the hit and miss.

[Julia Lopez]

I have listened over this past year to the criticisms and attacks made by the Opposition and campaign groups on covid contracts, and I take them very seriously. That is why I took the time, when I assumed my role after maternity leave, to understand what happened. I do not think anyone is standing here suggesting that everything went smoothly during the height of pandemic. It did not. A whole series of challenges were faced and shortcomings highlighted. I have now twice set out in some detail the problems that have been described to me, and I have set out what we are doing to resolve them.

Let me go through some of them in relation to PPE. Some 450 people from across Government were moved into the Department of Health and Social Care to become a stand-up virtual team to assist with securing PPE. That team is normally only 21 people strong. That meant a lot of people who did not know each other working remotely on a range of different IT systems, with suppliers they did not know, on product they were not familiar with, in the most highly pressured market of their careers. That has led to lags in contract publication, as paperwork has been very tricky to join up across systems.

Faced with exceptional global demand, the usual vendors in China, which service the central procurement function, very quickly ran out of supply, and the world descended on a few factories in that country to bid for available items. It was in that market context that the Government had to procure with extreme urgency. That was often through direct award of contracts. If we did not do that, we risked missing out on vital supplies. We never ripped up procurement rules. It was a situation of genuine crisis and extreme urgency, where offers had to be accepted or rejected in a matter of hours or days, and it was simply not viable to run the usual procurement timescales.

The effort to secure PPE was herculean and involved setting up a new logistics network from scratch. I have explained in Parliament on a number of occasions that the VIP fast-track lane that has been touted often by the Opposition, was actually a mailbox set up by officials during the height of the pandemic to consider some of the 15,000 offers of assistance to supply PPE. In the early months, leads were coming in a lot faster than they could be processed. When they were rejected, or if they were delayed, people started chasing them through their MPs or through Ministers. To manage that influx of offers, a separate mailbox was set up to handle this area of work and sift credible offers.

I addressed yesterday concerns about private email use and the rules governing it. Government guidance is that official devices, email accounts and comms applications should be used for communicating classified information, but that other forms of electronic communication may be used in the course of conducting Government business. Each Minister is responsible for ensuring that Government information is handled in a secure way. We also set out that where business is conducted on non-official IT, relevant information should be recorded on Government systems, but we are keeping the guidance under review to ensure that it is up to date.

The most important thing to note, as the right hon. Lady does, is that all PPE offers, no matter where they came from, went through the same eight-stage checks. The PPE team compared prices with those obtained in the previous two weeks, to benchmark the competitiveness of those offers. Separate approval and additional justification were required for any offers not within 25% of the average that were considered for possible approval. It is also important to note that of the 493 offers that went through the priority mailbox, I understand that only 47 were taken forward—in other words, 90% were rejected.

There have been judicial reviews in respect of some of those contracts. The case relating to the Department of Health and Social Care looked not at the awarding of contracts, but at the delays in publishing their details. Health Ministers have always been clear that transparency is vital, and the court found that there was no deliberate policy to delay publication. In the judicial review relating to Public First, the court recognised

“that everyone involved was acting under immense pressure and the urgency of the…crisis did not allow time for reflection. The time constraints justified the…derogation from the usual procedures required under PCR 2015. But they did not exonerate the Defendant”—

us—

“from conducting the procurement so as to demonstrate a fair and impartial process of selection.”

We recognised very quickly that there was an issue of process where we could do much better. That is why we investigated what happened to prepare for that court case and launched an internal review into the contracts that were undertaken. Public First has cross-party directors and, as I mentioned, we already have a programme of work in the two Boardman reviews.

I appreciate that throughout the pandemic the Opposition have wanted to raised questions about the contracts. I hope that I can address them as best I can. If there are any questions that the right hon. Lady feels I have not covered, I will come back to her on them.

[Fay Jones (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)]

With nothing better to do, the Opposition continue to sensationalise the details surrounding a handful of high-value contracts that were subject to the emergency procurement procedures at the outset of the pandemic. Can my hon. Friend confirm that the Government are committed to transparency surrounding the use of taxpayers’ money and that all new contracts over £10,000 are published online for anybody who wishes to see them?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Can I just say that it is my decision to grant a UQ? You are now questioning my judgment, and I am not going to have my judgment questioned.

The other thing to say is that I do feel sorry for the Minister being set up. I am sorry that Minister Gove was not here to take some of the questions, because most of them are named for him, but this House will not be taken for granted. When statements continue to be made outside the House, I will continue to grant UQs, so let’s get used to it. If the Government do not want to come here, I will ensure that they are heard here.

[Julia Lopez]

Thank you, Mr Speaker; I appreciate your zeal and I think you are right.

I thank my hon. Friend for her question. We have tried throughout to be transparent, but I have set out some of the very good reasons why it has been difficult sometimes to publish the contracts in a timely way. This has been a very complex process where we have had to surge teams at very short notice and go back through all the paperwork, looking across different IT systems across different Departments. That has been a challenge that I have tried to address, as has the Department of Health and Social Care. My understanding is that all PPE contracts are now transparently published. We are working through them all in relation to comms and have a programme of work under way to make sure that we have transparent publication. I completely agree that it is important that we offer reassurances to the public on how taxpayers’ funds are used.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

The Government were able to award contracts using their high priority lane because this House gave them the power to do so. We did it, effectively, on trust. Will the Minister now repay the trust that this House placed in the Government by publishing the details not just of the contracts that were put through that high priority lane, but of those who introduced the contractors to the Government, the basis on which it was thought appropriate to put them through the high-priority lane and the economic outcomes of those decisions?

[Julia Lopez]

I thank the right hon. Member for his inquiries. As I say, 47 went through the high-priority lane, and discussions are under way on the extent to which we can be transparent about that because of commercial sensitivities. However, as I said, all PPE contracts have now been transparently published.

[Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)]

Our vaccine programme is a fantastic example of how the best of the British science industry and Government have worked together to tackle the virus. Does my hon. Friend agree that without the expertise, willingness to take risk and innovation of our private sector, the success of the vaccine programme would not have been possible?

[Julia Lopez]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. He is quite right to point out that we absolutely need commercial expertise in times of pandemic and any similar crises that may come along. As we look at how we can do things better on procurement in the future, we must guard against crowding out external expertise and taking an overly cautious approach to risk. While I absolutely accept that there are questions to be asked after the event, the priority in times of crisis must always be delivering on the ground, and that is what we have always sought to do.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome the Minister’s tone in coming to the House in that she has acknowledged that mistakes were made and that the Cabinet Office has accepted both Boardman reviews and the National Audit Office’s recommendations on procurement. However, we are in a whole different ball game when members of her Cabinet are having private email exchanges and neither we nor officials know what is in them. She says that the Cabinet Office is reviewing guidance. Is it not time that she just said, “This must stop,” because nobody—not the National Audit Office or officials—can see what is in those conversations, and that is a very real concern for the taxpayer?

[Julia Lopez]

I thank the hon. Lady, who has done tremendous work through the Public Accounts Committee in scrutinising this area. Sometimes I think she has been leading the opposition—not the Opposition—on this. It is important that we focus on where we had problems and the very genuine concerns that need to be addressed. She raises matters in relation to emails. I cannot comment on email conversations that I have not seen.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

That’s the point.

[Julia Lopez]

But those are relevant only when officials are asked to take any action, and that is the point at which official process and procedure come into play. I know the hon. Lady does not want to listen to this, but that is why the eight-stage process that officials undertook is so important; that is the aspect that should reassure the public that there are procedures that ensure that taxpayers’ money is spent correctly.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

Normal contract procedures for PPE take months to navigate—months that patients and staff simply did not have last year—so criticising the Government for abbreviating procedures to save time and lives seems a poor use of hindsight. Is my hon. Friend aware that exactly the same decision to abbreviate processes in the name of speed was taken by Labour in Wales and by the SNP in Scotland, the only difference being that the SNP wanted to suspend freedom of information requests at the same time?

[Julia Lopez]

My hon. Friend is right that the devolved Administrations also use regulation 32 to procure in an emergency. It is important to note that the Government are dissatisfied with the procedures at our disposal. That is why, in our procurement Green Paper, we are looking at what measures we can take to procure with greater transparency and success in times of crisis to give us a better option between a full-fat procurement, which takes too long, or a direct award, which raises concerns about transparency.

[Mr Speaker]

Let us go to Liz Saville Roberts.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC) [V]]

Diolch yn fawr, Llefarydd. Let us call this out for what it is: a gross misuse of public money. The shady deal to award a half-a-million-pound covid contract to Ministers’ friends at Public First is yet another example of Tories putting Tory interests first. Given that focus groups were held in Wales, did the Secretary of State for Wales consent to the decision to use the Public First contract for political research purposes?

[Julia Lopez]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her question. As I said, we do not use public money for political campaigning purposes.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) on securing the urgent question.

The Minister seems to be auditioning for the role of Minister for the Cabinet Office; I do not know whether he has been kidnapped but he does not seem to be about at the moment—but my hon. Friend is doing very well. Is this urgent question not an opportunity to highlight the fact that if the Government had not used emergency powers, we would not have established the world-leading vaccination programmes, which have saved not just hundreds of thousands but probably millions of lives across the globe? They used the emergency powers to develop the vaccine programme, rather than go through the red tape and bureaucracy that the European Union did and did not develop a programme.

[Julia Lopez]

I assure my hon. Friend that I am not auditioning for that position; the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has not been kidnapped. He is in Scotland, as part of our efforts to make sure that we are less Whitehall-centric as a government—we have offices now in Glasgow.

My hon. Friend is right about the importance of being able to take sensible risks that save lives in times of crisis, which is what we did in a number of these areas, and that was the right decision to make.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

The question is not about the emergency use of funds to buy lifesaving vaccines and equipment; it is about the deliberate misappropriation of those funds for political canvassing purposes—it cannot be disguised as anything more than that. It is noticeable that none of the fake outrage from Conservative Members has attempted to address that question as yet.

If the Minister is so concerned about knowing what Scotland’s attitude to the Union is, may I point her to the biggest opinion survey ever conducted in Scotland? In May, the people of Scotland voted by a majority for pro-independence parties. The Scottish Parliament has a pro-independence majority yet again. Does she accept that that is a proper demonstration of the will of the people of Scotland to be rid of this corrupt Union, once and for all?

[Julia Lopez]

There was a proper demonstration of the will of the Scottish people when they had their referendum on Scottish independence and made their views clear. Interestingly, Scottish National party Members never seem to accept that.

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that this was not a PPE contract; it was a contract about communications and the important role they played in managing the pandemic at a time when we did not have the vaccine, the testing capacity that we wanted or other measures that we needed to tackle the pandemic. Communications, in this context, were extremely important in making sure the public understood the behaviours they needed adopt to keep themselves safe.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Ministers are not actually in charge of checking contracts—the civil service is. Does my hon. Friend agree that any contract, whether urgent or not, always requires due diligence by the civil service, even after the decision, and that that happens within every Department? I find accusations of cronyism to be normally very wrong indeed—does she agree?

--- Later in debate ---

[Julia Lopez]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his question, and I do agree. As I set out, there are a number of assurances the public should take from the way in which contracts are managed and handled; these things are quite separate from Ministers, which should provide the public with the comfort they want.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

It is clear that nothing is clear about the way this Government are procuring goods and services with public money, and it is these dodgy deals that anger my constituents who play by the rules while government fails to. Following the National Audit Office report and the Boardman review’s recommendations on process and practice, process in governance, and conflict of interest and bias, what progress has the Minister made in implementing those recommendations? Will she publish an update on the Government’s actions and place it in the House of Commons Library? In auditing these contracts, will she ensure that they have fulfilled what they promised to do?

[Julia Lopez]

Yes, I believe that the Public Accounts Committee will be updated on the second Boardman report in July. With regard to the first Boardman report on communications contracts, we are working through all the recommendations. I believe we are up to 20 of 24, but we will endeavour to complete that process by the end of the year.[Official Report, 12 July 2021, Vol. 699, c. 2MC.]

[Mark Fletcher (Bolsover) (Con)]

From the onset of the pandemic, the contracts we have signed have allowed us to procure billions of items of PPE and secure vital lifesaving equipment at a time of unprecedented global demand. Does my hon. Friend agree that if we had dithered and delayed, if we had not explored every possible opportunity, and if we had not tried to take advantage of every olive branch that was offered, the public would never have forgiven us and the Opposition would be sitting here today saying exactly the opposite: that we did not act quickly enough?

[Julia Lopez]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. I believe that the Opposition asked us to strain every sinew at the time of the pandemic, and that is what we did.

[Amy Callaghan (East Dunbartonshire) (SNP) [V]]

Can the Minister clarify the exact total of taxpayers’ money abhorrently used to conduct political research throughout the pandemic?

[Julia Lopez]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. There was no money used on political campaigning.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con) [V]]

I thank my hon. Friend for the answers she has given thus far. At the start of the pandemic, we were competing across the world for the supply of PPE and other lifesaving equipment and for developing vaccines. It is quite clear that the Government had to make instant decisions on that procurement, competing against other nations. The key now is learning the lessons that come from that process, so will she undertake to ensure that there is a full review of the emergency procedures that may be needed, in case there is another pandemic or a requirement for us to set aside normal procurement rules?

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[Julia Lopez]

My hon. Friend is quite right to set out some of the challenges we faced at the height of the pandemic. When it comes to procuring PPE, for instance, we were competing with every other country in the world for PPE from just a few factories in China, and that was extremely difficult. Frankly, if we had dithered and delayed, we would not have secured the supplies we needed. In terms of learning the lessons that he wishes us to learn, I can assure him that we are already doing that. That is why we conducted the Boardman 1 and 2 reviews, and the National Audit Office has looked over these matters in fine detail. The public inquiry into covid will begin next spring.

[Zarah Sultana (Coventry South) (Lab)]

It has been revealed that a handful of Conservative party donors who gave the party £8.2 million have won Government covid contracts worth £881 million. It was also recently revealed that just three days after a Conservative billionaire donor was made a Lord—with the Prime Minister overruling his own appointments watchdog to push that decision through—the donor gave the party half a million pounds. What does the Minister say to my constituents who ask why the pandemic has meant growing poverty for them, while for Tory donors it has been an opportunity to line their pockets through dodgy deals?

[Julia Lopez]

I thank the hon. Lady for her concerns, and I wish to assure her that a link to the Conservative party was not one of the criteria that needed to be fulfilled when those PPE contracts were being undertaken.

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab) [V]]

The National Audit Office report on PPE procurement made it clear that there was a lack of transparency in the documentation relating to key procurement decisions. We now know about the routine use of private emails to conduct Government business, which raises the question of whether the NAO could not find all the documentation because it was hidden away in private email accounts. Can the Minister now give us an assurance that all relevant private emails were handed over to the NAO as part of its investigations? If she cannot give us that assurance, can she ensure that all those private emails will now be passed over to the NAO?

[Julia Lopez]

In relation to the challenges we faced in trying to transparently publish all the contracts, I have set out some of the reasons for them. It was partly because a team of 450 people had to be surged across Government, and they were all working on different IT systems. Going back and trying to look at all the documentation relating to PPE has been a real challenge, and those challenges have been acknowledged in the various court cases that have been brought. I wish to assure the hon. Gentleman with regard to the emails that, in so far as freedom of information requests are made, they will be looked at in the relevant way.

[Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)]

Every week, SNP Members come to this House with the sole focus of tearing our country apart, while every week this Government are focused on delivering on the British people’s priorities and building back better from the pandemic. Does the Minister agree that if the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) wants to use this time to explore conspiracy theories, he should instead go and look for the Loch Ness monster?

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[Julia Lopez]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question about the Loch Ness monster whose existence I can neither confirm nor deny. He is right to highlight the fantastic ways in which our Union has worked together during the pandemic, whether that be on vaccine procurement, on the schemes that have been run out by the Treasury, or on some of the testing capacity that we have provided. We should not overlook the fantastic Union story that we have seen during this pandemic.

[Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP) [V]]

It is absolutely gobsmacking that, in the middle of a pandemic, Tory Ministers secretly redirected funds from an emergency covid contract to carry out political polling to benefit the Conservative party and its Unionist cause. Following the humiliation of the High Court case, will the Minister now commit to a full public inquiry into this gross misuse of public money? Does she take any responsibility for this failure and will she apologise for it?

[Julia Lopez]

As I have set out on numerous occasions this afternoon, that was not political campaigning; it was important work that was being undertaken as part of our response to the pandemic.

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

The Opposition parties are accusing the Government of corruption—of deliberate and systematic corruption. They are claiming that Ministers used the biggest peacetime challenge that this country has ever faced for the simple purpose of enriching a few distantly connected contacts. As my right hon. Friend the Paymaster General put it in answering the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) a few weeks ago, this is an absurd charge. It is simply unbelievable. Everybody knows it; we know it, they know it and the public know it. It is a conspiracy theory on the level of the anti-vax campaign. Will my hon. Friend join me in thanking the businesses that stepped up to supply the NHS with what it needed rather than smearing them?

[Julia Lopez]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to point out the importance of what business achieved with the Government in relation to the pandemic. Some fantastic commercial expertise has been brought into Government. One thing we want to do is to set up a secondments unit to make sure that we can get that private sector expertise into Government when it is needed. There are also number of other initiatives, such as civilian reserves, that can be used so that we can get that expertise as and when we need it in times of crisis.

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

Mr Speaker, here is how it works. Lord Bethell, the Under-Secretary of State for Health, held a private undeclared meeting with Abingdon Health, which then won a £85 million contract. Andrew Feldman, the former chair of the Tory party, became an unpaid adviser to Lord Bethell and he managed to lobby and get a client a PPE contract for £23 million. We have had David Cameron, the former Prime Minister, lobbying the Government direct. We know that the Minister for the Cabinet Office was found in court to have acted unlawfully with apparent bias with regards to an award to Public First. That is why we need a full proper inquiry not just into the awarding of contracts, but into the lobbying that goes on in the background for companies that have no track record in delivering the kinds of contracts that were awarded.

[Julia Lopez]

I set out the reasons for the court case and what the judgment actually said, rather than what the hon. Gentleman is implying that it said. It was in relation to some procedural issues that we have addressed via the Boardman recommendations.

[Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that what the people of this country want to see is all politicians coming together to get this country back on its feet, rather than the party political squabbling around PPE contracts that were absolutely necessary and needed at speed to save lives? Let us put people first.

[Julia Lopez]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As I have already said in this Chamber, tremendous work has been done with every corner of the UK and every devolved Administration, whether that is the vaccine programme, the furlough scheme or the rapid increase in testing capacity.

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con) [V]]

Has the Minister read the allegations made by Dominic Cummings that Ministers and officials would take procurement decisions and then subsequently a meeting would be arranged to pretend to retake them and go through the paperwork properly? Can she confirm that such behaviour would be completely unacceptable and that any investigation is taking place to determine whether these allegations are true?

[Julia Lopez]

I am afraid that I do not know in relation to the private meetings that Dominic Cummings had when he was in Government, but I know that he has set out concerns about our response to procurement in relation to getting the wrong answers after the event. I think he is concerned about whether we then create too much process around important decisions that need to be made in the heat of the moment, and he is right to set out those concerns. We need to make sure that our Green Paper on procurement makes us have better decision-making processes in times of crisis that can be properly scrutinised.

[Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba) [V]]

Last week at the Dispatch Box, the Under-Secretary of State for International Trade, the hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena), bragged that the Government were

“unleashing the potential of our whole country”—

countries—

“by backing British industry”—[Official Report, 21 June 2021; Vol. 697, c. 672-673.]

He derided China for “trade-distorting practices” and dismissed trade deals with China. That all sounds good, except it is just not true. Today in a covid briefing, the Government’s position on the US Food and Drug Agency judgment that the Innova tests were deadly was that it is down to an overreliance on the manufacturer’s data, and that the tests are being tested at Porton Down to disprove the Chinese manufacturer’s own data that they are unsafe. All the while, the UK diagnostic industry across the countries of the UK have been utterly betrayed. Can the Minister tell me: why are this Government using trade-distorting practices to prop up discredited Innova lateral flow devices made on the cheap in China but at massive expense to the UK? Why are UK diagnostic contracts and the hundreds of jobs that Lord Bethell—

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[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman may shake his head or his hands, but he ought to realise that Members have the right to be heard, and not just him for the length of time that he thinks is appropriate; I will make the decision on that.

[Julia Lopez]

I am enjoying your zest today, Mr Speaker.

The hon. Gentleman raised with me the importance of onshore manufacturing capacity in Westminster Hall last week. I have asked for a briefing on the issue and shall get back to him, because he raised an important issue about the extent to which we have key manufacturing capacity in this country. Project Defend in the Department for International Trade aims to ensure that we have the capacity that we need.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Minister and the Government for their massive and positive response to covid-19, and for a vaccine roll-out that is second to none. Has the Minister made an assessment of the sustainability of the Government’s use of emergency covid-19 contracts with large firms, and will she confirm whether the contracts have been beneficial to the UK, given the potential and alleged anomalies that occurred at their procurement?

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[Julia Lopez]

The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight how fantastically the devolved Administrations have worked with central Government on some of the critical issues that have faced us during the pandemic. He raised the issue of large firms. One hope in our procurement Green Paper is that our procurement reforms will make it much easier for small and medium-sized enterprises to bid for key Government contracts.

[Angela Rayner]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. In the last 24 hours, we have had two urgent questions; the Minister for the Cabinet Office has not appeared, although the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Julia Lopez), has done her best. In the last hour, we have heard media reports that No. 10 has confirmed that Lord Bethell used his private email address in regard to procurement. I seek your advice as to how we get clarity on this matter, because there have been misleading reports over the last 24 hours. How can we get an independent inquiry so that we actually get to the facts of the case?

Security of Ministers’ Offices and Communications

Julia Lopez Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office if he will make a statement on security arrangements relating to ministerial offices and communications.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Julia Lopez)]

I appreciate your comments, Mr Speaker, about matters in relation to the House. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) for his question and for the chance to address concerns felt across the House about the security of ministerial offices and communications. These are concerns that the Government also take very seriously.

As has been the practice of successive Administrations, the Government do not generally comment on internal security matters. On the specific incident relating to the leak of footage from a security camera to the media, given the public interest in the case I can confirm that the Department of Health and Social Care has launched an investigation that is supported, as appropriate, by the Government security group based in the Cabinet Office. Until the investigation is complete, it would be inappropriate to give further details. I am sorry to hon. Members who will understandably be seeking a lot of details on this matter. It is the case, however, that robust safeguards are in place around the security of Ministers, parliamentarians and Members of devolved legislatures.

My hon. Friend may also want to ask about ministerial communications, which I am happy to go into. Government guidance is that official devices, email accounts and communications applications should be used for communicating classified information. Other forms of electronic communication may be used in the course of conducting Government business, but each Minister is responsible for ensuring that Government information is handled in a secure way. How that is done will depend on the type of information and on the specific circumstances.

[Mr Bone]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting the urgent question and for your comments. I thank the Minister for her response, but it seems to me that the revelations over the weekend that the Secretary of State for Health’s personal office had recording devices in it should be of national concern. If Government and parliamentary offices have recording devices in them—whether audio, visual or both—it is of the utmost concern. Since the disclosure, several Cabinet Ministers have gone on the record to say that they had no knowledge that their offices might be subject to surveillance.

It is totally unacceptable for private conversations between Ministers, civil servants, Members of Parliament and members of the public to be secretly recorded. It also brings into question whether the Wilson doctrine has been broken. Since the premiership of Harold Wilson, it has been a long-standing rule that secret recordings of Members of Parliament by the police, security services or state are outlawed, so I have a number of questions for the Minister on which I hope she will be able to be a little more forthcoming.

First, do the offices of Ministers or Members of Parliament have recording devices in them? If so, who authorised them? Who has access to the recordings? What is the purpose of the recordings? How long are they kept? Has the Wilson doctrine been broken? Are there currently any Members of Parliament under surveillance by the police, intelligence agencies or the state? What measures are taken to ensure that there are no illicit recording devices in ministerial and parliamentary offices? Are they routinely swept for those devices?

[Mr Speaker]

Before you answer that, Minister, I should say that you have no responsibility for the House. That is a responsibility of the House that I am looking into, but everything else is fair game.

[Julia Lopez]

I appreciate that clarification, Mr Speaker, which is important.

I wish to assure my hon. Friend that we do endorse the Wilson doctrine, and I agree that it is unacceptable should there be any secret recordings within Government offices. My understanding in this case is that this was a CCTV camera operated by the Department of Health and Social Care, which is why it is being investigated by that Department. We do not believe that there are covert concerns at this moment, but there is an ongoing investigation into this, which, unfortunately, we are going to have to be patient on and wait for the details of. But once that investigation has been completed, notwithstanding the security concerns, we will want to provide him with reassurances on a number of the extremely important questions that he has raised.

My hon. Friend also asked about the extent to which offices are regularly swept. There is an organisation called UK NACE—UK National Authority for Counter Eavesdropping. It is the Government lead for counter-eavesdropping and this includes the technical manipulation of protective security systems, including CCTV. This is an area where it works very closely with the Government Security Group. My understanding is that it takes a risk-based assessment when it comes to sweeping, so in Departments where there are particular security sensitivities and concerns, those sweeps are taking place on a relatively regular basis, but Departments are accountable for the way in which their security is maintained within the Departments. The Cabinet Office plays a supporting role through the Government Security Group, setting out standards to which Departments are expected to adhere.

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) on securing this urgent question, and I thank the Minister for her opening comments regarding CCTV and the limitations, but, given how little we currently seem to know, will she come back to the House when she does have some answers regarding this?

Incredibly, this is not even the biggest scandal of the day when it comes to ministerial security and communications, and the Minister alluded to this comments. This morning, a Government spokesperson claimed that all Ministers only conduct Government business through their departmental email addresses yet I have, right here, the minutes of a departmental meeting in which senior civil servants report Government contracts being approved from a Minister’s private email address. Who is telling the truth? It is a pity that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster could not be here in person, given his personal experience of the perils of using his private emails to conduct ministerial business and to try and avoid freedom of information laws.

And it goes well beyond one Department. Last week, the Cabinet Office refused to answer my questions about the Prime Minister’s mobile phone. Today, it has been reported that he, too, will not deny using private email addresses. Can the Minister now say from the Dispatch Box, categorically and on the record, that no Minister or Prime Minister has used, or does use, private email for Government business, especially when it involves spending public money?

This morning, the Justice Secretary agreed that private email was a huge security issue. He admitted that this revelation does raise legitimate questions. On this, he is right. Now it is time to answer those questions. Will those involved refer themselves to the Information Commissioner so that a genuinely independent investigation can take place? If any Ministers have used private email for Government business, what action will be taken and what will be done to prevent it from happening again? What steps have been and will be taken to preserve private emails as evidence for the public inquiry into the Government’s mishandling of the covid pandemic?

Our country faces daily threats from hostile foreign states that have already, for example, hacked the private email account of the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox). What advice have the Government taken on the security of Ministers’ private email accounts? What does it say about this Government that they will launch an inquiry into leaks of CCTV but not into their own Ministers?

[Julia Lopez]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her important questions, which I will seek to answer. It is important to understand that Government guidance is that official devices, email accounts and communications applications should be used for communicating classified information. Other forms of electronic communication may be used in the course of conducting Government business. Each Minister is responsible for ensuring that Government information is handled in a secure way, but how that is done will depend on the type of information and on the specific circumstances.

The right hon. Lady asked about the procurement of personal protective equipment, I believe, or a covid contract that was conducted allegedly via a private email address. I am happy to look into that. But there needs to be understanding of the fact that when we were at the height of the pandemic, a huge volume of correspondence was coming to Ministers via their personal email addresses, their parliamentary email addresses and their ministerial email addresses.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

That’s all right, then!

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[Julia Lopez]

I am not suggesting that there is something we should not be looking into. My point is that—[Interruption.] Perhaps the hon. Gentleman could wait for me to finish. Some 15,000 offers of help to secure PPE came in following the Prime Minister’s call for assistance. Obviously people wanted to respond to that call, and then we needed to manage the sheer volume of correspondence. The important thing to note is that when PPE offers did come in, they went through the same eight-stage process, so no matter which way those things were communicated, they went through the same process, and that should provide assurance.

Insofar as there are questions to answer, I want to assure the right hon. Lady that we have conducted a number of internal and external inquiries into this matter. There is the Boardman investigation into contracts and there was a National Audit Office investigation into contracts, so I assure her that this matter has already been looked into. She is absolutely right to ask questions and I am absolutely right to reassure her.

I would add that there have been a number of debates on covid contracts in this House, one of which took place in Westminster Hall. I was on maternity leave at the time of the pandemic. I shared the right hon. Lady’s concerns and wanted to understand what had happened, so I responded to a debate in Westminster Hall on those questions and I set out very candidly some of the concerns and challenges that we faced at the height of the pandemic. A number of hon. Members engaged in that debate and asked very legitimate questions to which I responded to the best of my ability. I am not aware that the right hon. Lady has ever engaged in any of those debates. If she wishes to generate a lot of hue and cry over this, that is understandable from a political point of view, but it is my duty to set out the challenges we faced and the ways we are addressing some of the concerns.

[Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for coming to the Dispatch Box to answer the urgent question from my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone). As she will know, the Wilson doctrine covers deliberate surveillance, so what safeguards are there for whistleblowers who may inadvertently discover material that is in the public interest?

[Julia Lopez]

It is important that a distinction is made between material that was inappropriately sourced and then leaked and people who are trying to raise legitimate concerns that require public transparency. I shall look into the concern that my hon. Friend has raised to make sure that there is no blurring of those two very important and distinct issues.

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

I will follow your strictures precisely, Mr Speaker—all my questions are about ministerial offices.

Was the former Health Secretary aware, and indeed, was the security officer in his Department aware, of the CCTV camera in his office? Is the Minister aware of similar CCTV cameras in any other ministerial office? Who installs such systems in Ministries and who monitors them and has access to their feeds? Do they record video only or is it sound and vision? Given that there were reports of this footage being touted on Instagram for some time, is it true that staff from private companies manage those systems and monitor the footage? If it is true, who is responsible for vetting, and what is the process for vetting, such staff?

Finally, and most importantly, how confident is the Minister that others—states and non-state actors who would do us harm—have not already compromised other staff or gained direct access to some of these CCTV feeds?

[Julia Lopez]

Those legitimate concerns will be raised and, I hope, addressed through the Department of Health and Social Care investigation. As I say, the Cabinet Office is there to set the standards, on which we have regular correspondence and engagement with Departments.

The hon. Gentleman raised a number of points—who installs such machines and so on—that we need to look into via the Department of Health and Social Care investigation. My understanding is that it was a CCTV camera, not a covert device. There are obviously questions to answer about the way in which civil servants are vetted—they do go through stringent vetting processes—and in respect of a risk-based approach as to which Departments need to be more regularly swept. I hope that some of the answers that the hon. Gentleman seeks will be answered by the Department of Health and Social Care investigation into this matter.

[Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)]

During a pandemic, the position of Secretary of State for Health and Social Care is one of the most safety-critical roles. People should have been able to have the frankest of conversations with him regarding the nation’s health without fear of being recorded. Throughout this awful crisis there have been a number of leaks, with the most notable being the one before the second lockdown in November last year. Will the Minister assure the House that, along with cameras, ministerial offices should not have microphones hidden in them, and that any review of security will ensure that all ministerial offices are checked for them regularly?

[Julia Lopez]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising an important point. As I have said, sweeps are conducted across Departments. Ultimately, the permanent secretaries of Departments are accountable for security within them, but the Cabinet Office sets out clear guidance and continues to liaise with Departments about how that is adhered to. My hon. Friend raises an important point about covert devices, and we all seek the same reassurances as him on these matters.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

Crikey, Mr Speaker—who would be a Minister on a day like today?

I do not want to go into the detail of what happened on the day in question, but it occurs to me that the security camera—I think we are accepting that it was a security camera—must surely to goodness have been pretty covert. I know where the security cameras are in my local high street where I live in the highlands. The more we go into this matter, the odder it gets. The public deserve an absolutely open explanation as to what has happened. If the cameras are covert, or semi-covert, why are they? Why does a Secretary of State not know, on a need-to-know basis, about this sort of thing and where the cameras are?

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[Julia Lopez]

My understanding is that the camera was not covert, but, as I say, the Department of Health and Social Care is conducting an investigation and that will answer some of these questions.

[David Johnston (Wantage) (Con)]

There is currently a lot of speculation in the newspapers about the implications in respect of foreign powers using these sorts of surveillance tools. Will my hon. Friend confirm that at this stage there is no reason to believe that foreign powers have been involved in respect of this particular camera at the Department of Health and Social Care but that the investigation will look at whether there is any connection?

[Julia Lopez]

My understanding is that there have been some reports about whether there is anything to be concerned about in relation to covert surveillance; I think some of that is just speculation. I am afraid I cannot comment on security matters, as my hon. Friend will understand, but I assure him that all these questions are being asked within Government to make sure that we have watertight systems.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP) [V]]

I accept the need for external CCTV coverage to ascertain entry and exit, but have any checks been made to establish whether any other internal offices, where Ministers, MPs or staff could be monitored, have a device installed covertly? Has the country of origin of the device used in this instance been established?

[Julia Lopez]

I speak on behalf of the Cabinet Office. I asked questions about my own office today and received assurances, and I imagine that Ministers across the Government estate will be asking the same. As I say, the Department of Health and Social Care has launched its own investigation and will be accountable for that.

[Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)]

The leaking of footage from inside private ministerial offices raises two important questions. Why had a camera been installed? If it had been done legitimately, how did the footage come into the public domain? Will my hon. Friend confirm that the matter will be investigated with the urgency it requires?

[Julia Lopez]

I can provide my hon. Friend with those assurances, as I have provided them to the House this afternoon.

[Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab) [V]]

The Minister did not give a straightforward answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), so I will ask her again: is she confirming that Ministers did use private email addresses to approve contracts and that the Department of Health and Social Care therefore misled the public in its statement denying categorically that that happened? Given just how serious this is, will she agree to refer it to the Information Commissioner so that there is an independent investigation, not another Government whitewash?

[Julia Lopez]

My understanding is that it is not within the Minister’s power to approve contracts—that goes through the approval of civil servants. I would like to offer the hon. Lady that assurance, but I am happy to look into the particular incident she highlights further if there are concerns that need to be looked into.

[Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)]

Ministers will often need to discuss matters of the highest confidential nature and see highly confidential documents, so does the Minister agree that Ministers should be able to make such decisions in the British interest, without any fear or favour?

[Julia Lopez]

I quite agree with my hon. Friend. In the decisions we take throughout this pandemic to tighten the system to ensure that there are no concerns, such as those expressed by hon. Members, it is important that we do not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Ministers should have the space to make important national decisions.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con) [V]]

Does the Minister know whether there are rules common to all Departments on where security cameras can be sited and where they must not be sited?

[Julia Lopez]

My understanding is that the general policy is that cameras are not sited within Ministers’ offices. I think this situation was an outlier in that regard, and we will have a better understanding of why it occurred once the Department’s investigation is complete.

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab) [V]]

The shadow Secretary of State asked the Minister directly whether any Minister or the Prime Minister used private emails to conduct Government business, and in response the Minister basically repeated the guidelines, which seem to suggest that, yes, Ministers can use a private email and it is up to them to police themselves. Given the stench of cronyism around this Government, can she not see how that answer is completely unacceptable? All this needs to be opened up, and transparency must be the order of the day immediately.

[Julia Lopez]

My point is that it is not Ministers who make the final decisions on contracts and that important processes are gone through. There may be questions about the direction of email traffic, but the point is that every decision is scrutinised under the same process when it comes to providing covid contracts—if that is the hon. Gentleman’s concern.

[Sara Britcliffe (Hyndburn) (Con) [V]]

Although I welcome the Department of Health and Social Care’s rapid investigation, this case raises potentially serious concerns about the security of all private offices. Can my hon. Friend assure me that the Department will work with security teams across Government to protect the privacy and security of all Ministers?

[Julia Lopez]

As I suggested, the Cabinet Office already works across Government on the standards we expect when it comes to the security of private offices, and Mr Speaker addressed concerns in relation to Parliament.

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

It is not acceptable to have covert surveillance at work for Ministers, Members or anyone else, but the public are entitled to transparency on issues raised about things such as private emails. The Government already have answers to give on donations for the Prime Minister’s flat, peerages to donors, tax breaks by text and unlawful contracts to associates, so does the Minister agree that her Government’s murky dealings are the real sordid affair that the public should see a light shone on?

[Julia Lopez]

As I say, there have been a number of investigations to look into some of the allegations that have been put to Government over the course of the pandemic, including the National Audit Office’s report. We have conducted our own investigations, because we take seriously some of the allegations that have been put to us. As I say, there are processes in place that people went through. There were a number of other challenges we faced at the height of the pandemic, which I have been candid about in Westminster Hall and in other places, but the public should be assured that their money has been spent with care. As I say, there were challenges we went through, relating to the sheer number of items of correspondence and emails that were coming in. It is not for Ministers to conduct and make decisions on contract awards over private email, and we are happy to look into any concerns in that regard.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

If I understood the Lord Chancellor correctly this morning, he said that when he wants to read a sensitive document, he goes to a separate room in his Department to do so. Could we have a look at what procedures are in place across Government to make sure that Ministers can read sensitive documents safely?

[Julia Lopez]

As my hon. Friend will be aware, there are different levels of document classification, so procedures are already in place to ensure that Ministers can read such documents in privacy and with great security, but if there are concerns about whether those safeguards are robust enough, we will look into them.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Something really does not add up here. As I understand it, the Minister is saying that the camera in the office of the Secretary of State was not covert. In other words, the Secretary of State knew it was there, yet we have all seen the video. If that is true, he must be the stupidest man on earth. Is the Minister really trying to persuade us that he knew that there was a camera in his office? When he had meetings with other Ministers, were they informed that those meetings were being recorded? Is that really what she is trying to suggest? It blows my mind, this idea.

[Julia Lopez]

I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman’s mind is blown. I am a Cabinet Office Minister who is responsible for overall adherence to Government security rules. When it comes to the placement of the camera in that office, I am afraid that it is for the Department of Health and Social Care to account for itself when it comes to what happened. It is already conducting an investigation, which we will want to look at.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

As a former Minister in the Department of Health and Social Care with the previous Secretary of State, in candidness, no one ever told me that our meetings were being observed. I never asked, it is true, but I was certainly never told. The issue, to my mind, is of course that they were being recorded, but more, who had access to those images? Does the Minister think that things would be made much easier for everyone as the Department of Health and Social Care begins the investigation if the, let us remember, profit-making media organisation involved simply made it clear how it was able to see inside a senior Minister’s office?

[Julia Lopez]

I thank my hon. Friend for his pointed and important question, and I hope that during the course of the investigation led by the Department that some of these answers will come through so that we can scrutinise them ourselves.

[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab) [V]]

The Minister has astonished us all by saying that this was not a covert device, yet we have just heard from a former Health Minister that he did not know about it. The Minister is somehow asking us to believe that the now departed Secretary of State somehow knew about it, but clearly if he did he would not have behaved in the way he did right in front of it, so I think that she is stretching credibility. When I was a Minister, we were not allowed to use our own inboxes or our own private emails for Government business. We were told very, very bluntly at the beginning of our ministerial career that this would not be allowed. Why on earth is it different now?

[Julia Lopez]

I appreciate the hon. Lady’s question, but I am not asking her to believe anything. I am asking her to have patience while the Department conducts its own investigation into exactly what happened. On the use of emails, there are clear guidelines to which Ministers should adhere, but we have to accept that there was a situation in which we all had to move online, and we all have to account for the way in which we handled ourselves in that period.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab) [V]]

I have lost count of the number of times my colleagues and I have raised issues about the lack of transparency, honesty and integrity under which too many Government Ministers operate. The ministerial code is not worth the paper it is written on. The whole sordid affair follows on from the former Health and Social Care Secretary being found to have acted unlawfully in his disclosure of contracts for personal protective equipment, contracts for mates, and now the revelation of the use of private emails. This, as others have said, smacks of his covering his tracks.

On the cameras, if Ministers were unaware of them, that is nothing short of Big Brother. What other Department buildings have similar cameras of which we are not aware?

[Julia Lopez]

I think that will form part of the investigation, and it is something that the Government’s security group will actively look into.

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

On the use of private emails for Government business, will the Minister confirm the legal position under the Freedom of Information Act? My understanding is that if a public authority—the Secretary of State clearly is a public authority—uses a private email for Government business, that private email and those emails are subject to the Freedom of Information Act, and the destruction of any emails in order to prevent them from being disclosed would be a criminal offence. That information will obviously be of some reassurance to people. Is she able to confirm that from the Dispatch Box?

[Julia Lopez]

Yes, I can confirm that official information held in private email accounts is subject to FOI.

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

When the investigation into this matter is concluded, will the Minister come back and tell the House whether this leak has reached the threshold to warrant an investigation by the intelligence agencies?

[Julia Lopez]

The investigation is being led by the Department of Health and Social Care. The hon. Lady raises an important point about the threshold at which it is subject to security and intelligence investigations. I will get back to her on that, but I hope that we will be able to update the House when the substantial findings have been reported.

[Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)]

Like my good and hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), I joined the Department of Health in moving into this new building, 39 Victoria Street, at the end of 2017. Will the Minister ask the Department to consider in its internal investigation whether the devices were installed as part of the new build or subsequently? Will she also please develop a protocol from the Cabinet Office across Government that all Ministers, and frankly all people working in Government buildings, are notified of any official listening, visual or other sensors in their place of work, so that they are aware of it rather than, as we have been today, surprised by it?

[Julia Lopez]

Those are very pertinent questions, and ones that I have asked in advance of today and to which we will all want answers. My right hon. Friend makes an important and useful suggestion when it comes to the protocol in relation to CCTV or any other device that might be found in a Minister’s office. I am sure that other Ministers across Government will want that assurance.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab) [V]]

The Secretary of State, engaged—at least as we thought—on matters essential to our national security, health and wellbeing is filmed, unbeknownst to him, and that film is leaked to a national newspaper when it could just as well have been a foreign power. I have to say that I find the Minister’s complacency incomprehensible. Can she at least confirm that the Government know where each Government CCTV camera is, who has access to them and whether outsourcing has led to a plethora of private security firms and other contractors having access to the footage?

[Julia Lopez]

I assure the hon. Lady that I am not complacent. This is a fast-moving situation. We found out about this device on Friday, and I have sought a number of assurances. Some of them cannot be answered at the moment because a live investigation is under way, but these questions are being asked and we do want to understand the situation so that we can assure the House. I am placed in the rather frustrating position of not being able to provide the clarity that people understandably demand on a day like this. I will have to ask the House’s forgiveness while the investigations are under way.

[Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) (Con)]

The truth is that the days when officials asked Ministers for instructions via papers placed in locked red boxes are long gone. The truth of the matter is that officials in Whitehall Departments expect Ministers to be in contact with them 24/7. It can be very difficult for Ministers in those positions to access secure devices to look at things. May I ask the Minister to instruct the Cabinet Office to really challenge the guidance that is given to officials and Ministers about this, so that Ministers are not finding themselves unwittingly having to use private emails, as I found quite often as a Minister in the Department of Health?

[Julia Lopez]

That is such an important point. We are living in different circumstances where electronic communications mean that we are contacted at all hours of the day on different email accounts, different devices and so on. We are trying to clarify the guidance on this, because this is a situation that we are perhaps not as best prepared for as we should be, but we are not complacent. My hon. Friend also raises the important point that there are lots of different systems across which Ministers have to operate. I had my parliamentary account and my Cabinet Office account, for example, and we also have to engage in meetings across different systems. Trying to move between those systems can provide a real challenge, and this is something that we need to provide clearer guidance to other Departments on.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

The Government’s lax security has resulted in information and communications ending up in the wrong hands, and the Government’s lax procurement processes via text, private email and a word down the pub have led to billions of pounds of public money ending up in the wrong hands. Sensitive information and public money are neither safe nor secure, so how will the Minister ensure that there is an end to this casual approach to information and communications relating to security and spending? And for the third time, what discussions have taken place with the Information Commissioner over these casual communications since these revelations have come to light?

[Julia Lopez]

I have not personally discussed this with the Information Commissioner over the weekend. As I say, a number of issues have come to light that we need to be on top of, and I hope to assure the House on these matters in the coming days.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP) [V]]

Our Prime Minister has had to have his phone wrested from him by the security services for conducting Government business by WhatsApp, and now a Health Secretary has been using his Gmail for official purposes. Can the Minister please answer the second question posed by the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) and confirm to us that it would be a criminal offence for any Minister to destroy communications they have made about Government business on private emails or private messaging apps for the purpose of defeating the ends of justice regarding our freedom of information request or, indeed, defeating the ends of justice in any future inquiry into the covid crisis?

[Julia Lopez]

As I say, official information held in private email accounts is subject to freedom of information and all the rules and restrictions around that.

[Felicity Buchan (Kensington) (Con)]

My hon. Friend has said that the ultimate responsibility for security lies with the Department, and that the Cabinet Office sets best practice. Given the importance and sensitivity of security, should we not centralise this to ensure that every Department complies and that there is no aberrant behaviour?

[Julia Lopez]

The ultimate responsibility is with the Prime Minister and the Cabinet Secretary, but it is for the accounting officers to be answerable on these matters for their Departments.

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

The Minister said that this was not a covert device and that it was known about, but then she said that they only found out about it on Friday in a fast-moving situation, so she needs to get her story straight, not least because we have two respected former Ministers in the Department—the hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) and the right hon. Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne)—in the Chamber who knew nothing about these cameras. The hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) rightly talked about the Wilson doctrine and the importance of monitoring the surveillance of Members of Parliament, so would it not be a good idea if the Prime Minister now made a statement to the House to tell us exactly when he first knew about this device and about the content that was on it?

[Julia Lopez]

I wish to assure the hon. Member that we maintain the Wilson doctrine and that we wish to ensure that there is no covert surveillance within a Minister’s office. That is extremely important. Some of the questions that people have rightly raised with me this afternoon will want to be answered through the investigation that is under way in the Department of Health, and I am sorry that I cannot provide greater detail on that at the moment.

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

Mr Deputy Speaker, you will be aware, as everyone in this House is, how livid Mr Speaker and many people here were at the leaking of the second lockdown and how Mr Speaker asked for a full investigation into the incident. What has emerged over the weekend has blown all that up. The leaking could have involved a whole number of people who were never even considered as part of that investigation, which, as Mr Speaker has informed us on Privy Council terms, is still ongoing. Will my hon. Friend the Minister liaise with her Department and with the Cabinet Secretary to ensure that any information of who had access to that video footage and covert surveillance of that office is fed into the investigation that Mr Speaker has asked for to find out how things were being leaked to the press before this House knew about them?

[Julia Lopez]

I thank my right hon. Friend for those very important questions to which we all want answers. I hope that they will be answered as part of this investigation.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Does the Department of Health and Social Care handle its own ministerial office security, or is that done across Whitehall by other organisations such as the police?

--- Later in debate ---

[Julia Lopez]

There is a range of different ways in which security is maintained across the Government estate. Some of those are dealt with by the police, some by Government security, and some by the Departments themselves. The mix of those in this particular instance will be looked into.

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

As parliament- arians, we all have sympathy for the Minister being sent here to respond to these questions without many of the answers to them. We had all expected that her boss would be here for these questions, as indeed he would have been had he thought he had the answers to give to them. May I ask her, the next time she meets the Cabinet Secretary, to stress how unsatisfactory this situation is, how dangerous it is to the security of this nation, and that the House demands not only that this situation is never repeated, but that we get the answers that she has been unable to furnish us with today?

[Julia Lopez]

Those are answers that we will hopefully get once the investigation is complete. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is in Scotland today so he could not be in the House. I share the hon. Gentleman’s anxiety about getting answers, because these are extremely important questions about the security of Ministers’ Offices, which, as a Minister myself, I want some reassurances on.

[Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con)]

Is the Minister able to reassure the House that, in considering the findings of the Department of Health and Social Care’s own internal investigation into this matter, she will not rule out considering whether this leak was a breach of the Official Secrets Act?

[Julia Lopez]

I thank my hon. Friend, and I shall want an answer to that question.

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

First of all, is a Department-led inquiry sufficient for the gravity of this situation? We need to know whether these recordings extend to other Departments, who all this footage is offered to, and who benefited from the release of the footage. We need to understand the security risks of Ministers doing business by private email, as has been said. The Minister cannot just say, “Oh, it’s complicated.” It is simple. We have a parliamentary email address and Ministers should use it—end of story. Also, it is only because of this leak that we have found out about yet another crony appointment that the Government did not bat an eyelid about, so who is taking the lead in investigating all these other matters?

--- Later in debate ---

[Julia Lopez]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I am sorry that I cannot furnish the House with answers on the matter of security on this day, but I hope to be able to do so shortly.

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con) [V]]

I am grateful to Mr Speaker for granting the urgent question of my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone). With one Department spreading documents behind a bus stop and another one publishing CCTV, I cannot say that I am terribly surprised if Ministers do not want to use their private offices. Does my hon. Friend, who is doing a very good job at the Dispatch Box, agree that we need a root-and-branch change in the trust and behaviour of the civil service?

[Julia Lopez]

In so far as there are any questions raised in this entire episode about whether a matter was leaked, there will be questions to be answered in so far as they involve any civil servants, who are vetted when they do their jobs and have to adhere to certain codes themselves.

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab) [V]]

May  I say to the Minister first of all that this House should take precedence in the priorities of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, not travelling to Scotland?

When I was a Minister, neither parliamentary emails nor private emails were allowed to be used for Government business. Will the Minister therefore confirm whether using private email accounts to discuss sensitive Government business is in breach of the Freedom of Information Act, the Official Secrets Act, the Data Protection Act or the Public Records Act 1958, which place specific requirements on the use of Government information?

[Julia Lopez]

As I have said, Government guidance is that official devices, email accounts and communications applications should be used for communicating classified information, but other forms of electronic communication may be used in the course of conducting business, and official information that is held in private email accounts is subject to FOI. I hope that that provides the right hon. Lady with assurance.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I thank the Minister for coming today to respond to Peter Bone’s urgent question and for responding to 37 parliamentary questions in total. We will now suspend before the statement on covid.

Government Contracts: Covid-19

Julia Lopez Excerpts

Monday 21st June 2021 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Julia Lopez)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Fovargue. I thank all hon. Members who have taken part in this evening’s e-petition debate for their valuable contributions. I also thank the petitioners for initiating it. The public are absolutely right to demand that we spend money with care when we procure vital goods, services and works; I agree with the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) and others on that. I have always set out to be open about the challenges that the Government had to navigate at the height of the pandemic in procuring goods and services in the most urgent of situations. We were required to move at great speed and in an incredibly complex operating environment.

I was on maternity leave in the first half of 2020 as covid took hold, so I began my ministerial role only this time last year. My time in office in relation to procurement, therefore, has been spent not only going back to understand what happened during the early stages of the pandemic, particularly in relation to PPE, but on how we can improve our future response to urgent challenges. I want to assure hon. Members that a huge amount of work is either under way or already completed, which should reassure members of the public who would like an inquiry. I agree with the hon. Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) that we do not want to wait to learn lessons.

The work includes an external, independent and unbiased review by the National Audit Office, two internal Cabinet Office reviews that have now been published, the commitment to a public inquiry into covid that starts next spring, and—of particular interest—a new procurement Bill that my ministerial colleague Lord Agnew and I are drafting, which will provide commercial teams with many more extensive options in a crisis between direct award, which raises understandable transparency concerns, and full-fat procurement, which takes far too long to turn around. The fastest turnaround under the dynamic purchasing system is six to eight weeks to contract award, and on an accelerated basis the very quickest possible process would be two weeks. But that would assume that all bid documentation was in place at the start, so it can be seen that in urgent situations this presents a real challenge.

On that first aspect of my work, I stood in Westminster Hall last year and shared a candid account of my findings for the House, particularly in relation to the procurement of PPE, a subject raised this evening by the hon. Members for Gower, for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) and for Jarrow (Kate Osborne). Those matters have been scrutinised by this House in many other forums. I will go over some of that context again because it is incredibly important to understand the actual challenges that were faced. I am afraid I cannot address all of the other items raised, particularly in relation to some of the education contracts, because I have not personally investigated those, but, as I described at that time, from conversations with officials, the Government had to work at pace in a very competitive international market to secure unprecedented volumes of essential supplies in order to protect frontline workers. That required a colossal upscaling effort.

Some 450 people from across Government were moved into the Department of Health and Social Care to become a stand-up virtual team to assist with securing PPE. That team is normally only 21 people strong. In many ways, this was a really impressive feat, with a hell of a lot of people who did not know each other working remotely on a range of different IT systems. We all assume that the Government are one entity, but Departments work in very different ways, often with different IT systems. It can be difficult to move people around the system and to make those systems compatible with each other. They were dealing with a product they were not familiar with in a very highly pressured market. That led to lags in contract publication, as paperwork has been very tricky to join up across systems. That issue was raised by the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock).

Facing exceptional levels of global demand, the usual vendors in China who service the NHS’s central procurement function very quickly ran out of supply, and the world descended on a few factories in that country to bid for available items. In that market context, the Government needed to procure with extreme urgency, often through direct award of contracts, or risk missing out on vital supplies. I pay tribute to officials for what they achieved, because it was quite remarkable in the circumstances. The Government never ripped up procurement rules. Regulation 32(2)(c) of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015, which predates the pandemic, explicitly allows for emergency procedures, including direct award. In a situation of genuine crisis and extreme urgency where offers had to be accepted or rejected in a matter of hours or days, it simply was not viable to run the usual procurement timescales, even by taking advantage of accelerated processes.

There was concern about the level of PPE that might be required to deal with covid. The Prime Minister put out a call to action, as many Members will recall. With huge commitment and energy, the British public and business responded. But that also meant that, in very short order, commercial teams were dealing with more than 15,000 offers of help. Frankly, leads were coming in much faster than they could be processed. When they were rejected, or if they were delayed, people started chasing through their MPs. To manage that influx of offers, a separate mailbox was set up to handle this area of work, and to sift credible offers.

The most important thing to note is that all PPE offers, no matter from where they came, went through the same eight-stage checks. The PPE team compared prices to those obtained in the previous two weeks, to benchmark the competitiveness of those offers. Separate approval and additional justification were required for any offers that were not within 25% of an average considered for possible approval. It is also important to note that of the 493 offers that came through that priority mailbox, I understand that only 47 were taken forward—in other words, 90% were rejected. My hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Adam Holloway) highlighted the absurdity of some of the claims of impropriety being made.

[Adam Holloway]

On Samir Jassal, the supposedly important pillar of corruption, I remember running into him and him telling me that he had offered some PPE, when we were screaming for it. I think he had spent over a month being triaged to see whether it was suitable stuff. This is really preposterous.

[Julia Lopez]

It is interesting to know that. The hon. Member for Gower mentioned the company Arco, and I appreciate her for raising that. It was raised by the MP for Arco’s constituency, the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy), in a Westminster Hall debate to which I referred earlier. If the hon. Member for Gower and I swapped seats, I wonder whether I would be suggesting that it was improper to put that forward. People were in very difficult circumstances; if she had been told that there was a company that could support the national effort, would she not have put it forward for review? We have to ask ourselves that question.

The focus on those early procurement challenges secured some tremendous successes under pressure. We have established one of the largest and most diversified vaccine portfolios in the world. We have ordered 32 billion items of PPE and provided more than 15,000 ventilators to the NHS. It is important that we do not obscure those achievements with some of the understandable concerns that have been raised about transparency. None of us wants to sit here answering questions about cronyism. The challenges I cited about the recording-keeping across Departments are real ones that we are trying very hard to address. I understand why people ask questions; I have asked many of them myself, and I have been reassured by the answers that I have received from officials.

[Deidre Brock]

The Minister at the time did not answer my questions about record-keeping between Departments and trying to establish costs that were being clawed back from contracts that had not worked out. Is the Minister suggesting that that is being worked on and that we will be able to ask those questions in future and get some understanding of where the Government have pursued costs that have been inappropriately awarded to companies that have not come up with the goods?

[Julia Lopez]

I believe there are cases where that is happening. I would have to go away and double-check, but I am happy to write to the hon. Lady.

We have always made it clear that there would be opportunities to look back and analyse, and to address some of the shortcomings that I have listed on all aspects of the pandemic. As hon. Members will know, the Prime Minister has confirmed that an inquiry will be established on a statutory basis, with full formal powers. That will begin work in spring 2021. As I said earlier, however, procurement during the pandemic has already been extensively reviewed, and Members will be familiar with the NAO report published in November, which I spoke about previously.

[Neale Hanvey]

I would like to ask for the Minister’s view on whether there is a perceived or actual impropriety in the way some of the contracts have been handled. I will read you the information that has just come out from the Good Law Project:

“Uniserve Limited is a logistics firm controlled by Iain Liddell. Prior to the pandemic, the firm had no experience in supplying PPE, yet the firm landed a staggering £300m+ in PPE contracts from the DHSC and an eye-watering £572m deal to provide freight services for the supply of PPE. The company shares the same address as Cabinet Minister Julia Lopez MP and is based in her constituency.”

Does that not give you a sense that there might be something in this? The whole issue around conflict of interest is not whether it is real, but whether a member of the public might assume that there is a concern.

[Yvonne Fovargue (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that interventions should be shorter and that “you” refers to the Chair.

[Julia Lopez]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s raising that contract, because it has been a challenge to me as a Minister. As I said earlier, I began this role only in June 2020. I had not been allocated a private office, and I had not been given a portfolio. Then I found myself in a procurement role, and questions are being asked about the company from which I rent a constituency office. As I say, I was not actually in post at the time that that was being decided. The challenge is that questions have been raised that I cannot fully address, because I do not have all the information. I was not party to the contract, so it is a considerable challenge. It is something that my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham also raised.

[Neale Hanvey]

It is all about perception.

[Julia Lopez]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s concern about perception, but it should actually be about fact. I am happy to address any concerns that he has. I find it extremely challenging to have people raising questions about my integrity in this space, when I do not feel that I have done anything improper. I am happy to get back to him on any questions that he might have, which I have also tried to address in other forums.

We have made it clear that there are opportunities to come back, analyse the situation and conduct reviews. Government procurement during the pandemic has already been extensively looked into by the National Audit Office. The report recognises that the Government needed to act with extreme urgency. The NAO found no irregularities and potential conflicts of interest involving Ministers in the awarding of contracts. The report underlined the importance of transparency in the Government’s procurement activity.

The Government take such matters extremely seriously, and we remain committed to continually improve our processes. To that end, as I mentioned earlier, we have had two independent expert reviews carried out by Nigel Boardman. They were initially internal reviews, but we have published them fully. In the first, he focused on a small number of contracts in the Government Communication Service and made 28 recommendations, 24 of which have already been implemented. The remaining four will be met by the end of the calendar year.

I have been tracking progress on this issue, including the publication of contracts, very closely. Better training of contract managers and commercial and communications staff has begun and there is now a requirement, at the point when a contract recommendation is made, that senior civil servants, special advisers and Ministers declare any interest that is either real or apparent. In his second, wider review, Mr Boardman has identified 28 further recommendations for improvements to procurement processes across Government. Progress is under way to begin the implementation of those, and a full update of progress will be provided to the Public Accounts Committee by July 2021. We are very grateful to Mr Boardman for his ongoing work. That review sits alongside a wider programme of work to reform public procurement, which I am leading.

In December, the Cabinet Office published our Green Paper on this issue, which sets out radical reform to our procurement regulations that will drive much better value for money for the taxpayer. The proposals, which have long been in development, address several areas highlighted in the NAO report, especially mandatory transparency requirements that would ensure that processes and decisions can be monitored by anybody who wishes to do so. The proposals aim to simplify complicated processes, reduce bureaucracy and create a fair, open and competitive system. They will strengthen transparency through the commercial life cycle, from planning and procurement to contract award, performance and completion. We also intend to clarify the rules on procuring in times of extreme urgency or crisis, learning from the difficult experience of this pandemic. The Green Paper consultations resulted in more than 600 responses, which are now being analysed in detail.

It is already Government policy to adopt and encourage greater transparency in commercial activity. Central Government buyers must publish all qualifying tender documents and contracts with a contract value of more than £10,000 on Contracts Finder, but we recognise and regret, as I have expressed already, that there have been delays to publishing some contracts, as raised by the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green. Teams continue to work on publishing all contracts as soon as possible.

Since the High Court’s judgment in relation to the DHSC’s failure to publish some contracts, it has made significant progress. It has now published all known contract award notices and the contract documents for all historical covid-related contracts. As the permanent secretary for the Cabinet Office confirmed to the Public Accounts Committee earlier this month, all Cabinet Office contracts that related to the regulation 32 procedure on direct awards have been published.

The hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Neale Hanvey) raised very important points about the onshoring of critical manufacturing capability. Project Defend in the Department for International Trade has done a lot of work in that area. Some of the testing specifics I will need to take away and raise with my ministerial colleagues.

I would like to address some of the points raised by the hon. Member for Jarrow, who discussed the recent High Court judgment in relation to the public contract awarded by the Cabinet Office to Public First. I looked back in my role, to better understand the context in which that was contracted, because I received some early questions, when I was first in my ministerial role, that I personally wanted to investigate as well, and I think it might be helpful if I set out a little more of the context.

Back in March, there was no vaccine, no test and trace, and very little knowledge of how best to manage this novel disease. Strong messaging of the kind that could alter behaviours was, at the outset of the pandemic, one of the few tools that we had in our arsenal in the battle against transmission. It followed that the Government Communication Service needed rapidly to assess which messages would have the greatest impact. We needed to turn campaigns around in lightning-quick time, and teams had to be surged to deal with the unprecedented demand for effective comms material. In dealing with such an unforeseen set of circumstances, few officials knew which messages would be sufficiently hard hitting to influence and, most importantly, to change public behaviour.

It was in that context that rapid decisions were made on comms contracts, including the one that was challenged in court. That was for Public First, a research and policy company. It was taken on, alongside BritainThinks, as one of two companies in the market deemed to have the scale, expertise and experience to provide focus-group testing in March. They were both rapidly diverted from existing work to take a snapshot of public reaction. That allowed us in government to test things such as the contain strategy, the early “Stop The Spread” campaign and the “Stay Home” message, which was deemed by the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green in earlier comments to be a waste of money.

A legal challenge was brought against that contract, on three grounds: urgent procurement without competition; the proportionality of its award for six months; and inclusion of non-urgent work. We did not use money, as was suggested by other hon. Members, to cover up, but actually to find out what had happened, so that we could respond to that legal challenge. The judgment found in favour of the Government on two grounds: first, we were entitled to rely on the emergency procurement regulations because of extreme urgency; and, secondly, the terms of the contract, including length, were proportionate in the circumstances. The court ruled that the Government were entitled to award the contract on grounds of extreme urgency, in response to an unprecedented global pandemic. It recognised the very complex circumstances that we were operating in. It also recognised that a failure to provide effective comms would have put public health at risk.

On the one remaining ground of “apparent bias”, the judgment makes it clear that the decision to award the contract was not due to any personal or professional connections, although consideration should have been given to other research agencies, and the process followed should have been more adequately demonstrated when it came to the objective criteria used to select the supplier. The judgment none the less makes it clear that there was no suggestion of actual bias.

We have done a lot of work to address some of the procedural issues that were raised by this case and which I have mentioned, because I had my own concerns about it. Our implementation of the Boardman recommendations, which I have already discussed, has addressed several areas raised in the judgment. I agree with the hon. Member for Jarrow about winding down the use of regulation 32 in comms, and I have done a lot of work in this area.

Ms Fovargue, I apologise for the length at which I have responded to some of the issues raised. These are important issues and ones that I personally want to ensure that the Government are addressing proactively. I am very keen that we also provide greater context for some of the criticisms and challenges brought. It is absolutely fair that the public would have questions on this, and I want to try to address some of those. I am very grateful for the valuable points raised by hon. Members in the course of this debate, but I want to assure people that the Government are taking decisive action to improve transparency around procurement, alongside a full inquiry into the covid pandemic next year.