Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that UK elections are not affected by political interference by (a) China and (b) other countries.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
It is, and always will be, an absolute priority for this government to protect our democratic and electoral processes against foreign interference.
Last year, the Prime Minister established the Defending Democracy Taskforce to protect the democratic integrity of the UK from threats of foreign influence. Its mission is to reduce the risk to the UK’s democratic processes, institutions and society, and ensure that these are secure and resilient to threats of foreign interference.
In addition, the National Security Act 2023 creates a new offence of foreign interference. This will make it an offence to illegitimately influence the UK’s democratic processes and elected officials on behalf of a foreign power. The offence will also significantly increase sentences for electoral offences if they are carried out on behalf of a foreign power. Related measures in the Online Safety Bill will require digital platforms to proactively take action against a wide range of state-sponsored disinformation and state-linked online interference, including digitally manipulated content, where this has the aim of interfering with UK elections.
The Elections Act 2022 strengthened three important components of the political finance framework: fairness, transparency and controls against foreign spending. Since its introduction, the Government has restricted foreign campaign spending at elections and introduced a new requirement on political parties to declare their assets and liabilities over £500 upon registration. Foreign donations (and channelling foreign money) are already illegal. The Act also ensures greater transparency on digital campaigning, through the introduction of digital imprints.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that the emergency alert system is used for life and death situations only.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
For an emergency alert to be issued, a major incident must pose a risk to life. Risks to health or property will not be considered reasonable use. Members of the resilience community who may need to request an alert have been informed of this threshold.
Releasing an alert will require a request from the lead government department to the Cabinet Office National Situation Centre watchkeeper, and then approval by a Cabinet Office Duty Director. Where an alert is likely to be received by 1 million people or more, it must also receive ministerial approval. This system ensures that the Cabinet Office will only send emergency alerts when there is an imminent threat to life.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the Great campaign in encouraging investment in the UK.
Answered by Nigel Adams
GREAT’s global promotion of the UK for over 10 years has been highly effective. In the last year alone, GREAT has attracted over £50m of foreign direct investment and helped generate over £400m through international promotion of the UK education sector. Finally, there is a further £600m of export, investment and tourism returns that are currently being assessed.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps his Department is taking to increase apprenticeship opportunities in the Civil Service.
Answered by Heather Wheeler
Departments are working towards having 5% of headcount being apprentices by 2025 as set out by the CS apprenticeship strategy. Apprenticeships will be integrated into skills and capability plans and other people strategies. We will provide entry and progression routes within a range of careers and professions for new and existing staff.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what recent progress his Department has made on implementing the Veterans’ Strategy Action Plan.
Answered by Johnny Mercer - Minister of State (Cabinet Office) (Minister for Veterans' Affairs)
Since the Veterans Strategy Action Plan was published in January, we have delivered 24% of the over 60 cross-government commitments.
Recent achievements delivered through the Strategy Action Plan include;
Provision of £150k in grant funding to charities to aid the development of best practice to ensure that veteran charities are inclusive and promote accessibility to female veterans
Appointment of the first Veterans Commissioner for Wales, Colonel James Phillips
Completion of a scoping study looking into the design of a service offering the digital verification of veteran status, with a further investment of £1m provided to develop this project further
Continued support to phase 4 of the King’s Centre for Military Health Research longitudinal study through over £1.2m in funding being provided over the next two years. This study looked at the health and wellbeing of UK Armed Forces Personnel and for the first time, this will also look at topics including social mobility, taking the insights beyond health and wellbeing.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps his Department is taking to help strengthen public sector procurement rules for small and medium-sized enterprises.
Answered by Jacob Rees-Mogg
We have introduced a Procurement Bill into Parliament which will enable us to create a simpler and significantly more transparent system that will further open up public procurement to small businesses so that they can compete for and win more public contracts.
Bidding companies will only have to submit their core credentials once, onto a single digital platform, making it easier, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises, to bid for any public contract.
Along with this, we will ensure new entrants to the market can be added frequently and easily to open frameworks.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps his Department is taking to protect the public purse by reducing fraud.
Answered by Jacob Rees-Mogg
The Government takes fraud seriously. HM Government has announced the establishment of the Public Sector Fraud Authority, once launched, will ensure increased scrutiny of counter-fraud performance and build broader and deeper expert services for public bodies, including the use of data analytics, intelligence and risk services.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what progress his Department has made on reducing the cost of Government projects to help ensure value for money in public spending.
Answered by Jacob Rees-Mogg
The Infrastructure and Projects Authority provides expert advice and independent assurance on the Government’s Major Project Portfolio (GMPP). Working with HM Treasury, who are responsible for Value for Money, they develop robust project cost estimates and build capacity and capability to deliver effectively. The 2022 IPA Annual Report will set out progress made on the GMPP.