Oral Answers to Questions

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[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.

[Rosie Cooper (West Lancashire) (Lab)]

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

[The Minister for the Constitution and Devolution (Chloe Smith)]

Voter fraud is a crime that we cannot allow room for, and we must stamp out any potential for it to take place in elections. Strengthening the integrity of our system will give the public confidence that our elections remain secure well into the future, and everybody who is eligible to vote will be able to continue doing so.

[Rachel Hopkins [V]]

At the last general election, 14 million people who registered to vote did not do so, and the Electoral Commission estimates that 9 million eligible citizens were not registered to vote. Do the Government believe that higher turnouts of eligible voters in elections is a good sign for democracy? If so, why are Ministers putting their energy into making voting harder by introducing voter ID?

[Chloe Smith]

Yes, I do agree that turnout is incredibly important—and what is more, this policy will not affect it. The evidence of that is in the record from Northern Ireland, which Labour Members appear to be forgetting. The measures will tackle electoral abuse effectively without disadvantaging honest voters. The Government have no intention of taking away people’s democratic right to vote. Mr Speaker,

“If we believed that thousands of voters would not be able to vote because of this measure, we would not be introducing it at this time.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 1 April 2003; Vol. 646, c. 1248.]

Those are not my words but those of a Labour Minister in 2003, introducing photo ID in Northern Ireland.

Covid-19 Update

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Wednesday 12th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank everybody who has been involved in the vaccine roll-out, and particularly those at the Honley vaccination centre.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee published a report last September that recommended that

“the Government should announce the inquiry into the response to the coronavirus immediately to allow time to set up the secretariat and other administrative functions which should mean it could start taking evidence early next year.”

That was eight months ago, so I support the comments made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition that the statutory public inquiry should be set up as soon as possible, before spring 2022. I also seek assurances from the Prime Minister that a key element of the terms of reference will be to investigate why there was a disproportionate impact on our black, Asian and minority ethnic communities, and that any chair of the inquiry will have an expert reference panel that is diverse and has community leaders involved.

[The Prime Minister]

I agree totally about the need to establish those facts: the impact on black and minority ethnic groups, what was driving it, and what could have been done to mitigate it. I am sure that the inquiry will be suitably set up to address that, among many other issues.

Ministerial Code

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Monday 26th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I think we are grateful for that party election broadcast. The most important thing to stress is that, on each of the detailed questions raised quite understandably by the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), I explained the position and it is not as the SNP would wish it to be.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab) [V]]

We have seen a growing divergence between what Ministers say in public and the true intentions that they share in private. The public deserves to know what the Prime Minister said to Manchester United’s Ed Woodward in a meeting before the European super league was announced, as it seems that the Prime Minister gave the impression that he supported the plans. Without full transparency, questions remain about the Prime Minister’s potential breach of the ministerial code and the Nolan principles. Can the Minister commit the Government to publish all details relating to that meeting?

[Michael Gove]

It was clear from what the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said in the wake of the suggestion that there should be a European super league that they were wholly opposed to that venture. My understanding—I was not there at the time—is that the conversation with Ed Woodward of Manchester United related to the broader opening up of sporting events and what social distancing or other measures might be necessary to allow more of us to go back to football matches.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Wednesday 21st April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

The British-Irish Council has never ceased to meet regularly and has always been chaired in the same way. The conversations are ongoing between ourselves and the Irish Government. Even over the last few weeks, whether that has been with Foreign Minister Simon Coveney or the Prime Minister talking to the Taoiseach, that engagement has been ongoing and will continue, because we are partners working together, with a long relationship—a positive relationship—that is of benefit to the people of the Republic of Ireland and the whole of the UK.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

What comparative assessment he has made of the adequacy of levels of funding for mental health services in Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

[The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr Robin Walker)]

We recognise the importance of ensuring that there is proper provision and access to mental health services right across the UK. Health services are devolved in Northern Ireland. The funding allocated to this specific service is therefore a matter for the Northern Ireland Executive to allocate from within the substantial resources provided by the UK Government. The Government are providing funding of £14.2 billion to the Executive in 2021-22 and we would, of course, support them allocating some of this funding for these vital services.

[Rachel Hopkins [V]]

Recently published figures show that between January 2017 and September 2020 mental health referral targets were missed more than 42,000 times at emergency departments in Northern Ireland. Given that rates of suicide in Northern Ireland continue to be the highest of any part of the UK, will the Minister please confirm that the funding in New Decade, New Approach to tackle the mental health crisis will be urgently released?

[Mr Walker]

The hon. Lady is right to draw attention to the acute demand on all health services across the UK, including in Northern Ireland, and she is also right to refer to the funding in the NDNA agreement. There was £50 million allocated for mental health support through the confidence and supply agreement. That funding is part of £350 million provided under that agreement to support the health sector, but there is a further £60 million of capital and resource funding for medical purposes that the Government have since announced and approved, and we continue to deliver on our NDNA commitments to the Executive.

Lobbying of Government Committee

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Wednesday 14th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab) [V]]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) and his dictionary reference, because I am going to start with the “Cambridge Dictionary” definition of cronyism, which is

“the situation in which someone important gives jobs to friends rather than to independent people who have the necessary skills and experience”.

Cronyism: the modus operandi of the Conservative party—backdoor dealings, special favours and bending Whitehall to its will. The Conservatives make it more profitable to have the Chancellor or the Secretary of State for Health on WhatsApp than to have a robust, evidence-based case for economic support or a Government contract.

Over the past year, we have only scratched the surface of the Tories’ chumocracy. First, the report on bullying at the Home Office, then Westferry, where the Government rushed through a housing development to help a Tory donor to avoid a £45 million levy. Then there was the appointment of a Tory peer as head of Test and Trace, without real process. Now we have the shady, unregulated firm Greensill Capital exploiting informal channels by employing Government officials and previous Tory Prime Ministers to access taxpayers’ money.

The Government, again, put hundreds of millions of pounds of public money at risk by giving Greensill access to the covid loan scheme—and now thousands of jobs hang in the balance. No one should be able to dodge tax. The company that can deliver the best job should get the Government contract, and companies most deserving of Government support should receive it through the proper channels, but in Tory Britain, that does not seem to be the case, as we see the revolving door between the Government and paid lobbyists.

Many of us were shocked to discover that Bill Crothers was permitted to advise Greensill while in a pivotal Cabinet Office role, but also of interest is the fact that in December 2016, Bill Crothers became a subcontractor to lobbying company Francis Maude Associates—Francis Maude was, of course, a Conservative Cabinet Office Minister from 2010 to 2015. Who was joint founder of Francis Maude Associates? Simone Finn, the former Cabinet Office special adviser to Francis Maude, who is also the current Prime Minister’s deputy chief of staff.

Given that one of the revolving doors in the murky world of Tory lobbying leads directly to 10 Downing Street, will the Government ensure that Baroness Finn fully co-operates with any investigation, sharing all relevant communications? Will they ensure that the role of organisations such as Francis Maude Associates is examined in the inquiry? This Tory Government have ridden roughshod over each of the Nolan principles—the seven guiding principles for public service introduced to combat Tory sleaze in the ’90s. We need a full, transparent, Parliament-run, cross-party inquiry into the Greensill lobbying scandal.

Covid-19: Road Map

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Yes indeed: there is going to be a massive data dump—I think that is the word I have been quoted today. Some colleagues may already have seen some of the data that is available, underpinning the road map that we have set out. There will of course be another vote in this House about these measures before Easter, and then those measures, in turn, elapse on 21 June in the way that I have described.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab) [V]]

Local council public health teams will continue to be pivotal in controlling the virus, but the Government’s decade of austerity and cuts has damaged their capacity, and the public health grant last year—2020-21—was 22% lower per head in real terms compared with 2015-16. Will the Prime Minister tell the House when the public health grant allocation for this year will be announced and whether it will include a significant real-terms increase to ensure that councils can continue to keep our communities safe?

[The Prime Minister]

I am very grateful to councils, and particularly public health officials, for the incredible work that they have done in the past year—the absolutely amazing work that they have done. We are supporting them with another £4.7 billion, as the hon. Lady knows, to support local councils in everything they do, and we will continue to offer support throughout the pandemic.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising this issue. His Scottish nationalist party colleague, Fiona Hyslop, who is the Minister in the Scottish Government, is working with the UK Government to ensure that we do everything we can to support the seafood sector across Scotland and, indeed, across the United Kingdom. But I cannot help but observe that if the Scottish nationalist party had its way, we would be back in the common fisheries policy and we would not be able to take control of our waters in the way that we want to.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab) [V]]

  Scottish electoral officials believe that upwards of 2 million people could use postal votes in the Holyrood elections in May, meaning 2 million extra absentee voter registrations—nearly four times the normal number. The Electoral Commission believes that 3% to 5% of those votes could be spoiled by voters incorrectly filling out forms, which could invalidate up to 135,000 votes. With a similar trend expected across the UK, what steps are the Government taking to address that concern?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for drawing wider attention to this issue. It is one that the Electoral Commission and the Minister for the Constitution and Devolution are taking seriously in order to ensure the integrity of voting this May.

Commonwealth War Graves Commission Staff

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Tuesday 15th December 2020 Westminster Hall

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Commonwealth War Graves Commission staff.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship today, Sir Christopher, and a privilege to speak today on behalf of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission staff. They are unsung heroes, who care for the cemeteries and memorials of over 1.7 million Commonwealth casualties of war. Although the commission employs local staff across the globe, it has always retained a proud and important link to the UK by sending domestically based staff to work abroad, primarily in France and Belgium. Gardeners, stonemasons and other staff tend cemeteries across those countries, including in the Somme, Ypres, Passchendaele, Normandy and Dunkirk.

Before I continue, I wish to assure the Minister that I come to this debate with sincerity. This is an important matter and I have not come here today to debate leaving the EU—indeed, I hope that their researcher did their homework and understands my position.

This matter touches me personally in a number of ways. First, I am a member of both Unite and the Public and Commercial Services Union, which stems from a career in the wider civil service before coming to this place. Often, I worked for organisations that not many people knew about, but when they found out what those organisations did, they appreciated their importance. Secondly, I have lived abroad and been affected by a significant drop in income through no fault of my own. I was a student in France in 1992 on Black Wednesday, when the UK dropped out of the European exchange rate mechanism, and overnight we lost two francs to every pound—a 20% drop. Finally and most importantly, like so many members of the public, I have three family members buried in cemeteries in France and Belgium. I wish to put on the record my personal thanks for the brilliant work that all the staff in those cemeteries do, which I saw at first hand when I visited some of those cemeteries.

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

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. I rise as a Commonwealth war graves commissioner to express the commissioners’ concern about and our respect for the workers she is talking about—those gardeners in Belgium and France. We must ensure that we do exactly the right thing by them, especially in the context of the rather challenging employment situation they are in and against the background of Brexit. I very much look forward to hearing what the Minister says on behalf of the Secretary of State, who is the chair of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

[Rachel Hopkins]

I thank my hon. Friend for making those really important points. This debate focuses very much on those staff, and I, too, look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

My great-grandmother lost her first brother, my great-uncle, Private Ernest Henry Butterfield of the Middlesex Regiment, Third Battalion, on 23 May 1915. He is buried in the Hop Store cemetery, which is to the west of Ypres in Belgium. My great-grandfather, Private Arthur John Langley of the Middlesex Regiment, Second Battalion, died on 23 October 1916. He is buried in Caterpillar Valley cemetery, just outside Longueval, in the Somme in France. That date was not a good one for my great-grandmother, as her second brother died on 23 October in 1918. My great-uncle, Lance Corporal Sidney John Butterfield of the Northampton Regiment, First Battalion, is buried in the Highland cemetery, Le Cateau, in France.

I have visited Caterpillar Valley cemetery in France. It was the end of summer, but it was still pretty bleak. I take with me that feeling of not only desolation but the beauty of the cemetery. I went past the Hop Store cemetery on the train between Ypres and Poperinge before I realised my great-uncle was buried there. It is small and beautiful, with just over 200 graves. It was there that I found out that he died of his wounds, because there is always a small book on a little shelf to say who is buried there.

I visited the visitor centre at the Somme and the Thiepval memorial designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, who also designed and laid out the house and gardens up at Putteridge Bury, which is now part of the University of Bedfordshire, just on the edge of my constituency. Thiepval is absolutely stunning from afar, and as I got closer I realised that the gigantic memorial is inscribed with the names of more than 70,000 soldiers who lost their lives on the Somme.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on bringing this debate forward and her impassioned description of her visits to those cemeteries. I have been contacted over the years by many constituents, but one in particular comes to mind in relation to this debate. He wrote about a war grave for his uncle. The importance of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission cannot be overstated—it was incredibly helpful. It is important to ensure that staff in Belgium and France have job security and options. Does the hon. Lady agree that we need to hear definitive answers about exactly what is going to happen, and not generalised possibilities for all those staff?

[Rachel Hopkins]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that really important point about genuine options and security for the staff. I will come to that in my speech, and hopefully we will have a response from the Minister.

The amazing work carried out by CWGC staff and the many volunteers in many countries who support the cemeteries must not be forgotten. Across the House and across the country, we proudly recognise the national value of the work they do. Some staff who have been posted to France and Belgium, although not permanently, have stayed for many years—some for decades—and have had families on the continent. As they are posted abroad from the UK for work, they are offered affordable housing and a living allowance to stay for the duration of their posting by the commission. That is commonplace when UK staff are sent to work abroad, and has been the situation for a number of years.

That supportive agreement between the commission and its staff has ended. Following remembrance events this year on 12 November, the commission’s management provided Unite, PCS and Prospect—the trade unions representing staff—with a decision that it would be presenting to its UK-employed staff abroad. At three weeks’ notice and without consultation, staff, many of whom have lengthy service with the commission, would be forced to decide between transferring to new pay and contractual terms, which means choosing to have their income drastically cut, or being repatriated back to the UK in January.

Staff had to respond to that ultimatum by 7 December, and if they did not, they would be repatriated. I first want to highlight to the Minister the inappropriateness of the timing of that announcement. Releasing life-changing information that would completely upend the lives of staff the day after Armistice Day is completely unacceptable.

[James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) is extremely sorry that he cannot be here to listen to this important debate. The point that the hon. Lady makes is extremely important. It is not necessarily a question of the employment terms of those people; it is the way in which the choice was put to them and the time they were given. I am sure she will agree that, by and large, the CWGC is a first-class employer, but on this occasion it seems to me to have slipped up, and it really ought to get it sorted out.

[Rachel Hopkins]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that completely pertinent point.

The decision is perceived by some as a communications strategy to limit the backlash against the mistreatment of staff, and by others as an attempt to silence staff and prevent them from speaking out, as they know that those loyal, dedicated staff would not want to be criticising the situation at an important time for remembering those who sacrificed their lives. I hasten to add that it may have been a logical decision taken to meet tax and payroll deadlines, made with the head but sadly not with the heart.

I hope the Minister will agree that the timing of the announcement is pretty shameful. The excuse that the EU transition period deadline is approaching is actually thoroughly inadequate. The vote to leave was more than four years ago. Implementing a plan to support staff should have been a priority for the commission. As an employer, the commission has a duty to protect the staff’s wellbeing.

I am deeply concerned that the new employment contracts for staff who choose to remain in Europe remove their entitlement to additional allowances, which will lead to staff having their income drastically cut. A PCS member in France at a supervisory grade, who shared their situation with me, is having their total employment package cut by 53%, equating to about €32,000. That is not an anomaly. Two other staff members working abroad have told me that their package will be cut by more than 50%. Staff are being told to sign new contracts by 22 December, although they have been told that they cannot negotiate their new pay levels, as pay is a decision for human resources to make. Many long-serving staff are being transferred to a level that is between 50% and 75% of the corresponding local pay scale, without any opportunity to negotiate. The staff involved also still do not know what will happen with their state or occupational pension.

I understand that the commission points to the Brexit mitigation payment that offers staff who want to stay in a European country £30,000 to account for the loss of income under the new contract. In most cases, it will cover only one to two years of allowances, and they will not be entitled to any assistance to repatriate when they retire or if they need to move back to the UK for compassionate reasons. Furthermore, I am aware that the commission has offered an additional payment of between £5,000 and £10,000 to assist with housing costs following the initial removal of rental and living allowances. That is a positive step, but it fails to confront the central issues: the long-term impact on staff’s pay and pensions arrangements.

Such decisions have a real impact on staff’s wellbeing. Accounts that I have received state that many of the staff are extremely distressed and feel completely let down and abandoned by the commission. The situation has had a tremendous toll on them, with four out of the 32 PCS members now unable to work because of illness. I have spoken virtually to some of the staff, and it is heart-breaking to hear how they have been treated after dedicating so many years to caring for the cemeteries. The support offered is essentially a stopgap, and an improved package is needed to ensure these important workers do not have to face significant upheaval in their lives and/or downgrade their living standards. What confuses the situation further is that such jobs are needed—they are essential. The cemeteries need caring for, and the incumbent staff have the skills and dedication to do it.

I am aware that the commission’s management state that, legally, the staff can no longer stay on UK contracts and will need to localise in order to pay into the local tax system, but the UK’s exit from the EU should not be used by the commission as an excuse to reduce its overall costs. Indeed, the legal advisers to the trade unions have not been able to identify a clear legal reason why the commission is seeking to change the contracts of staff working abroad. As I understand it, the British Commonwealth war graves overseas situation is based on the 1951 treaty. It therefore derives from international law, not EU law.

That raises the question of whether the UK leaving the EU changes the immigration employment situation of staff. Subject to international law, the 1951 treaty is between individual sovereign states, and not all are members of the EU. I say that because I am concerned at the commission’s response. It not only refused to disclose its legal advice, but claimed that its external legal advice was verbal only. I would have thought it would have been to the commission’s benefit to have legal advice in writing, which it could then have shared with the trade unions to ensure that there was mutual trust in the process.

I hope the Minister can shed some further light on the legal position, as I believe the lack of transparency and trust is at the heart of the dispute. Through greater transparency and negotiation with the trade unions, the commission could have averted the crisis. Trade unions have repeatedly asked for more time to consider the legal position and for better pay protection for the staff involved, but they have received little to no movement from management.

I understand that things may need to change, but the jobs that those workers do are of national importance. I am sure the Minister and the Secretary of State agree with me on that, so will the Minister discuss this issue with the Secretary of State, who is also the chair of the commission, to increase the level of support provided to these workers? That should include improving pay protection for staff who are transferring to localised contracts. Importantly, the trade unions should be involved in representing staff and working collectively towards a negotiated settlement that continues to value the staff and the work they do, and that reflects the respect that I and so many members of the public have for them, as part of our connection to those who gave so much for our country. Nous n’oublierons pas.

Covid-19: NAO Report on Government Procurement

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Wednesday 9th December 2020 Westminster Hall

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Eagle, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden) on securing this vital debate. I would like to respond to the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley) by saying that many of us were not at the PAC 18 months ago because we were not in this place, and I am pleased to see so many of the new intake—at least seven of us—challenging the Government, as is our role.

The Select Committee on Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs, of which I am a member, has been looking at lessons learned from the covid response, including the appointment process of key figures in the UK’s response, and I was pleased that this point has been raised by Members. We found that there was a clear lack of due process, likely conflicts of interest, and potential cronyism. Lord Evans, chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, said only a couple of weeks ago during our inquiry that “urgent procedures” exist in times of urgent need, but added:

“Even if many of the people are exactly the right people, it is better if people know they are the right people because there has been proper, open competition.”

That is a key theme, whether those roles are paid or unpaid.

That theme has also come through in the NAO’s report, which is damning. It shows that contracts have been awarded without due diligence, with a lack of documentation, no clear audit trail or transparency. In some instances contracts were awarded retrospectively, for work already done. Hundreds of contracts have been fast-tracked for companies through the Cabinet Office’s VIP process, and while this may have been the same process as referred to earlier, many companies were referred by Ministers, officials, MPs and peers. The NAO found that firms in the VIP lane were far more likely to be awarded contracts than those that were not—a one in 10 chance, against a chance of approximately one in 100 for those outside the priority lane. That is disgraceful.

The sheer lack of due process has led to the waste of millions of pounds. I will not go through a list of the companies involved, because many have been mentioned already, but I just want to say that this angers me. In the public sector, we have many workers who have now faced 10 years of austerity, who cannot even justify getting Post-It notes from the store cupboard, yet this Government are mismanaging taxpayers’ money and are refusing to give public sector workers a pay rise. It is shameful.

--- Later in debate ---

[Julia Lopez]

I am afraid I am really short of time. Forgive me; I want to get through the content.

As I say, no PPE contracts were awarded by reason of who referred them. I remind colleagues that, ultimately, there was very little waste. Of all the product in question, so far only 0.5% of what was ordered was found to be unusable. That is not to say that we cannot improve. Admittedly, there was not an adequate stockpile, and the lack of a central stock control system made it very difficult to get a clear grip of the demand signals coming in through the NHS. That is an extremely important issue to rectify.

[Rachel Hopkins]

Will the Minister give way?

[Julia Lopez]

I am so sorry; I would really like to make progress.

We have also had to rapidly address a strategic over-reliance on China. We have now built up our national capability and resilience, with the potential for 70% of PPE to be produced in the UK. I hope that those lasting national enhancements will be bolstered by the work of the Department for International Trade’s Project Defend, which is looking at other areas where we are critically dependent on other countries for important parts of our manufacturing.

The NAO was absolutely right to identify delays in publishing documentation in relation to emergency procurement. The sheer pace of activity meant that documentation was not perfect. The result is that contracts have not been published online as quickly as they should have been, and it has been left to DHSC to piece together relevant paperwork from the different IT systems, partly because of the large team that had to be brought in from outside DHSC. I very much regret that that lag in our normal transparency timescale has created a sense of mistrust, but we are nearly there. At the time that the NAO did its scrutiny work, only 50% of required contract notices had been published. As of 3 December, it is now 96% of PPE contract award notices on Tenders Electronic Daily, which is the European journal, and 94% on Contracts Finder.

I have concentrated today on PPE, as that is a large focus of the NAO’s two most recent reports. However, the NAO also looked at communications contracts, which the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton referred to, so I would like to spend a moment on that. For context, a number of external research agencies were engaged by the Cabinet Office’s comms unit to test the public reaction to Government messaging on public health. That was crucial to helping us understand people’s attitudes and behaviours during this time and refine public health messaging accordingly to drive behavioural change.

At the time I began my ministerial role, there were reports suggesting that some of those contracts for comms services had been improperly let, and naturally I was unhappy to hear that. Unfortunately, I cannot comment in detail on the specifics of those contracts because the Department is still working on a detailed defence and disclosure in the ongoing judicial review proceedings. However, I can say that following a preliminary internal fact-finding exercise, the Cabinet Office resolved to delve into that properly and commissioned an independent expert review, led by Nigel Boardman, who sits in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and is also a well-respected legal professional, to consider those findings and set out how we could improve, particularly looking at the processes and guidance that teams in the Cabinet Office have access to. The review and its results were published yesterday on gov.uk. The report is forensic in its analysis and hard-hitting in its recommendations. I am pleased to tell colleagues that we will take forward all 28 recommendations in full.

Before I close, I want to say a little about the wider civil service reforms that we are proactively pursuing to address some of the concerns beyond the NAO report. During this time of crisis, people have been concerned about the use of consultants. We are looking at how we can better skill-up civil servants, reduce our reliance on consultancy, and potentially have our own in-house consultancy. We are also consolidating the number of IT systems used across the civil service so that it is easier to move people around internally at speed, and for those systems to be compatible. As has been referenced, we will soon launch our procurement Green Paper. I very much encourage all hon. Members to engage with the consultation process, because once we leave the transition period our country will have an extremely important opportunity to look at these issues.

The proposals have long been in development and will include specific measures to strengthen transparency, making sure that we can have a choice of direct award and more competitive tendering during crises. At the moment it seems that we have either the full-fat procurement, which is much too slow in emergency situations, or direct awards, which lead to the kinds of concerns that we have debated this morning. I know that the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton is particularly concerned about issues of company conduct in procurement. The Green Paper will include proposals to use exclusion rules to tackle unacceptable supplier behaviour, such as tax evasion, embedding transparency by default and developing faster review methods to speed up the court process on legal challenges to genuinely improper procurements.

There is a lot to say, so I am sorry to rush through it all, but I will end by saying that the public are absolutely right to demand that we spend their money with care. I hope the proactive and candid approach that I have set out this morning is reassuring. I remind colleagues that we were procuring for a purpose, and that purpose was to get us through the pandemic. We achieved sufficient PPE for the NHS. We now have 32 billion items of PPE, with no reports of outages, and we have established a four-month stockpile of PPE from November 2020 onwards. Given the extraordinary context, that is an extraordinary feat.

Finally, I pay tribute to civil service colleagues in the commercial function. They might not be on the frontline of the NHS, but they have done extraordinary things in a very difficult operating context. I thank them for all the work that they have done.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Wednesday 9th December 2020 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

What recent discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on promoting green industrial jobs in Scotland.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

What recent discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on promoting green industrial jobs in Scotland.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (David Duguid)]

The Secretary of State for Scotland meets Cabinet colleagues regularly to discuss all matters of importance to Scotland. This Government are committed to levelling up across the whole United Kingdom, and that is why the Prime Minister has set out his ambitious 10-point plan for our green industrial revolution, which will support up to 250,000 jobs.

[Rachel Hopkins]

The SNP has joined the Tory party in abandoning workers at BiFab, forgoing the green industrial jobs they claim to want to encourage. Within days of the Scottish Government withdrawing their support for BiFab, they launched the Scottish National Investment Bank, stating it would support Scotland’s transition to zero carbon emissions. They say one thing and do another. What discussions has the Secretary of State had with Scottish Ministers about protecting jobs at BiFab and developing a green supply chain in Scotland to facilitate the expansion of its offshore wind capacity?

[David Duguid]

After exploring all options, both the UK and Scottish Governments have concluded that there is currently no legal right to provide further financial support to BiFab in its current form. A joint working group will be formed between the Scottish and UK Governments to consider ways to strengthen the renewables supply chain in Scotland and to secure future possibilities and opportunities. Both of Scotland’s Governments have committed to exploring options for the future of the yards and to strengthen measures to support the renewables supply chain.