Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Consultation principles: guidance, last updated March 2018, what supplementary advice or guidance has been given by the Cabinet Office to departments on whether consultations should give any material weight to responses from organisations or individuals which are deemed extremist or otherwise, or which are subject to a policy of non-engagement under the Government’s engagement principles; and what is the Cabinet Office’s departmental policy on this.

Responsibility for decisions and due diligence around who departments engage with sits with those departments and the appropriate policy areas. It is for individual government departments to decide to use these principles, or their own due diligence processes around engagement.

I refer the Noble Lady to PQ HC105789:

Question: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether he will take steps to prevent organisations with which the Government has a policy of non-engagement from submitting written evidence to (a) ministers, (b) officials and (c) public consultations.

Answer: The government does not and will not engage with organisations with whom they have a policy of non-engagement.