With Black Friday and Cyber Monday fast approaching, I want to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the UK’s cyber professionals, who work tirelessly behind the scenes to help to keep us safe online. That is as important as ever, as the economy recovers from the impact of covid-19. Every day, cyber criminals target online retail, from scam texts, impersonating couriers and defrauding shoppers out of their money to damaging the reputations of small businesses by stealing their customer payment details. That trend has only increased during the covid pandemic as more and more trade has moved online. Indeed, since April 2020, more than 4,000 business sites have been identified as being targeted by cyber criminals.
Organisations such as the National Cyber Security Centre and the British Retail Consortium have spearheaded that work, providing tailored advice to businesses and citizens on how they can protect their activity online. Details of further steps to be taken will be set out in the upcoming national cyber strategy, which the Government will launch in December. The strategy recognises the increasing importance of cyber in our day-to-day lives, and it will underpin our democratic values and strategic alliances and ensure that the UK will be more resilient to the future cyber threats that we will no doubt face.
I was delighted to see the Prime Minister unveil plans to establish a new science and technology council—they are great plans. Does the Minister agree that that council will not only help us to realise the possibilities that research and technology have to offer and to tackle the great societal changes and challenges that we need to address, but cement our place in the world as a science superpower?
My hon. Friend raises an extremely important point. We are committed to being a science superpower and to putting science at the heart of our public policy making. That is why the Prime Minister set up the national science and technology council and why we have established the office for science and technology strategy, which will support those strategic decisions and ensure that the research and development uplift in funding from £15 billion to £20 billion can be targeted in the most effective way.
I welcome the Minister’s comments regarding cyber-security and the measures that will be taken, because it is a blight on many of our constituents across the United Kingdom.
Last week, the Government admitted that minutes of a conference call on 9 April 2020 between the former Member for North Shropshire and a Health Minister could not be located. Has this Minister been informed whether or not those minutes have now been located, and can he say when all the relevant documents will be given to the House?
As the right hon. Lady knows, the National Audit Office always has power to access all documents; it has rights of access, as any member of the Public Accounts Committee would know. As we have covered in a series of questions this morning, the National Audit Office noted that
“we found that the ministers had properly declared their interests, and we found no evidence of their involvement in procurement decisions or contract management.”
Simply repeating a point does not make it correct. The National Audit Office has access to the document, and that is the finding that it set out.
I am not sure that I got an answer to the question that I posed to the Minister. As I recall—forgive me if I am wrong—the Prime Minister even said at Prime Minister’s questions that he was “very happy to publish” the documents, and Ministers today have talked about the importance of transparency. What is there to hide? Will Ministers publish all the correspondence, the WhatsApps and the messages so that there is transparency regarding the covid contracts? Will the Minister also accept all the outstanding freedom of information requests about the documents? As we have heard, £3.5 billion in contracts was awarded without tender to companies with links to the Conservative party. By contrast, not one successful bid came from any politician or adviser of any other party. Spending £1 million a week on storage for dud PPE—can the Minister explain that?
Earlier at departmental questions, we were told that the act of referral to the high-priority lane was a bad thing, until hon. Friends pointed out that Opposition Members had made the same referrals. The right hon. Lady has now shifted the attack to Randox and the timing of the contract. I simply remind her that the meeting between Randox and the then Minister for innovation was on 9 April, after the contract was signed with Randox on 30 March. Not only does the National Audit Office have rights of access to Government papers, but there is a legislative framework that applies to papers through the Freedom of Information Act. We will, of course, abide with it in the usual way.
T4. COP26, hosted by the UK Government in Glasgow, was a fantastic showcase for technical expertise and capabilities in Scotland, as well as in the rest of the United Kingdom. What steps are the Government taking to continue promoting Scottish expertise and know-how on the global stage?
I know that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster attended that fantastic event as well. We launched the refreshed GREAT campaign on 9 June, which showcases all four corners of our nation internationally to inspire the world and encourage people to visit, invest, study and live in the UK. The campaign, which is used across 22 Departments and arm’s length bodies, has promoted the best of the United Kingdom in more than 145 countries worldwide.
T2. Let us return to some of the Tory treasurers who are now lords and look at their performance. Lord Harris of Peckham has spoken just eight times in the Chamber since being appointed in 1996. Lord Kalms has made seven spoken contributions since 2004. Lord Lupton is prolific, with 10 contributions since 2015. Is that not further proof that it was their donations and party position that got them into the Lords?
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman does not recognise quality over quantity. I think he ought to spend a little more time reading House of Lords Hansard; he would see a world-beating range of expertise on myriad issues. The House of Lords is a House of experts and he should spend more time listening to its debates.
T6. This Government have spent more taxpayers’ money than any previous Government on public opinion polling. Over the past 16 months since July 2020, I have asked the Government to publish the polling carried out at the start of the covid-19 pandemic. They refused to release that information under the Freedom of Information Act, claiming that it was still being used to develop policy; the Information Commissioner struck down that defence as incorrect.The Government then claimed that it was too costly to release, so I asked written parliamentary questions on the subject. They again refused, using the excuse that polling is still developing policy; as the Information Commissioner pointed out, that is a bogus argument. Will the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster change the policy on the matter today to ensure that the information is released immediately and that the Cabinet Office acts in line with both the letter and the spirit of the legislation?
Only a few weeks ago, my right hon. Friend was in the Chamber telling me that £4 billion was “a rounding error”. As a fellow member of the former Brexit Secretaries club, let me now welcome him to the value for money club, as that is the subject he seems to have raised in the context of the cost of FOIs and focus groups’ information.
The point of substance is that, with so many lives threatened by the pandemic, it was right that we commissioned insight into a range of factors in order to understand the impact of our messages and that of the Government’s response to the pandemic. I think the commissioning of insight to enable us to understand that was absolutely right and value for money. As for the disclosure, as I said a moment ago to the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), responses to all FOI requests are handled in line with legislation, and that includes applying relevant exemptions where applicable.
T3. Let me return to the subject of York Central. When the Government are looking at strategic sites, cross-departmental work is important, but it is not happening across my constituency, and people are therefore viewing their interests in a silo rather than in a co-ordinated way. Will the Minister meet me to discuss the opportunity that the York Central development will provide for my city as well as the Government, to ensure that the site comes forward in the most strategic way possible and provides the jobs that the city urgently needs?
I can add to what I said in my earlier answer to the hon. Lady. I agree with her about the importance of York, and I also agree with her wider point. It is not simply a case of one Department moving to York; what is key—and this is one of the lessons that we learned from previous initiatives of Governments—is the ability to build a career in a location, and that requires a number of opportunities. For example, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is also considering placing 190 roles in York.
Now that the spending review has ended, there will be an opportunity to finalise departmental plans and see which other Departments can coalesce in York, but it is not only a question of Departments. I urge the hon. Lady to bear in mind arm’s length bodies that are often responsible for operational delivery across Government and are often located predominantly in London. Both Departments and arm’s length bodies will have the opportunity to consider how they might come together in areas such as York.