Pat McFadden MP: speeches

Speeches

• 6 Mar 2025 · Cyber-security: Local Government Resilience · Hansard source

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  The Government are working hard to improve the cyber resilience of the public sector, because cyber-attacks can be against central Government institutions, local authorities and, of course, individuals and businesses. With regard to local authorities, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has launched a cyber assessment framework for local government. It sets a clear cyber-security standard for the sector, and the Department also provides monthly cyber clinics to support local authorities in improving collaboration, sharing intelligence and tackling vulnerabilities in this area.

• 6 Mar 2025 · Cyber-security: Local Government Resilience · Hansard source

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  We are fully alive to the threat posed by Russian cyber-attacks. I mentioned in my previous answer the threat from state and non-state actors, and there is sometimes a threat from state-backed actors against our public infrastructure. We will work as hard as possible to protect our institutions against such attacks, and our intelligence co-operation with the United States remains a very important part of our defences.

• 6 Mar 2025 · Plan for Change · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend puts it well. The missions that we have set out are focused on delivering long-term and ambitious outcomes that will make a meaningful difference to people’s lives. Specifically on the issue he raised on child poverty and the best start in life, the plan for change has a specific target to close the development gap between children who are starting school, and to ensure that more children are ready to start school and to learn and to give them the opportunities that education can bring. Our aim is that people from all backgrounds can benefit from those policies, and that is why the plan for change will make a real difference to people’s lives in all parts of the country.

• 6 Mar 2025 · Plan for Change · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right; the additional resources for the NHS were only made possible by the Budget proposed by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor back in October. My hon. Friend is also right to say that as more money goes into the NHS, there is a duty to ensure that that is matched by reform. The 10-year health plan will set out how we will deliver an NHS by creating a reformed and modern health service to ensure that the extra investment results in faster and more convenient treatment for patients, because that is what we all want to see.

• 6 Mar 2025 · Plan for Change · Hansard source

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  I am pleased to report to the House that we are making progress in delivering our plan for change. After years of rising NHS waiting lists under the Conservatives, those waiting lists are now falling and last month we announced that we had met our first step pledge to deliver 2 million additional NHS appointments seven months early. In addition to that, the first 750 breakfast clubs will open in April to help children get the best start to their learning day, and our new criminal justice legislation is being introduced to protect the public from crime and antisocial behaviour, including the introduction of respect orders targeted at known troublemakers in our local communities.

• 6 Mar 2025 · Democratic Processes: Foreign Interference · Hansard source

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  It is an absolute priority to protect the UK’s democratic processes from foreign interference. The defending democracy taskforce has been set up to protect the democratic integrity of the UK from such interference. The Prime Minister recently reconfirmed its mandate, and the Security Minister chaired a meeting of the taskforce last week.

• 6 Mar 2025 · Democratic Processes: Foreign Interference · Hansard source

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  We had some earlier exchanges about cyber-attacks. It is important that our democratic processes uphold their integrity and that people who take part in our elections exercise their choice freely and without external interference in the process. The Government are dedicated to ensuring that that happens.

• 6 Mar 2025 · Cyber-security · Hansard source

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  There is a well-established process for transparency about meetings between Government Ministers and outside organisations, and TikTok will be treated in the same way as anyone else.

• 6 Mar 2025 · Cyber-security · Hansard source

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  The Government are taking action to strengthen our cyber-security and protect our digital economy. The Home Office has launched a public consultation on proposals to tackle ransomware—one of the most malicious types of attack—to protect UK businesses, improve reporting and strike a blow against those who use this model of organised crime. However, this is a major challenge, as I have said, and it is an ongoing battle against those who seek to us do harm, to extort money and to undermine the delivery of crucial public services.

• 6 Mar 2025 · Cyber-security · Hansard source

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  The Government are helping Ukraine’s cyber-defenders to detect, disrupt and deter Russian cyber-attacks. The programme is back by £16 million of UK funding, using world-leading expertise from both the private and the public sectors to protect Ukraine’s critical national infrastructure. We understand that the protection of cyber-assets is part of modern warfare, and we are providing this help for Ukraine, just as we have supplied it with a large number of weapons over the past three years.

• 6 Mar 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  We want to see more apprenticeships. The numbers have come down, compared with where they should be. The area that the hon. Gentleman highlights would be a very good and fruitful one for people to learn more about and get the skills they need.

• 6 Mar 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for reading my speeches so closely, but what he has misunderstood is that the teams are on the ground, and the process is to learn every week. I am glad to report that I have already visited a couple of those areas, and good work is under way. The whole point is that this will develop, it will adapt, and perhaps it will be different from the record of the Conservative party, which saw a growth of 131,000 public officials over the last—

• 6 Mar 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Special advisers are appointed by the Minister whom they advise, and the line of accountability is through Ministers to Parliament. That is why the Prime Minister takes questions every week at this Dispatch Box. The National Security Adviser is an adviser to the Prime Minister, and as I said, I am also very happy—as are other Ministers, I imagine—to appear before the Committee at a convenient time.

• 6 Mar 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Since the last Cabinet Office questions, new procurement rules have come into force, which will help to deliver growth, drive value for money and, crucially, give small businesses greater access to the nearly £400 billion of Government procurement. They also include stronger new powers to exclude and debar suppliers on national security and performance grounds. We are also seeking out and reducing wasteful spending, including by using artificial intelligence to go through departmental spending line by line, because it is important that taxpayer funds are used for good public service outcomes. We are seeing the initial fruits of that in the first reduction in NHS waiting lists for years.

• 6 Mar 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for the work that he did on public sector productivity. It was probably essential given that in the eight years between 2016 and 2024 the previous Government employed an extra 131,000 civil servants, so it is quite right that we look at the productivity for the extra employment sanctioned by the last Government.

• 6 Mar 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Gentleman has great experience in this area, and I respect his judgment very much. He will also have seen the world rapidly change before our eyes in recent weeks. The leadership task when the world is changing so fast is to understand the change, respond to it and explain it. I believe that in the decisions the Prime Minister has taken in this area in recent weeks he has fulfilled those obligations in full and in a way that this House is proud of.

• 6 Mar 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  As I have said a few times this morning, reform is important, particularly when the taxpayer is being asked to put in extra investment. That is true in schools as well as in the NHS, because we want to ensure that teachers can do what they want to do, which is teach children in the classroom. That is also why the best start in life is one of the targets in the Government’s plan for change, which was published in December.

• 6 Mar 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I think on this one I had better write to the hon. Gentleman.

• 6 Mar 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster will be aware that accountability to Parliament is through Ministers. The Prime Minister is regularly accountable to Parliament, and I am very happy to appear before the Committee at any convenient time.

• 6 Mar 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I have both appetite and full faith in our excellent intelligence and security services, who protect us every day.

• 6 Mar 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member is absolutely right: the people who are attacking us are trying constantly to probe our defences, and as I have said a few times in the past hour, this is therefore a constant challenge. It is a combination of hardware, software and good practice, and that applies to central Government, local government, public bodies and—crucially—businesses. It is a national effort to protect the business that we do and the processes that we take for granted every day.

• 6 Mar 2025 · National Resilience · Hansard source

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  We are taking action to strengthen the UK’s resilience. Next month, the UK Resilience Academy will formally launch with the capacity to train over 4,000 people a year. Later this year, we will undertake a full national pandemic response exercise—the first of its kind in nearly a decade. Of course, resilience has to protect the most vulnerable, so we are mapping vulnerability around the country to ensure that in our resilience strategy we can protect people from all backgrounds and of all incomes.

• 6 Mar 2025 · National Resilience · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right to point not just to specific resilience measures but the most fundamental thing for national resilience: the underlying strength of the country and its services. Nowhere is that more true that in the national health service. We are investing in the national health service and are already seeing the early results of that, with the first fall in NHS waiting lists for years. It is a good start; it is not enough, and we want to build on that progress to treat patients more quickly and, indeed, build our resilience in the process.

• 4 Mar 2025 · Church of Scotland (Lord High Commissioner) Bill · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time. Given the mood in the House, I do not intend to detain people for long. By now we know the purpose of the Bill: to allow Catholics to be appointed to the role of Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. That is the Bill in a nutshell. Today’s debates have demonstrated that there is wide support for the Bill across the House. I thank the Church of Scotland, the Catholic Church and the Scottish Government for their engagement and collaboration in the development of the legislation. I also thank all those who spoke in our debates, including the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie), my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Alison Taylor), the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine), my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow West (Patricia Ferguson), the hon. Member for Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber (Brendan O’Hara), my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (John Grady) and my right hon. Friend the Minister of State for the Cabinet Office. I am grateful to all of them. As we have said, at the signing of the St Margaret’s declaration at Dunfermline abbey in 2022, both the Catholic Church and the Church of Scotland declared that what they hold in common is far greater than what divides them, and that they would commit to continue working towards greater unity. I hope that this Bill, in its small way, will continue in that spirit. The hon. Member for Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber referred to 1923 and asked if I was there. I was not there, but in the same year W. B. Yeats wrote that “peace comes dropping slow”. Maybe equality sometimes comes dropping slow too, but today we have taken a small and important step, and I commend the Bill to the House.

• 4 Mar 2025 · Church of Scotland (Lord High Commissioner) Bill · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his support for the Bill. I will come on to the timetable that, by necessity, we have had to adopt. Legislation of this kind is not always preceded by a consultation. Some hon. Members may remember our late friend David Cairns, whose position in this House was facilitated by legislation removing barriers on ordained priests being elected to the House. As I understand it, that particular piece of legislation did not have a consultation before it either. I turn to Lady Elish Angiolini, whose appointment as the Lord High Commissioner for this year will be facilitated by the passage of the Bill, if it proceeds. Lady Elish has a distinguished background in law, justice and academia. She was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to the administration of justice in 2011. In 2022, she was appointed by Her late Majesty the Queen to the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle, and in that role she participated in the coronation in 2023. Lady Elish has also been principal of St Hugh’s College, Oxford since 2012 and was made a pro-vice chancellor of the University of Oxford in 2017. The announcement Lady Elish’s appointment as Lord High Commissioner has been widely welcomed in Scotland. The appointment would make her the first Catholic to undertake the role of Lord High Commissioner and would be a significant symbol of unity, good will and collaboration between the Church of Scotland and the Catholic Church in Scotland. It builds on the spirit of the St Margaret declaration, signed at Dunfermline abbey in 2022. That was a historic declaration of friendship between the Church of Scotland and the Catholic Church in Scotland, and the legislation before the House builds on the spirit of that. The hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) referred to the circumstances and the timetable. I say to the House that the Bill is on an accelerated timetable, which is necessary to ensure that Lady Elish’s appointment can be finalised ahead of the General Assembly in May. We hope to have all the parliamentary stages completed by the end of next month when, subject to Royal Assent, the formalities of the appointment can begin. That process will include a formal commission for the office, accompanied by a royal warrant, and the speedy passage of the Bill is to allow the formalities necessary to enable Lady Elish to act as Lord High Commissioner and address the General Assembly at its opening and closing sessions in May. Were the appointment not able to proceed, that would be a setback to recent progress and an outcome that I do not believe anyone wants. I therefore hope that the Bill can proceed today with the support of all parties in the House. While the Bill relates to the reserved matter of the Crown, I have spoken to the First Minister of Scotland and to representatives of both the Church of Scotland and the Catholic Church in Scotland about the Bill and the desire to facilitate the appointment of Lady Elish. I thank them all for their constructive and collaborative approach. I have also had the pleasure of discussing the matter with Lady Elish directly, and I have no doubt that she will be an excellent Lord High Commissioner. Moving on to the Bill itself, there are two clauses. Clause 1 makes provision to allow a person of the Roman Catholic faith to hold the office of the Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, and clause 2 sets out the territorial extent of the Bill and its commencement, including that the Bill will commence on Royal Assent. It is a small step to remove a religious barrier. Without it, neither Lady Elish nor any other Catholic could take up the appointment by the sovereign. The Bill changes that and ensures that the announced appointment can go ahead. It is short and simple, but still in its own way an important Bill. I hope it will receive a broad welcome, and I commend it to the House.