Kevan Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what is the (a) purpose and (b) value of Post Office Limited's contract with TB Cardew.
Kevan Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what was the procurement process for the awarding of the contract by Post Office Limited to TB Cardew in 2019.
Kevan Jones: To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, whether his Department has had discussions with the Falkland Islands Government on the awarding of a contract to Harland & Wolff to support delivery of a port facility.
Kevan Jones: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of increasing landfill tax on the prevalence of waste crime.
Kevan Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, how many applications under the British Coal Staff Superannuation Scheme there have been for an adult dependent pension under Rule 29 (1) (bb) where the dependant was financially partly-dependent on the BCSSS scheme member; and how many of those applications have been granted since the Scheme's inception in 1994.
Kevan Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, pursuant to the Answer of 4 March 2024 to Question 15586 on Export Credit Guarantees, whether Export Development Guarantee funding can be used to service existing company debts.
Kevan Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the Answer of 4 March 2024 to Question 16073 on HMS Prince of Wales: Salvage, whether artefacts salvaged illegally from HMS Prince of Wales and seized in Malaysia have been (a) seen and (b) inventoried by UK officials.
Kevan Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, how many pensions under the British Coal Staff Superannuation Scheme have been paid to dependents since 1994.
Kevan Jones: I have to say that from my experience as a former Minister in the Ministry of Defence—I said I was never a Secretary of State—I was not only aware of what was going on but operationally aware. Could an Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Defence therefore be designated as one of these people? On Tuesday mornings every week, I was very operationally aware of what was going on in...
Kevan Jones: If what the Minister has just said is the case, why do the Government push back on a suggestion that I think they actually made earlier on? The Minister is now pushing back on it. Although I understand the need for the code of practice, if there was a change in it—because there might be sometime—would that come back to Parliament to be approved? We are dancing on the head of a pin here. I...
Kevan Jones: May I make a simple suggestion, then? “Necessary operational awareness” is clunky language; surely what is meant is operational experience. That would cover it, would it not?
Kevan Jones: I made that point to the Home Secretary on Second Reading. Yes, I think that is logical—
Kevan Jones: But, Minister, let us be honest: a lot of things that we would have taken for granted were ignored in Downing Street over the last few years. Until Boris Johnson became Prime Minister, it had been a great part of our constitution that convention was followed. Surely it would therefore be better to have the point about notification in the Bill; otherwise, we are leaving it to the free will of...
Kevan Jones: Will the Minister put it in the guidance, then?
Kevan Jones: Just say it. If the Minister says it to the Committee, his civil servants will not have to do it. It is easier doing it that way than having negotiations in the office later on.
Kevan Jones: I thought we had had a victory—one of those rare things we get with this Government—from the ISC in the House of Lords, but clearly the Minister has found a way of clawing that back.
Kevan Jones: I think so, because the original wording talked about being able to nominate basically anybody. It was then defined, but the amendment widens it again. It says, “necessary operational awareness”; is that, for example, that any Secretary of State is aware that it is a voluntary process? For example, the Foreign Secretary and the Home Secretary sign warrants, and another Secretary of State...
Kevan Jones: I do not think anyone could describe the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings or myself as woolly liberals, but I do have a concern with this. Where we are giving an extra power—which is what this is, although the Minister disagrees about the breadth—I want to ensure somehow that, in a democracy, we have oversight of it. I do not want to make it difficult for the agencies...
Kevan Jones: In the example the Minister gives, at the same time the agency targets that individual, it will have a lot of other people who communicated with that individual. How long will that information be kept? That is the concern people have. It is not the depth, but this is broad. Most of those people would be completely innocent of anything. There is then the issue of how long that information is...
Kevan Jones: Let me go back to the Trainline example. Suppose it is not child exploitation—the Minister is possibly right that it is specific, and hopefully there are not many people in one street—and someone is trying to look for a person’s travel plans, so they want to know how many people in an area have contacted Trainline. It will be more than one person, so there will be a lot of other people...