Esther McVey: Since 2010, female representation has risen to 29.1% and ethnic minority representation had risen by November 2021—those are the latest verified figures I have—to 6.6%.
Esther McVey: It is a long-standing tradition that anybody who reaches the height of Prime Minister—irrespective of which party that is for—has a resignation list. The former Prime Minister has appointed accomplished people, and I am quite sure that they will contribute significantly to the other House.
Esther McVey: It is a long-standing convention under successive Governments that outgoing Prime Ministers can draw up a resignation list. That has been the case under past Governments from across the political spectrum, and any names proposed are subject to the usual propriety checks.
Esther McVey: Many people in the other House are probably somewhat insulted by the hon. Member’s words. Many of them are highly accomplished in a variety of specialisms and bring much insight as they scrutinise the legislation that comes from this House.
Esther McVey: My hon. Friend is a champion and a campaigner on behalf of all those people who have suffered covid vaccine damage. We have met, and I have taken the issue to the permanent secretary to see what we can do, whether it would involve extending the timeframe that he was talking about or not starting the clock ticking until a decision had been made.
Esther McVey: It has been interesting to hear the Labour party—yes, the Labour party—make the case for the terms and conditions of workers to be changed unilaterally, in one day, and without consultation or a proper review. I am sure that Labour’s union paymasters will be fascinated to hear the case made by the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) today. I start by...
Esther McVey: The hon. Member has raised a point about redundancy payments, and that is fundamentally what we are talking about. Severance pay is a redundancy payment, in that Ministers can be turfed out of office without any notice of termination and without any proper consultation. They have been given what would otherwise be called redundancy payments. I entirely agree that people have accepted those...
Esther McVey: I will carry on for a little while longer. I want to talk about what the Opposition are doing today, which is, as I said at the outset, seizing the business of the day and trying to make this a case for emergency legislation, which it is not. So many emergencies confront the country and the world, and it is striking that of all those emergencies—it could be the middle east, it could be...
Esther McVey: So it is not going to happen today, but in fact the Opposition are not going to do it if they come into power—which, hopefully, they will not. That is how much of an emergency it is. However, there is some good news here. The right hon. Lady is putting herself at the vanguard of cutting waste, which must be a first for the Labour party. Will she take this opportunity to apologise for the...
Esther McVey: So the right hon. Lady could not apologise. She could not, or did not want to, stop the waste of hundreds of billions of pounds. I will say this: the Government accept that the current legislation is now a third of a century old, and that this may be an appropriate time to review it and consider changes, but this is not the right time or place to take action. Proper consideration must be...
Esther McVey: No, because we are talking about waste. We are talking about appropriate measures taking place and this faux emergency legislation that the right hon. Lady wants to bring in. Turning to ministerial severance pay more generally, it is important to note that this is the long-standing policy that successive Governments from both sides of the House have retained. The reason they have retained it...
Esther McVey: From a sedentary position, I get £1 million quoted at me. I remember, although maybe the right hon. Lady does not, that it was over £1 million in 2010 when Labour lost office, and that is quite a long time ago. It is for these reasons that the Government do not currently intend to reform severance pay for departing Ministers, although I am happy to review it, as I mentioned earlier. The...
Esther McVey: I am sad to say no I cannot, because we have said that it is essential that there is due process on the Floor of this House—not like the Opposition, who want to whisk it through in a day. We are completely transparent about the payments of severance, and all such payments are published in departmental annual reports.
Esther McVey: My hon. Friend makes a good point, and I think that that would be looked at under the review as well, should we review this, but the law that was set out at that time stipulated that age. That is something else that I agree would need to be looked at. I want to be clear that severance pay cannot be looked at as a stand-alone issue. It is part of an overall picture that governs payments made...
Esther McVey: That is well dodged again by the right hon. Lady. She will not confirm that Labour would keep a tight fiscal grip on ministerial pay. Obviously, one of the key things about today’s motion is waste and expenditure. We will see what happens. As always, money runs away with the Labour party. This Government passed the transformative Ministerial and other Maternity Allowances Act 2021, which...
Esther McVey: There is an established process in place for the declaration and management of interests held by Ministers, as set out in the ministerial code. The independent adviser on ministers’ interests publishes a twice-yearly list of Ministers’ interests. Since 2023, interim updates to the list are also issued as needed. The latest list was published in December.
Esther McVey: As the hon. Member says, integrity is vital in this place and we all adhere to high standards. He will also know that there is an established regime in place for those declarations. The Foreign Secretary has adhered to those and, as he has said, he has just one job now, Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom. He is very proud to have that job and to work with the Prime Minister to try to...
Esther McVey: I repeat that there are established regimes in place for the declaration and management of interests, and they are overseen by an independent adviser, who publishes reports twice a year.
Esther McVey: I refer the hon. Lady to the latest list of Ministers’ interests, which was published on 14 December 2023 and included the relevant interests of all Ministers forming the Government as of 14 December 2023, including the Foreign Secretary. Our clear-eyed position on China remains unchanged and our approach of engaging directly and robustly with China in the UK national interest is the...
Esther McVey: We have made a number of important changes to increase transparency. We have launched a new website and online form to make it easier for anyone to make a nomination. We have brought the recruitment of the independent honours committees, which make the honours recommendations, into line with the governance code for public appointments, and we have bolstered probity checks through new and...