Yesterday the press reported allegations that former employees of the Ministry of Justice have
behaved improperly and that knowledge they may have acquired while working for the
Department has been used to gain a competitive advantage.

We take all allegations of impropriety extremely seriously. We have launched an immediate
investigation to ascertain the facts, which the Cabinet Office’s Proprietary and Ethics team will
support.

The rules around former civil servants taking up employment in the private sector are made very
clear when they leave. Under no circumstance should they exploit privileged access to
government contracts or sensitive information which could be used to influence the outcome of
commercial competitions.

Let me also add, that over the last 6 months, we have improved our commercial capability, more
than doubling the senior commercial experts monitoring work with the private sector. But we know
there is still more to do.

I will update the House once our investigation has been completed.