Asked by: Jo Stevens (Labour - Cardiff Central)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, how many times her Department has taken enforcement action against businesses for non-compliance with minimum wage legislation in each financial year since 2015.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
All businesses – irrespective of their size or business sector – are responsible for paying the correct minimum wage to their staff. The government is clear that anyone entitled to be paid the minimum wage should receive it and takes robust enforcement action against employers who do not pay their staff correctly. HMRC enforces minimum wage regulations on behalf of DBT.
Table 1: National Minimum Wage arrears, workers identified, and penalties issued from 2015/16 – 2021/22. Statistics for 2022/23 have not been published yet.
Financial year | Arrears | Number of workers | Penalties issued |
2015/16 | £10,281,396 | 58,080 | 815 |
2016/17 | £10,918,047 | 98,150 | 821 |
2017/18 | £15,615,609 | 201,785 | 810 |
2018/19 | £24,447,919 | 221,581 | 1,008 |
2019/20 | £20,836,609 | 263,350 | 992 |
2020/21 | £16,758,324 | 155,196 | 575 |
2021/22 | £16,316,841 | 120,295 | 696 |
Asked by: Jo Stevens (Labour - Cardiff Central)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, in how many cases businesses in Wales were found to be non-compliant with minimum wage legislation in each year since 2019.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
All businesses – irrespective of their size or business sector – are responsible for paying the correct minimum wage to their staff. The government is clear that anyone entitled to be paid the minimum wage should receive it and takes robust enforcement action against employers who do not pay their staff correctly. HMRC enforces minimum wage regulations on behalf of DBT. Regional data for Wales has been provided in Table 1.
Table 1: National Minimum Wage arrears, workers identified, and penalties issued in Wales, 2019/20 to 2021/22.
Financial Year | Region | Arrears | Number of workers | Penalties issued |
2019/20 | Wales | £325,419 | 4,227 | 41 |
2020/21 | Wales | £262,408 | 3,895 | 14 |
2021/22 | Wales | £69,769 | 661 | 43 |
Asked by: Bob Seely (Conservative - Isle of Wight)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what information her Department holds on how many industrial ballots did not meet the threshold set by the Trade Union Act 2016 for strike action in each month of 2023.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Available data relating to ballots for industrial action held by registered trade unions can be found on gov.uk under the Certification Officer’s official list of trade unions and their annual returns. However, data for the 2023 calendar year will not be available until later this year. Data for 2024 will not be available until the following year.
Asked by: Bob Seely (Conservative - Isle of Wight)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what information her Department holds on the average percentage of trade union members (a) voting in ballots and (b) voting in favour of industrial action in each month of 2023.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Available data relating to ballots for industrial action held by registered trade unions can be found on gov.uk under the Certification Officer’s official list of trade unions and their annual returns. However, data for the 2023 calendar year will not be available until later this year. Data for 2024 will not be available until the following year.
Asked by: Bob Seely (Conservative - Isle of Wight)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what information her Department holds on how many trade union ballots in each industrial sector there were in each month of 2023.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Available data relating to ballots for industrial action held by registered trade unions can be found on gov.uk under the Certification Officer’s official list of trade unions and their annual returns. However, data for the 2023 calendar year will not be available until later this year. Data for 2024 will not be available until the following year.
Asked by: Lord Mann (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many fake companies were registered in each of the last 12 months for which there are records, unbeknownst to the householder at the address used.
Answered by Lord Offord of Garvel - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Companies House does not have a means of accurately measuring the volume of companies used for illegitimate purposes or an approved statistical method to estimate it. However, Companies House does act on reports of unexpected activity that may indicate that an incorporated entity is being used illegitimately.
Following the commencement of the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 on 4 March Companies House has begun to act proactively cleanse the Register of Companies of disputed information. It has also been empowered to proactively share information with law enforcement partners where potentially illegitimate activity is identified.
Asked by: Kwasi Kwarteng (Conservative - Spelthorne)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, with reference to her Department's Response to the Government consultation on measures to reform post-termination non-compete clauses in contracts of employment, published on 12 May 2023, when she plans to bring forward legislative proposals to introduce a statutory limit of three months on the length of such clauses.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Introducing the statutory limit on the length of non-compete clauses of 3 months will require primary legislation. The Government will introduce this legislation when parliamentary time allows.
Asked by: Lord Patten (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the number of occasions on which scaffolding around domestic and commercial buildings was erected illegally in England in the most recent year for which figures are available, and whether this figure is decreasing or increasing.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Lainston - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Department for Business and Trade does not hold this data.
Asked by: Claudia Webbe (Independent - Leicester East)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, with reference to paragraphs 28 and 29 of the summary grounds of the Secretary of State provided in the High Court case between the King (on the application of Al-Haq) v the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, AC-2023-LON-003634, whether any of the pending 28 arms export licences to Israel identified in the Change in Circumstances review have been approved since January 2024.
Answered by Greg Hands - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Government is monitoring the situation in Israel and Gaza very closely.
The Government can and does respond quickly and flexibly to changing international circumstances. All licences are kept under careful and continual review and are able to be amended, suspended, refused or revoked as circumstances require.
HM Government publishes data on export licensing decisions on a quarterly basis in the Official Statistics, including data on outcome, end user destination, overall value, type (e.g. military, other) and a summary of the items covered by these licences. This data is available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/strategic-export-controls-licensing-data.
Asked by: Claudia Webbe (Independent - Leicester East)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, with reference to paragraphs 28 and 29 of the summary grounds of the Secretary of State provided in the High Court case between the King (on the application of Al-Haq) v the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, AC-2023-LON-003634, if she will provide the dates for when each of the arms export licences to Israel identified in the Change in Circumstances review were issued.
Answered by Greg Hands - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Government is monitoring the situation in Israel and Gaza very closely.
The Government can and does respond quickly and flexibly to changing international circumstances. All licences are kept under careful and continual review and are able to be amended, suspended, refused or revoked as circumstances require.
HM Government publishes data on export licensing decisions on a quarterly basis in the Official Statistics, including data on outcome, end user destination, overall value, type (e.g. military, other) and a summary of the items covered by these licences. This data is available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/strategic-export-controls-licensing-data.