Asked by: Victoria Collins (Liberal Democrat - Harpenden and Berkhamsted)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of garden centres on local employment and skills training; and what steps he is taking to support that sector.
Answered by Kate Dearden - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Department has not made a specific assessment of the potential impact of garden centres on local employment and skills training. However, garden centres operate across retail and horticulture and can benefit from the government’s wider support for workforce development.
This government will not leave an entire generation of young people behind. That is why in March we announced almost £1bn in funding taking total investment to £2.5bn to further expand the Youth Guarantee over the next 3 years. This will fund an expansion of the Jobs Guarantee scheme to include 22–24-year-olds, hiring incentives for employers recruiting young people on Universal Credit at risk of long-term unemployment, and incentives for SMEs recruiting apprentices. This will unlock nearly 200,000 opportunities for young people to start work or an apprenticeship. To support smaller businesses, we are introducing a new £2,000 incentive when non-levy payers take on 16–24-year-old apprentices as new employees.
Asked by: Victoria Collins (Liberal Democrat - Harpenden and Berkhamsted)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of supermarkets selling low-cost cut flowers and plants on the viability of independent garden centre businesses.
Answered by Kate Dearden - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The government acknowledges the important contribution of independent garden centres, which frequently differentiate themselves through expert advice, product quality, and a wider range of horticultural services.
The government recognises that competition between different retail formats can present both opportunities and challenges for businesses. Pricing and product range decisions are commercial matters for individual retailers, operating within a competitive market. We support a competitive retail environment that benefits consumers while ensuring markets operate fairly, and the Competition and Markets Authority is responsible for addressing any concerns about anti‑competitive behaviour.
Asked by: Peter Bedford (Conservative - Mid Leicestershire)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, how many civil servants in their Department were found to have broken the Civil Service Code in (a) 2024 and (b) 2025.
Answered by Kate Dearden - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Civil Servants are appointed on merit on the basis of fair and open competition and are expected to carry out their role with dedication and a commitment to the Civil Service and its core values: integrity, honesty, objectivity and impartiality.
We can confirm that the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) and UK Export Finance (UKEF) hold the following information:
DBT
Year | No. Employees broke CS Code |
2024 | 7 |
2025 | <5* |
UKEF
Year | No. Employees broke CS Code |
2024 | 0 |
2025 | <5* |
*5 or less instances have been suppressed to ensure anonymity.
Asked by: Carla Denyer (Green Party - Bristol Central)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps he has taken to assess the risk of asbestos contamination in imported products from (a) China and (b) elsewhere.
Answered by Kate Dearden - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The UK product safety regime places responsibilities on manufacturers and importers to assess any risks their products may pose and ensure consumer products, including imports, are safe before being placed on the market. No level of asbestos is permitted in consumer products in the UK and where non-compliant products have been identified the Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS) and Local Authority Trading Standards, have acted quickly to ensure recalls are undertaken.
Asked by: Caroline Dinenage (Conservative - Gosport)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whether he has made an assessment of the potential impact of the changes to EU customs duties for small parcels on the magazine media sector.
Answered by Chris Bryant - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The EU’s changes to customs duties for small parcels remain at the proposal stage, although interim measures have started to be introduced by some Member States. This Government is engaging with relevant UK business representative organisations and industry stakeholders to consider the potential implications. To support preparedness, the Department is working with other departments to develop new online resources to help businesses, particularly SMEs understand and navigate any new requirements.
Asked by: Mike Wood (Conservative - Kingswinford and South Staffordshire)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, pursuant to the answer of 4 September 2025, to Question 70519, on Public Inquiries, what has been the public cost to date of the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry.
Answered by Blair McDougall - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The annual financial reports for the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry are available on their website: https://www.postofficehorizoninquiry.org.uk. The total spend outlined in these reports up to 31st March 2025, plus recent spend for 2025/26 (subject to final financial year closure), is £80 million. Updated costs for 2025/26 will be published in due course.
In addition, DBT funds Post Office’s costs of engaging with activities necessary of a core participant of the statutory Inquiry, such as legal representation and disclosure costs. As of 31st March 2026 the total spend for this is £134m, subject to final financial year closure. While the Department can clearly identify these direct costs of running the Inquiry, it is not possible to separately quantify the cost of departmental participation. Related expenditure, including staff time and legal support, sits within wider departmental budgets and is not recorded on a stand‑alone basis.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps he has taken to encourage the use of UK‑produced steel (a) across central government, (b) within the wider public sector, (c) by private sector companies in receipt of government procurement contracts and (d) across the rest of the private sector.
Answered by Chris McDonald - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The government’s Steel Strategy sets out our ambition to see much more UK-made steel used across public and private projects, whilst respecting our legal obligations.
For central government procurement, it is now a requirement that UK made steel is considered, as procurers must consult a digital catalogue of UK made steel products before making decisions. We also publish a steel pipeline annually, which provides a signal to the market by highlighting future opportunities in central government projects.
For offshore wind projects, we have reformed the Clean Industry Bonus to create new incentives for manufacturers to invest in UK steel in domestic wind turbines and wind farms.
We continue to work with other government departments to identify more opportunities for the use of UK made steel.
Asked by: Jess Brown-Fuller (Liberal Democrat - Chichester)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what assessment he has made of the impact of the Steel Strategy on the wider UK steel supply chain, including downstream manufacturers and fabricators.
Answered by Chris McDonald - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
This Government recognises the distinct value of downstream users, including in the manufacturing supply chain, alongside the importance of maintaining a resilient domestic steel sector.
We continue to engage extensively with industry and other stakeholders as we move into the delivery phase of the steel strategy, following its publication on the 19 March. This includes work to implement the new trade measure on 1 July. The publication of any further information will be considered as this progresses.
Asked by: Andrew Griffith (Conservative - Arundel and South Downs)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what proportion of Freedom of Information requests received by his Department were responded to (a) within the statutory 20 working day deadline, (b) between 21 and 40 working days, (c) between 41 and 60 working days, and (d) after 60 working days, in each of the last three calendar years.
Answered by Kate Dearden - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Cabinet Office publishes official Freedom of Information (FOI) statistics for all monitored central government bodies, including the Department for Business and Trade, as part of its regular Government FOI Statistics series. These statistics are available on GOV.UK at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/government-foi-statistics.
FOI statistics for 2023 and 2024 are currently available online through this collection. The 2025 FOI statistics are scheduled to be published in April 2026.
Asked by: Al Pinkerton (Liberal Democrat - Surrey Heath)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what assessment his Department has made of recent trends in levels of business confidence in the hospitality sector in Surrey Heath constituency.
Answered by Kate Dearden - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
While the Department does not produce constituency-level assessments of business confidence, government closely monitors business confidence across the hospitality sector.
We have introduced targeted support measures to strengthen the sector’s resilience. These include permanently reduced business rates for eligible retail, hospitality, and leisure properties, a substantial enhancement of the Hospitality Support Fund, initiatives to streamline regulatory requirements, and progress on licensing reform toward a new National Licensing Policy Framework. This framework is designed to offer greater flexibility for pubs and hospitality venues, enabling them to prosper.