Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent on 6 March (HL5057), whether they will place in the Library of the House a copy of the comprehensive fraud risk assessments undertaken for the Infected Blood Compensation Scheme.

Answered by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)

The Infected Blood Compensation Authority (IBCA) is committed to being open and transparent, however, fraud risk assessments are sensitive documents, therefore they are not intended for public release.

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent on 7 April (HL6019), whether the Cabinet Office holds unpublished internal guidance on the performance management process for Permanent Secretaries; and, if so, whether they will place a copy of that guidance in the Library of the House.

Answered by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)

There is no unpublished internal guidance on the performance management process for Permanent Secretaries. The process follows the principles outlined in the performance management guidance for Senior Civil Servants which is published on GOV.UK: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/67a391127da1f1ac64e5ff25/Final_2025-26_SCS_PM_Framework_published.pdf

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask His Majesty's Government how much HMRC received in voluntary National Insurance contributions between 1 October 2024 and 31 March 2025, and what estimate they have made of the projected total lifetime cost of the associated state pension entitlements.

Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)

HMRC does not have comprehensive records showing the total number of people who have purchased missing qualifying years, or the full value of these contributions paid across the range of available payment channels. As such, DWP have not been able to estimate the additional State Pension lifetime entitlement associated with these payments.

However, since the online State Pension forecast service was launched on 29 April 2024, 138,000 people have paid £180 million of contributions through this service.

HMRC collects residency and tax contribution history as part of the application process for paying voluntary National Insurance contributions . However, the cost of producing reliable statistics would represent a disproportionate cost.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the total projected lifetime cost to the Treasury of state pension entitlements arising from voluntary National Insurance contributions since 2013; and whether HMRC collects data on the residency or tax contribution history of individuals making such contributions, including during the 2023 to 2025 period when up to 18 years of back-payments were permitted.

Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)

HMRC does not have comprehensive records showing the total number of people who have purchased missing qualifying years, or the full value of these contributions paid across the range of available payment channels. As such, DWP have not been able to estimate the additional State Pension lifetime entitlement associated with these payments.

However, since the online State Pension forecast service was launched on 29 April 2024, 138,000 people have paid £180 million of contributions through this service.

HMRC collects residency and tax contribution history as part of the application process for paying voluntary National Insurance contributions . However, the cost of producing reliable statistics would represent a disproportionate cost.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask His Majesty's Government how much HMRC has received in each tax year since 2013 from voluntary National Insurance contributions made to purchase missing qualifying years for the UK state pension; and how many additional qualifying years of entitlement were created in each year as a result.

Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)

HMRC does not have comprehensive records showing the total number of people who have purchased missing qualifying years, or the full value of these contributions paid across the range of available payment channels. As such, DWP have not been able to estimate the additional State Pension lifetime entitlement associated with these payments.

However, since the online State Pension forecast service was launched on 29 April 2024, 138,000 people have paid £180 million of contributions through this service.

HMRC collects residency and tax contribution history as part of the application process for paying voluntary National Insurance contributions . However, the cost of producing reliable statistics would represent a disproportionate cost.

Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Jones of Whitchurch on 1 April (HL5869), and in the light of the requirements of the Government Efficiency Framework, published 19 July 2023, whether they will publish (1) the full disaggregated breakdown of the £45 billion estimate in annual savings and productivity benefits by department and public body; (2) the corresponding cash-releasing and non-cash-releasing savings; and (3) the estimated investment required to achieve these savings.

Answered by Baroness Jones of Whitchurch - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)

Details on the £45 billion figure were published as part of the State of Digital government review. The £45 billion figure referenced reflects an estimate of potential long-term annual benefits from digital transformation across the public sector, covering simplifying and automating routine tasks, shifting transactions to cheaper digital channels, and reducing fraud and error. Estimates include both cash-releasing and non-cash-releasing benefits. The estimate is designed to highlight the value at stake and not to inform specific organisational implementation through disaggregation. The Government Efficiency Framework (GEF) does not require savings estimates to be disaggregated or published. Any implementation of projects to deliver this value will require further departmental analysis and appraisal, including cost and benefit realisation in accordance with the Green Book.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Smith of Malvern on 4 April (HL5949), and in the light of the launch of the voluntary local authority data collection on home-to-school transport on 3 February, (1) what number of pupils receive publicly funded home-to-school transport in each local authority; (2) what proportion of home-to-school transport spending is attributable to taxi or private hire vehicle usage; and (3) which local authorities offer parental mileage allowances or direct payment schemes in place of council-arranged transport.

Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Minister for Women and Equalities)

The voluntary local authority data collection exercise closed in mid-March. The department is currently analysing the data and plans to share findings with local authorities later in the year.

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent on 15 April (HL6395), whether the Cabinet Office holds a central record of the names of the secretaries assigned to support each Cabinet committee listed in the List of Cabinet Committees, published on 21 October 2024; and, if so, whether they will place a copy of that record in the Library of the House.

Answered by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)

The Cabinet Secretariat works on behalf of the Cabinet Secretary to support Cabinet committees. The Cabinet Office has no plans to place a list of all the officials working in the Secretariat in the Library of the House.

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent on 7 April (HL6018), and to the Written Answer by the Parliamentary Secretary at the Cabinet Office on 21 October 2019 (HC463), why it was possible, in the case of the latter, to provide a full list of Permanent Secretary-level appointments, but not in the case of the former; and whether they will now provide a corresponding list of current Permanent Secretary-level appointments, including whether each appointment is fixed-term and its expiry date.

Answered by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)

Since 2014, permanent secretary appointments have been made on the basis of a five year fixed tenure; this is set out in contracts of employment. There is no automatic presumption in favour of renewal, but renewals are possible at the discretion of the Prime Minister.

The table below sets out the tenure end dates of the current permanent secretary group.

*Andrew Goodall is on secondment from NHS Wales

**Andy Start is on a Fixed Term contract

*** Tamara Finkelstein, Jenny Harries and Sarah Munby are leaving the Civil Service in Summer 2025, and therefore before their tenure end date

Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask His Majesty's Government what the total kilowatt-hours and average power usage effectiveness have been for each year since 2019/20 of (1) the government server rooms, and (2) their industry suppliers in providing the equivalent, including via public cloud.

Answered by Baroness Jones of Whitchurch - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)

No central assessment has been made of what the total kilowatt-hours and average power usage effectiveness have been for each year since 2019/20 of (1) the government server rooms, and (2) their industry suppliers in providing the equivalent, including via public cloud. Whilst we would expect individual organisations to have an understanding of the power usage costs associated with the running of their on-premise services this is not information that is recorded centrally.

Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the total annual estate and electricity cost of housing digital infrastructure and IT systems, legacy and otherwise, across the server rooms of the government estate.

Answered by Baroness Jones of Whitchurch - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)

There is currently no centrally conducted analysis of the total estate and electricity cost across for housing digital infrastructure or IT systems. HMT provides guidance for how to estimate the cost of both land and energy consumption when a business case is being developed. This helps to ensure that the best value for money option is selected when a new project is undertaken. For digital projects the Government Cloud First policy states that when procuring new or existing services, public sector organisations should default to Public Cloud first and where there is no choice but to host on-premises, use Crown Hosting.

Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of total government savings over the past five years of shifting data from locally hosted back-office IT systems, legacy or otherwise, to the public cloud.

Answered by Baroness Jones of Whitchurch - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)

No central assessment has been made of total government savings over the past five years of shifting data from locally hosted back-office IT systems, legacy or otherwise, to the public cloud. Whilst we would expect individual organisations to have an understanding of the costs associated with the running of their cloud and on-premise services, to support their own business cases, this is not information that is recorded centrally.

Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of which services are operated, whether directly or through third parties, from which servers in which data centres across the government IT estate.

Answered by Baroness Jones of Whitchurch - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)

No central assessment has been made of which services and servers are operated from which data centers across the government estate. Whilst we would expect individual organisations to have an understanding of the physical locations that are associated with the running of their digital services to support business continuity planning this is not information that is recorded centrally. In the public cloud the information required by organisations is different and they should understand the cloud regions in which their services are hosted rather than the physical location of servers, especially for modern cloud-native workloads which are abstracted from physical servers.

Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask His Majesty's Government what the Government Digital Service has done since its inception to encourage public sector organisations to improve their efficiency by shifting data from self-provided server rooms to AI-enabled data centres.

Answered by Baroness Jones of Whitchurch - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)

The government introduced a ‘Cloud First’ policy in 2013 for all technology decisions. Since then, under the former GDS/CDDO and new GDS, we continue to encourage adoption of cloud services, including those providing AI services from AI enabled data centres. We do this by developing policy and providing practical guidance and support to help organisations move to the public cloud. The 2023 update to the Government Cloud First policy strengthened the Cloud First mandate with public sector organisations now required to ‘default to cloud’. For organisations that cannot move services to the public cloud they should utilise Crown Hosting Data Centres.

Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask His Majesty's Government what percentage of all government back-office digital systems have been migrated to public cloud; and what timeline the Government Digital Service has set to complete migration.

Answered by Baroness Jones of Whitchurch - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)

The State of Digital Government review (January 2025), states that at least 60% of the central government IT estate is now hosted in the cloud, but that other areas of the public sector, such as local authorities, policing and the NHS, are less advanced in cloud adoption. GDS is committed to working with all public sector organisations to drive cloud adoption as per Cloud First policy.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask His Majesty's Government what is the total value of Research and Development tax relief identified as fraudulent and subsequently reclaimed by His Majesty's Revenue and Customs in each of the past five financial years; and what proportion of that amount has been successfully recovered.

Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)

Estimates of the level of error and fraud in Research and Development (R&D) tax relief and information regarding additional tax revenue generated by HMRC’s compliance activity are published in HMRC’s Annual Report and Accounts. The latest publication can be found on Gov.UK and the next publication is due in July.

The methodology used to calculate the level of error and fraud for 2020-2021 was significantly improved for the 2022-2023 Annual Reports and Accounts. Estimates of the level of error and fraud in R&D tax relief for earlier years are not available on a comparable basis.

Analysis shows that around half of all claims, by volume, contained some element of non-compliance with fraud indicators found in fewer than 10 per cent of claims and accounting for less than 5 per cent of the total value claimed.

HMRC’s Approach to Research and Development tax relief 2023 to 2024 details the overall amount of tax recovered through HMRC’s compliance activity for the past two financial years, this information is also set out in the table below.

HMRC seeks to recover R&D tax relief where it was not claimed in accordance with the law and in line with statutory time limits. In the majority of cases, adjustments for incorrect R&D claims will be limited to claims investigated within the normal time limit of 12 months from the date the claim is submitted. HMRC also considers raising assessments outside of this normal time limit where relevant legislative conditions are met, including where there is evidence of deliberate non-compliance.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many Research and Development tax advisers His Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has referred to a professional regulatory or disciplinary body in each of the past five years; and under what statutory authority HMRC is empowered to refer or sanction such advisers.

Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)

HMRC can disclose the misconduct of a tax advisor to any professional regulatory body they are a member of, under section 20(3) of the Commissioners of Revenue and Customs Act 2005.

The table below provides the total number of disclosures made to professional regulatory bodies between 2019-2020 and 2023-2024. The table refers to the total number of referrals and HMRC does not publish relief specific breakdowns of disclosures it makes to professional regulatory bodies.

The government has recently consulted on options to enhance HMRC’s powers to tackle poor tax adviser behaviour, which includes Research & Development agents. This consultation closed on 7 May 2025. It is the government’s intention that any legislative changes following the consultation will be included in the 2025 Finance Bill.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the proportion of Research and Development tax relief claims submitted in each of the past five financial years that involved the use of nominee or third-party bank accounts to receive payment.

Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)

HMRC does not publish the proportion of Research and Development (R&D) claims involving nominee or third-party bank accounts for the past five financial years.

Since November 2023, no new assignments of R&D tax credits have been possible and since April 2024, claimants have not been able to nominate a third-party payee. The changes were made as analysis showed that more than 90% of R&D claims that were fraudulent or displayed some markers of fraud used nominee bank accounts. These changes reduce the incentive for agents to submit spurious claims, as customers will receive the payment direct. They provide customers with more visibility over claims made on their behalf and allow them to correct any inaccuracies.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the potential impact of requiring independent attestation by a qualified competent professional for all Research and Development tax relief claims above a specified threshold; and what consideration they have given to introducing a requirement such as a condition of eligibility.

Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)

The Government recognises the importance of research and development (R&D) in driving innovation, and the benefits it can bring for society. By incentivising R&D, tax reliefs can play a vital role in the Government’s mission to boost economic growth.

R&D tax reliefs are delivered as part of the Corporation Tax self-assessment process. This requires claimant companies to assess their own entitlement. HMRC has produced specific guidance to assist claimants to make that assessment. This includes discussion on the importance of being able to substantiate the advance in science and technology sought, and how that can be aided by the involvement of a qualified competent professional.

The Government is committed to responding to stakeholder feedback and enhancing the administration of R&D tax reliefs. To support this, HMRC published a consultation on 26 March to explore widening the use of advance clearances in the reliefs to help further reduce error and fraud, while also improving the customer experience and providing certainty to businesses.

The Corporate Tax Roadmap confirmed HMRC will establish an R&D expert advisory panel and HMRC launched recruitment for the panel on 6 May. The panel will work with HMRC to improve the functioning of the R&D tax reliefs system by increasing clarity of guidance for claimants and enhancing HMRC’s understanding of innovation and developments across key growth sectors which will assist in its assessment of R&D claims.

The Government will continue to consider longer term simplifications and incremental improvements to the effectiveness of the reliefs.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask His Majesty's Government what was (1) the total whole-life cost, and (2) number of projects, in the Government Major Projects Portfolio in each of the past seven financial years; and what was the headcount of the Infrastructure and Projects Authority in each of those years.

Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)

As published in the Infrastructure and Project Authority’s most recent Annual Report for 2023 to 2024, the whole-life cost followed by the number of projects on the Government Major Projects Portfolio for each of the last seven financial years is as follows:

• 2018: £461bn across 133 projects
• 2019: £496bn across 133 projects
• 2020: £481bn across 125 projects
• 2021: £581bn across 184 projects
• 2022: £678bn across 235 projects
• 2023: £805bn across 244 projects
• 2024: £834bn across 227 projects

This information is presented within the Infrastructure and Project Authority’s most recent Annual Report for 2023 to 2024.

The headcount for the Infrastructure and Projects Authority for each of the last seven years (the number of the Full-Time Equivalent staff from the 1^st April each year) is as follows:

• 2018, 156.3
• 2019, 155.7
• 2020, 194.1
• 2021, 199.6
• 2022, 190.6
• 2023, 177.4
• 2024, 183.6

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the effect of the 'triple lock' pension policy on the relative and absolute pensioner poverty rates between 2011 and 2024; and what proportion of pensioner households that benefited from the triple lock were above the poverty line throughout that period.

Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

An estimate of the effect of the ‘triple lock’ pension policy on the relative and absolute pensioner poverty rates between 2011 and 2024; and proportions of pensioner households that benefitted from the triple lock and were above the poverty threshold are not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.

Data is available regarding the proportion of pensioner households that are above the relative and absolute poverty lines. The Households below average income (HBAI) statistics contain estimates of the number and percentage of people living in low-income households in the UK. This is published by the Department annually. The latest data covers financial year ending 2024.

In financial year ending 2011, 86% of pensioner households were above the relative poverty threshold after housing costs and 86% were above the absolute poverty threshold after housing costs.

In financial year ending 2024, 84% of pensioner households were above the relative poverty threshold after housing costs and 87% were above the absolute poverty threshold after housing costs.

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many arm’s-length bodies are currently headquartered in (1) inner London, and (2) outer London; and what they are, disaggregated by sponsoring department and location.

Answered by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)

Information at this level of detail is not held by the Cabinet Office. The ALB landscape analysis captures data on ALB locations by region, and can be found on gov.uk here. Sponsoring departments will be able to provide more precise location information for individual ALBs.

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent on 17 March (HL5387), what the estimated cost was of answering that Question in full; whether an assessment of that cost was conducted in accordance with the guidance in the Guide to Parliamentary Work; and whether they will now place a copy of that assessment in the Library of the House.

Answered by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)

Assessing what constitutes a project's original baseline would require making a case by case assessment for each of the 227 major projects in order to determine which baseline should be used as a reference point. Making this case by case assessment would have exceeded the current disproportionate cost threshold as set out in the Guide to Parliamentary Work. We have no plans to place a copy of this assessment in the Library of the House.

Found: Tuesday 13 May 2025 3.10 pm Watch the meeting Members present: Lord Wood of Anfield (The Chair); Lord Agnew of Oulton

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Found: beginning to end of line 3 on page 66 Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill 2 Clause 46 LORD AGNEW OF OULTON

Found: LORD AGNEW OF OULTON 34_ Clause 3, page 4, line 14, at end insert— “(7A) The local authority must provide

Found: LORD AGNEW OF OULTON 82_ Clause 6, page 11, line 32, at end insert— “(7) All children of secondary

Found: LORD AGNEW OF OULTON ★_ Clause 3, page 4, line 14, at end insert— “(7A) The local authority must provide