Asked by: Lord Mawson (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether there was an increase or a decrease in the number of small business start-ups in 2025–26; and what assessment they have made of the reasons for any change.
Answered by Lord Stockwood - Minister of State (HM Treasury)
Inter-Departmental Business Register data indicates a 3% fall in UK business start-ups between financial years 2024-25 (308,700) and 2025-26 (298,655).
While business births data is not available by business size, the UK business population is overwhelmingly composed of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), accounting for 99.9% of firms.
Business start-up rates are influenced by a range of factors, including levels of entrepreneurial activity, the policy and regulatory environment, and broader economic conditions.
Asked by: Lord Mawson (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many small businesses ceased to operate in the UK in the financial years (1) 2023–24, (2) 2024–25, and (3) 2025–26; and what assessment they have made of the reasons for these closures.
Answered by Lord Stockwood - Minister of State (HM Treasury)
Inter-Departmental Business Register data shows that the number of UK businesses that ceased operation between financial years 2023-24 and 2025-26 is as follows:
While business deaths data is not available by business size, the UK business population is overwhelmingly composed of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), accounting for 99.9% of firms.
Business death rates are influenced by a range of factors, including business resilience and broader economic and financial conditions.
Asked by: Lord Mawson (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the age distribution of potholes in England; and what tools exist for determining how long specific potholes have been left unrepaired.
Answered by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
Local highway authorities have a duty under Section 41 of the Highways Act 1980 to maintain the highways network in their area. The Act does not set out specific standards of maintenance, as it is for each individual local highway authority to assess which parts of its network need repair and what standards should be applied, based upon their local knowledge and circumstances.
The Department does not hold data on the time taken by local highway authorities to repair reported potholes, but national guidance recommends that defects and potholes which require urgent attention should be made safe at the time of inspection or as soon as possible.
Local highway authorities have a wide range of tools and methods available to them to survey their networks and to monitor the condition of the roads they maintain over time. The Government does not prescribe which of these must be used to inform their asset management programme.
Asked by: Lord Mawson (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government what penalties exist for local highway authorities which do not spend the portion of funding allocated to them to address potholes on road repairs.
Answered by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
The Government recognises that historic underinvestment has meant that authorities have not necessarily had the resources to maintain roads in the way that they would want to. The Government has therefore announced a record £7.3 billion for the next four years. This is building on the c.£1.6 billion in capital funding for local highways maintenance in England for the financial year 2025/26, which includes £500 million of additional funding when compared to funding levels for 2024/25.
In 2025/26, 25% of the additional funding was designated as incentive funding and was contingent upon local highway authorities meeting certain reporting requirements. A portion of the £7.3 billion over the next four years will also be designated as incentive funding and will be subject to local highway authorities demonstrating that they comply with best practice in highways maintenance, for example by spending all the DfT’s capital grant on highways maintenance and adopting more preventative maintenance. Authorities that fail to meet these standards will have this incentive funding withheld.
In addition, on 11 January, DfT published a new traffic light rating system for all local highway authorities in England. Under this system, each authority is rated red, amber or green based on the condition of their roads, how effectively they spend their record Government funding, and whether they do so using best practice. Authorities that state their capital investment to maintain local highways is less than DfT’s capital grant for highways maintenance receive a red spend scorecard under this rating system.
Asked by: Lord Mawson (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the current rate of improvement in road repairs across England; what metrics they use to undertake such an assessment; and what period such an assessment covers.
Answered by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
DfT collects and collates a range of information about information about local roads from local authorities in England annually.
Official statistics on the condition of local roads in England are published annually on GOV.uk. These statistics have presented the percentage of road that should have been considered for maintenance (red), by road classification and local authority, since 2008. These statistics show that in England:
This financial year the Government has introduced transparency reporting for local highway authorities across England alongside making an additional £500 million available for highways maintenance. To qualify for their full share of this funding uplift, local highway authorities had to publish reports setting out how they comply with best practice, including in relation to the extent to which they prioritise preventative maintenance.
Further to this, on 11 January, the Department published a new rating system for every highway authority in England. Each local highway authority received a red, amber or green rating based on the condition of their roads, how much they are spending to maintain it, and whether they do so using best practice, including by adopting more preventative maintenance. The ratings, which will be updated periodically, provide an incentive for councils to adopt more preventative maintenance, and enable the Department to provide targeted support to authorities to help them adopt best practice.
To gain access to their full highways maintenance funding in the future, local highway authorities will have to continue to demonstrate that they comply with best practice, for example by adopting more preventative maintenance.
Asked by: Lord Mawson (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government what percentage of funding originally allocated to road repairs in England has subsequently been diverted to other, unrelated, programmes in the most recent two years for which figures are available.
Answered by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
From 2025, all local highway authorities were required to publish transparency reports on their websites to increase transparency and ensure that both Government and local residents can see how record investment into local roads is being spent. Using the data from these transparency reports, the Department published a new traffic light rating system for all local highway authorities in England on 11 January. Under this system, each authority is rated red, amber or green based on the condition of their roads, how effectively they spend their record Government funding, and whether they do so using best practice. This system provides public accountability and reinforces the expectation that funding is used for its intended purpose.
Under this system, 10 local highway authorities scored a red on their spend scorecard, which means they have stated in their highways maintenance transparency reports that in the current financial year they are due to invest less capital to maintain their local highways than their DfT capital grant for local highways maintenance. A large portion of local highway authorities did, however, spend more than their allocation with 113 local highway authorities receiving a green rating for this scorecard.
Asked by: Lord Mawson (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask His Majesty's Government what platforms were considered for Companies House's identity verification service, and on what grounds GOV.UK One Login was selected.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Companies House sought invitations from service providers and conducted a robust assessment against critical success factors concerning user experience, value for money, affordability for users and viability of delivery.
GOV.UK One Login was selected because it satisfied these critical success factors and aligned with wider government priorities to utilise cross government verification solutions where possible to streamline access government services as set out below:
www.gov.uk/guidance/use-govuk-one-login
To ensure that all customers were able to access identity verification, a secondary route was put in place in the form of Authorised Company Service Providers (ACSPs).
Asked by: Lord Mawson (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the effectiveness of the GOV.UK One Login in-person Post Office option for Companies House's identity verification service.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Post Office option is provided under the GOV.UK One Login Service. Companies House understands Government Digital Service undertook a robust analysis to ensure the option achieved the same identity verification standard as other identity verification journeys within the GOV.UK One Login service.
Companies House works closely with the GOV.UK One Login team to monitor success rates through this route, along with sharing customer feedback and insight where relevant to improve the service.
Asked by: Lord Mawson (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the effectiveness of GOV.UK One Login for Companies House's identity verification service, and how many complaints have been received about it.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
On 8 April 2025 Companies House started a lengthy period of voluntary Identity Verification to assess the effectiveness of the solution before making Identity Verification mandatory from 18 November.
As of 9 December, 1.8 million people have successfully completed verification via GOV.UK One Login. Between 8 April and 9 December, Companies House received 355 official complaints regarding GOV.UK One Login. From September to November 2025, the period for which data is available of the Government Digital Service (GDS) received 75 complaints from Companies House customers using One Login to verify their identities.
Asked by: Lord Mawson (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the barriers to access finance for purchasing cars.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The government recognises the critical role the motor finance market plays in allowing people to own their own vehicle. The government is engaging with a broad range of stakeholders to monitor issues in the motor finance market.