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 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 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 - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
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 - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
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 - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
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.
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 (1) the financial viability of running a small or medium-sized building company and (2) the main financial challenges of running a small or medium-sized building company.
Answered by Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
Construction is a cyclical industry, and the financial viability of firms can be affected by a range of factors, including the state of the market, commercial negotiations in relation to contracts, liabilities incurred, and the price of wages, products and materials. Small firms in the construction supply chain are also vulnerable to late or non-payment, which is why the Government has taken steps to improve payment reporting, and is committed to publishing a consultation on legislative measures to ensure prompt and fair payment.
Asked by: Lord Mawson (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many small and medium-sized building companies have ceased trading in the financial years (1) 2024–25, (2) 2023–24, and (3) 2022–23; and what assessment have they made of the trend of these figures.
Answered by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.
Please see the letter attached from the Acting National Statistician of the UK Statistics Authority.
Emma Rourke | Acting National Statistician
The Lord Mawson OBE
House of Lords
London
SW1A 0PW
2 June 2025
Dear Lord Mawson,
As Acting National Statistician, I am responding to your Parliamentary Question asking how many small and medium-sized building companies have ceased trading in the financial years (1) 2024–25, (2) 2023–24, and (3) 2022–23; and what assessment has been made of the trend of these figures (HL7770).
Using the quarterly business demography release[1], we can show, in Table 1, the number of businesses which were classified to the construction industry which have ceased trading in the financial years listed. Figures for building companies are not separately available so the wider aggregation of the construction industry has been used. This consists of construction of buildings, civil engineering, and specialised construction activities. These figures are classified as ‘official statistics in development’.
Table 1: Number of businesses classified to the construction industry which have ceased trading in the financial years 2022/23 – 2024/25.
Financial year | Number of business closures within the Construction industry |
2022/23 | 46,505 |
2023/24 | 40,700 |
2024/25 | 39,235 |
Source: Office for National Statistics
It is not possible to show these figures for small and medium sized enterprises only since this breakdown is not available from the quarterly release. However, figures from our 2024 UK Business: activity, size and location dataset[2] show that small and medium sized enterprises, taken to be businesses with employment less than 250, make up 99.9 per cent of businesses in the construction industry.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) makes no estimate of the trend of these figures.
Yours sincerely,
Emma Rourke
Asked by: Lord Mawson (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the number and percentage of hereditary Peers in the House of Lords with experience of running and growing a business, and how this compares with the rest of the House; what assessment they have made of the impact of the removal of hereditary Peers from the House of Lords on its scrutiny of legislation and its role in holding the Government to account; and what steps they are taking to ensure that relevant business experience is maintained in the House.
Answered by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The Government recognises and values the contributions hereditary peers have made to the House of Lords.
The House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill delivers the Government’s manifesto commitment to remove the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords, completing the work of the House of Lords Act 1999. In the 21st century there should not be places reserved in the legislature for people born into certain families.
The Government is supportive of the inclusion of individuals from all backgrounds in the House of Lords and believes the second chamber is enriched by members who bring diverse experience and expertise. This includes members with business experience.