Lord Mott

The ability to challenge regulatory decisions where necessary is critical to an effective regulatory system that drives economic growth. Most regulatory decisions are subject to internal appeal within regulators. This Government is committed to ensuring regulators are effective and fully accountable, as demonstrated by the Chancellor and Secretary of State for Business and Trade’s recent meeting with regulators where they scrutinised the pro-growth measures that regulators had identified to support the growth mission. The Department for Business and Trade and HM Treasury are leading the regulatory reform agenda across Government and we will set out our overall regulatory vision shortly.

Where government intervention requires a legislative or policy change, departments are expected to analyse and assess the impact of the change on the different groups affected.

Impact assessments are generally required for all the Government's interventions of a regulatory nature that affect the private sector and-or civil society organisation or public services. The Better Regulation Framework requires regulatory provisions with impacts on business of greater than +/-£10 million to be accompanied by a final impact assessment which is laid before Parliament alongside the regulations. These assessments must consider impact on small and micro businesses, explore whether such businesses need to be in scope and, where appropriate, identify mitigations for the additional burden. Provisions with lower impacts should provide a proportionate assessment or estimate of the impacts in the accompanying Explanatory Notes or Memorandum.

This Government is determined to address concerns about the complexity and structure of the regulatory system by providing clear and consistent strategic direction, enabling regulators to plan effectively and deliver long-term objectives in line with the Government’s priorities. This is why the Prime Minister, in conjunction with the Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, wrote to key regulators asking them to provide concrete proposals to prioritise growth with the support of Government. Our overall regulatory vision, which will address these will issues, will be set out in due course.

The Competition and Markets Authority employs approximately 1,120 staff. Full Time Equivalent staff numbers have been rounded to the nearest whole number. These figures include individuals with a CMA contract of employment, irrespective of the length of contract, whether being paid or not and so includes those on parental leave, a career break or those loaned or seconded out of the CMA. It excludes agency workers and CMA Board and Panel members.

The breakdown for each Directorate is as follows:

Senior Executive Team - 11

Competition Enforcement - 131

Consumer Protection and Markets - 118

Digital Markets Unit - 70

Mergers - 76

Office for the Internal Market and Subsidy Advice Unit - 33

Office of the Chief Economic Adviser - 160

Legal Service - 176

Corporate Services - 121

Data, Technology and Insight - 133

Strategy, Communications and Advocacy - 91

The CMA currently employs 35 people in its Communications Team, which includes stakeholder and business engagement, compliance communications, digital communications, media relations and strategic communications. It has a total annual budget of £3.2m in the current financial year (2024-25). Like other organisations, the CMA is in the process of reviewing its future budgets, and expects to reduce the budget for the Communications Team by at least 10%.

Current planning policies guide developments away from using Best and Most Versatile agricultural land where possible. Developers will submit information on land use and classification when seeking planning consent, and this information will be taken into account by decision makers. However, Government does not set a prescriptive approach and as such does not hold this information.

The AI Opportunities Action Plan will set out recommended actions for Government to grow the UK’s domestic AI sector and drive adoption of AI across the economy to boost growth and improve products and services. The action plan will be published soon.

The government is committed to harnessing AI and other technologies to deliver the government’s five missions and improve citizens’ lives. Public sector adoption is a key part of the forthcoming AI Opportunities Action Plan. The plan will detail how we can reimagine our public services by ensuring the public sector takes advantage of the best emerging use-cases and tools.

All children, from whatever background and no matter what challenges they face, deserve a safe environment in which they can learn. The department recognises the impact that a parent going to prison can have on a child’s learning, behaviour, mental health and wellbeing.

The government’s ‘Keeping children safe in education 2024’ statutory guidance for schools and colleges outlines specific guidance concerning children with a family member in prison or who are affected by parental offending. The guidance asks schools to consider the additional needs of these children and highlights the risk of poor outcomes including poverty, stigma, isolation and poor mental health. It also signposts staff to the National Information Centre on Children of Offenders (NICCO) website, which provides specialist advice and resources to support professionals working with offenders’ children and their families to help mitigate negative consequences for those children. The NICCO website can be accessed here: https://www.nicco.org.uk/.

The government is committed to identifying and better supporting children of prisoners. The department will be working closely with the Ministry of Justice to deliver on this commitment.

The UK is a world leader on tackling climate change and an international advocate for the highest possible environmental standards. We recognise the growing pressure to extract deep-sea resources and are concerned about the potential impacts of mining activities on the fragile marine environment.

This is why the UK supports a moratorium on the granting of exploitation licenses for deep sea mining projects by the International Seabed Authority (ISA). We will not sponsor or support the issuing of any such exploitation licences for deep sea mining by the ISA until there is sufficient scientific evidence about the potential impact on deep sea ecosystems. This is why the UK has been driving the need for strong enforceable environmental regulations, standards and guidelines to be developed by the ISA and put in place before any mining commences.

To support this, the UK successfully launched a new multi-disciplinary UK deep sea mining environmental expert network to champion UK expertise in environmental sciences, leading on filling gaps in knowledge in order to provide sufficient scientific evidence to fully understand the potential environmental impacts of deep sea mining. The Network has gained 75 members who are multidisciplinary across environmental sciences, and plans are underway for the Networks inaugural meeting to take place early in 2025.

Both the UK and Scottish Governments closed English Waters of the North Sea and all Scottish Waters to fishing for sandeel in March 2024. The closure is in place to shield sandeel as an essential food source for threatened seabird populations, commercially valuable fish and for marine mammals. The EU has raised a dispute that the UK’s decision to prohibit fishing for sandeel within UK waters is not compliant with the Trade and Cooperation agreement (TCA). The dispute proceedings are confidential therefore there is little more I can say at this time.

We recognise the need to take action to ensure that UK consumption of forest risk commodities is not driving deforestation, and we will set out our approach to addressing this in due course.

Agriculture is a devolved area, and Wales’s Sustainable Farming Scheme is therefore a matter for the Welsh Government.

Defra and devolved administration officials meet routinely to share experiences and insight regarding our respective agricultural policies.

The Secretary of State attended the Great Yorkshire Agriculture Show on 10 July 2024 and visited a farm and met with local farmers in Essex on 25 September 2024.

Earlier this year, the Office for Budget Responsibility conducted a review of the previous government’s 2020 costing of removing tax-free shopping for tourists.

The Chancellor has commissioned HM Treasury officials to provide an assessment of the state of the government’s spending inheritance, to be presented to Parliament before the summer recess. Any required support for small to medium enterprises will be assessed as part of wider fiscal considerations.

Earlier this year, the Office for Budget Responsibility conducted a review of the previous government’s 2020 costing of removing tax-free shopping for tourists.

The Chancellor has commissioned HM Treasury officials to provide an assessment of the state of the government’s spending inheritance, to be presented to Parliament before the summer recess. Any required support for small to medium enterprises will be assessed as part of wider fiscal considerations.

The Defending Democracy Taskforce has met twice since the general election - on 25 July and 27 November 2024. It has reflected on last year's elections and is now taking forward a programme of work to ensure lessons are learned.

This includes work to tackle the unacceptable instances of harassment and intimidation of our elected representatives.

The Defending Democracy Taskforce is an enduring Government function which seeks to reduce the risk to the UK's democratic processes, institutions and society. This includes supporting political parties and others participating in our political processes.

This work includes:

· Ahead of the last General Election, the Joint Election Preparedness Unit provided political parties with security advice and guidance, including on protective and information security which was made available on gov.uk. This guidance was jointly developed drawing on expertise from across the Government security community including the National Protective Security Authority and the National Cyber Security Centre.

· More broadly, the National Cyber Security Centre invests a significant amount of resources into defending the UK's democratic processes and improving the UK's cyber resilience, from attributing malicious cyber activity conducted by nation states through to providing bespoke advice and guidance to political parties and elected representatives.

· Protective Security advice and guidance have been provided to all MPs by the House, the police, and the Parliamentary Security Department.

The Taskforce will take every possible step to safeguard the people, processes, and institutions - including political parties - upon which our democracy relies.

The Defending Democracy Taskforce has met 19 times since it was convened in November 2022 (inclusive).

Since the Taskforce was established in November 2022 it has driven forward work to ensure the UK's democratic institutions and processes are safe and secure from threats to democracy. Supporting political parties is a key part of this.

This work includes:

• A Defending Democracy Policing Protocol, agreed with the police, to enhance the safety of elected representatives and protect the UK's democratic processes.

• Ahead of the General Election, the Joint Election and Preparedness Unit issued political parties with security advice and guidance, including on protective and information security which was made available on gov.uk.

• The National Cyber Security Centre provided an enhanced cyber security offer to political parties (and all Parliamentarians, including independent candidates) in the lead up to the General Election.

The Taskforce, chaired by the Security Minister, brings Government Ministers together with operational partners so that we take a whole-of-Government response to the threats we face.

The Taskforce, coordinated by a small dedicated Secretariat, draws on expertise and skills from across Government departments. The resources for the Taskforce's work, as well as related costs, are based in member departments. Each department is responsible for delivery of their respective policy issues.