Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the levels of small businesses closing since (1) the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and (2) the UK’s departure from the EU.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Basildon - Leader of the House of Lords and Lord Privy Seal
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.
Please see the letter attached from the National Statistician and Chief Executive of the UK Statistics Authority.
The Lord Taylor of Warwick
House of Lords
London
SW1A 0PW
14 October 2024
Dear Lord Taylor,
As National Statistician and Chief Executive of the UK Statistics Authority, I am responding to your Parliamentary Question asking what assessment has been made of the levels of small businesses closing since (1) the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and (2) the UK’s departure from the EU (HL1421).
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) produces an annual Business Demography, UK publication1. The data are produced from the Inter Departmental Business Register (IDBR) which contains all businesses registered for VAT and/or PAYE. Unfortunately, the numbers of business deaths shown in this release are not broken down by size band, so it is not possible to show the number of small businesses which have closed down since the start of the pandemic.
However, we have provided figures in Table 1 showing the total number of business deaths since 2020. The latest annual figures available are for the year 2022. As the start of the COVID-19 pandemic was in March 2020 and the UK’s departure from the EU was on 31 January 2020 it is possible to cover the two periods using the same data.
The ONS also produces a quarterly publication on business births and deaths2. The quarterly figures are useful because they provide up-to-date business demography estimates. Please note though that the figures are regarded as ‘Official Statistics in Development’ and should be considered as less reliable than the annual business demography numbers.
We have provided, in Table 2, the number of business deaths, by quarter, from the first quarter of 2020 until the second quarter of 2024. We do not have these figures available by sizeband and hence are not able to show the number of small businesses which have closed over this period.
Yours sincerely,
Professor Sir Ian Diamond
1https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/business/activitysizeandlocation/bulletins/business
demography/previousReleases
2https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/business/activitysizeandlocation/bulletins/business
demographyquarterlyexperimentalstatisticsuk/latest
Table 1: The total number of business deaths, annually, from 2020 until 2022, UK.
Year | Number of business deaths, UK |
2020 | 300,475 |
2021 | 328,360 |
2022 | 345,490 |
Source: Annual Business Demography, Inter Departmental Business Register
Table 2: The number of business deaths, by quarter, from the first quarter of 2020 until
the second quarter of 2024, UK3
Quarter | Number of business deaths, UK |
Q1 2020 | 96,555 |
Q2 2020 | 72,555 |
Q3 2020 | 60,335 |
Q4 2020 | 78,875 |
Q1 2021 | 86,490 |
Q2 2021 | 88,445 |
Q3 2021 | 83,035 |
Q4 2021 | 86,920 |
Q1 2022 | 114,120 |
Q2 2022 | 97,955 |
Q3 2022 | 80,345 |
Q4 2022 | 83,080 |
Q1 2023 | 106,840 |
Q2 2023 | 83,660 |
Q3 2023 | 68,240 |
Q4 2023 | 74,395 |
Q1 2024 | 87,280 |
Q2 2024 | 75,100 |
Source: Quarterly Business Demography, Inter Departmental Business Register
3Quarterly business demography estimates are regarded as official statistics in development.
Quarterly estimates, when summed over a year, do not add to the annual estimates obtained from the annual business demography output.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they intend to appoint a new investment minister.
Answered by Baroness Twycross - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
My Rt Hon Friends the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State for Business and Trade are responsible for this Government’s priority of growth and advancing opportunities for investment across the country.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of hybrid working models in the Civil Service; and what steps they are taking to adapt policies to balance the benefits of both remote and in-office work.
Answered by Baroness Neville-Rolfe - Shadow Minister (Treasury)
Work is ongoing to update policies and practices to ensure we maximise the benefits of both remote and face to face working, including investing in our estate to ensure we provide a positive workplace experience with the right technology and facilities and enhancing our line managers capabilities to manage effectively in a hybrid working environment.
The Civil Service has had a hybrid working model for some years now, and it is applying this flexibly to help balance business and personal requirements. Hybrid working is part of the Civil Service approach to flexible working as set out in the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy: 2022-2025, which recognises the importance of flexibility in the ways of working and location as key to increasing innovation, performance and engagement as well as attracting diverse talent and representing the UK as a whole.
Carrying out tasks in the right place allows us to maximise efficiency and helps us to identify parts of the estate that are not optimally configured or can be released at the earliest opportunity, with appropriate lease breaks.
Hybrid working is important in making a success of the government’s Places for Growth Programme, including the creation of the non-London headquarters announced by ministers over the last year. The Treasury, for example, is positioning the new economic campus in Darlington as a full second headquarters with senior policy roles currently performed in Whitehall. Without hybrid meetings combining colleagues online and others ‘in the room’ this model cannot work.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, in the light of the recommendations of the Independent Review of the UK Statistics Authority on the separation of functions and reporting arrangements, what steps they are taking to ensure greater transparency in the governance and enhancements of the statistical system.
Answered by Baroness Neville-Rolfe - Shadow Minister (Treasury)
The independent review of the UK Statistics Authority and the Government’s response to the recommendations were published on 12 March 2024. They can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/independent-review-of-the-uk-statistics-authority-uksa-2023
The review made 19 separate recommendations to the UK Statistics Authority and Cabinet Office including amending the statistical legislation (Statistical and Registration Services Act 2007) to better reflect the governance arrangements in place and reflect the practical operation of the UKSA.
The Government agrees in principle with this recommendation but noted that - given that the report concluded the current arrangements were working in practice - this is not a current priority for legislation and will be a matter for the next Parliament to consider. However, in our response we said that the UKSA leadership in the meantime should take active steps to better communicate the current working arrangements to assure users and stakeholders that robust systems are in place to regulate the Office for National Statistics and the wider Government Statistical Service.
The Government also welcomed wider recommendations regarding transparency, such as establishing a triennial statistical assembly which will allow users and the Authority to discuss priorities in an open and constructive way.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to recommendations made by the House of Commons Business and Trade Sub-Committee on National Security and Investment on 9 February in their submission to the Government’s call for evidence ahead of reforms to the UK’s investment-screening regime, what steps they are taking to strengthen the screening processes under the National Security and Investment Act 2021 to better align with the investment rules of UK allies.
Answered by Baroness Neville-Rolfe - Shadow Minister (Treasury)
The Government is grateful for each response to the recent Call for Evidence on the National Security and Investment Act, including the submission from the Business and Trade Sub-Committee. The Government is now analysing all the responses and will respond publicly in due course.
The NSI Act brought the UK’s approach to investment screening in line with many of our allies. Whilst the vast majority of acquisitions pose no national security risk, where the government does identify risk, it will not hesitate to act.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, following reports of concern from analysts regarding the reliability of figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), what steps they are taking to ensure that the ONS labour force survey is reliable and accurate.
Answered by Baroness Neville-Rolfe - Shadow Minister (Treasury)
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.
Please see the letter attached from the National Statistician and Chief Executive of the UK Statistics Authority.
The Lord Taylor of Warwick
House of Lords
London
SW1A 0PW
21 February 2024
Dear Lord Taylor,
As National Statistician and Chief Executive of the UK Statistics Authority, I am responding to your Parliamentary Question asking, following reports of concern from analysts regarding the reliability of figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), what steps they are taking to ensure that the ONS Labour Force Survey (LFS) is reliable and accurate (HL2453).
Following the suspension of publishing LFS estimates and micro-data in October 2023 because of quality concerns, the ONS put a comprehensive plan [1] in place to address these concerns and reintroduce LFS estimates and micro-data. The plan covers both data collection measures and methods used to make the survey estimates more representative of the UK population.
The planned improvements to data collection procedures were implemented in October/November 2023. These included the prioritisation of interviewer resource allocated to the LFS, the reintroduction of in-home interviewing, recontacting households that did not respond, and increasing the monetary incentive to participate. Furthermore, at the start of January we have increased the number of households we initially contact on the survey by 8,000 up to 25,800 for the quarter of January to March 2024. The combination of measures has already resulted in an increase in the achieved sample and we plan to maintain these measures for the foreseeable future.
As part of the improvements to our methods used to make the survey estimates more representative [2], the ONS have produced UK population projections specifically for the purpose of the LFS. This used 2022-based population projections for England and Wales combined with population estimates for Scotland and Northern Ireland. Additionally, we have reviewed and where appropriate adjusted the estimation method for the LFS to account for the challenges of low response levels in certain areas.
Both the improvements to data collection operations and methods to improve representativeness had a positive impact on the quality and reliability of the LFS data and enabled the ONS to reintroduce the publication of LFS-based estimates and micro-data from 13 February 2024.
As we expect to continue to see higher volatility in LFS data in the short term than might historically have been the case, we continue to advise users to apply caution when observing short-term changes in the survey-based estimates. As well as this, the commentary we publish alongside our statistics bulletins should also be considered.
While we are working hard to improve our LFS-based data, it remains our plan to make the transformed Labour Force Survey (TLFS) our main measure for the UK labour market. The TLFS is an online-first survey that asks many more people about their employment status. While early returns from this survey look positive, we need a longer consistent time series to aid interpretation before we share these data with users. We expect the TLFS to become the primary source for the labour market release in September 2024.
Yours sincerely,
Professor Sir Ian Diamond
[1] Labour Force Survey: planned improvements and its reintroduction, ONS article, 2 November 2023,
[2] Impact of reweighting on Labour Force Survey key indicators: 2024, ONS article, 5 February 2024,
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to reports that spending on overseas cyber security programmes doubled last year, what assessment they have made of the impact of that increased spending on the cyber safety of (1) citizens, and (2) businesses.
Answered by Baroness Neville-Rolfe - Shadow Minister (Treasury)
Programming on cyber security plays an important role in protecting commercial opportunities and sustaining UK competitiveness in a key growth sector as well as helping organisations and citizens better manage cyber risks. The Financial Year 2022/23 Annual Report on the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund highlighted increased spending and the transfer of a wide range of skills overseas to support UK cyber security objectives. This included public awareness campaigns and training with national Computer Security Incident Response Teams, ensuring critical assets overseas are better protected from cyber-attacks. As a result, UK Government-funded projects have led to the arrest of cyber criminals across Africa, improved threat intelligence sharing in the Indo Pacific, and supported the implementation of a new national Cyber strategy in Georgia.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, following the wrongful convictions that occurred as a result of faulty Post Office Horizon software, what plans they have to integrate advanced oversight technologies that ensure accuracy and reliability of software used in public service systems to prevent any future issues.
Answered by Baroness Neville-Rolfe - Shadow Minister (Treasury)
This was one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in our nation’s history, which is why we set up an independent inquiry to establish culpability and are bringing forward legislation to make sure those convicted as a result of the Horizon scandal are swiftly exonerated and compensated.
It is right that we do not pre-empt the conclusions of the ongoing, formal inquiry, but once the full facts are established we will consider all options.
The Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO), in the Cabinet Office, established in April 2021 to lead the Government’s Digital and Data Function, is the strategic centre for digital transformation which includes measuring services against digital and technical standards.
CDDO is defining best practice patterns and practices for software delivery to ensure high quality software delivery via the automation and regular testing of software quality throughout development. Use of ‘oversight technologies’ such as automated testing would follow user technology good practice, user needs and the risk profile of the system.
In addition to the software testing, a core requirement of the development process, the Service Assessment Model assesses newly created services, checking for evidence that departments are regularly monitoring and mitigating quality and reliability issues.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to secure an agreement with parties in Northern Ireland regarding trading arrangements between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom, and what assessment they have made of the consequential impact for the United Kingdom as a whole.
Answered by Baroness Neville-Rolfe - Shadow Minister (Treasury)
The Government has engaged extensively with relevant stakeholders in Northern Ireland and has sought to address the specific concerns of the DUP prior to and during negotiations to facilitate the return of devolved governments. These discussions have focussed, in the main, on strengthening Northern Ireland’s place in the UK Internal Market. As outlined by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland on the 19th December, from the Government’s perspective, the talks on all the issues of substance have effectively been concluded. The Government now stands ready to introduce a package of measures that have been worked on together should the DUP reach a decision to proceed.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to mitigate the effects and damage across the country of Storm Debi.
Answered by Baroness Neville-Rolfe - Shadow Minister (Treasury)
Storm Debi brought strong winds to parts of north Wales and northern England on Monday 13th November. The strongest winds and rain were felt in the Republic of Ireland, leading Met Éireann - the Irish Met service - to name the weather system. There were no impacts in England from Storm Debi that required national response. Localised, short-lived impacts were managed by the relevant Local Resilience Forums and emergency services. The Cabinet Office, as the Lead Government Department for severe storms, maintained close contact with the Met Office and stood ready to respond for the duration of the storm.