Asked by: Lord Wigley (Plaid Cymru - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they have taken steps, in negotiating a trade agreement with the United State of America, to ensure that food standards will not be reduced in the UK.
Answered by Baroness Gustafsson - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
We have had constructive discussions with the US on an economic deal, and we remain committed to these talks. But, as we have made clear, we will only ever sign trade agreements which align with the UK’s national interests. Our manifesto was also clear that we will always uphold our high food standards.
Asked by: Lord Wigley (Plaid Cymru - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what representations they have received from the Farmers' Union of Wales in the past nine months regarding the impact of their policy of inheritance taxation for agricultural land.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government has received representations about inheritance tax from several agricultural organisations in the past nine months, including from the Farmers' Union of Wales. The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury and other Ministers have also participated in several meetings with agricultural organisations, including with the Farmers’ Union of Wales, since the Budget in October 2024 to listen to their views.
After listening, the Government continues to believe its reforms to agricultural property relief and business property relief from 6 April 2026 get the balance right between supporting farms and businesses, and fixing the public finances in a fair way. The reforms reduce the inheritance tax advantages available to owners of agricultural and business assets, but still mean those assets will be taxed at a much lower effective rate than most other assets. Despite a tough fiscal context, the Government will maintain very significant levels of relief from inheritance tax beyond what is available to others and compared to the position before 1992. Where inheritance tax is due, those liable for a charge can pay any liability on the relevant assets over 10 annual instalments, interest-free.
Asked by: Lord Wigley (Plaid Cymru - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government what figures relating to (1) train service cancellations, and (2) the punctuality of arrival at final destinations, they require the major UK train service operators to provide; and how are these figures used to evaluate the performance of those operators.
Answered by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
Most operators currently have a National Rail Contract, which sets quantifiable performance targets for operators to earn a performance-based fee. There are six measures including train service cancellations and the punctuality at each station call. A proportion of the total fee is available for each of the six different measures designed to incentivise on-time operations and fewer cancellations.
Performance targets are intended to be stretching, balance a range of outcomes, and represent value for the taxpayer. These targets are set as part of a commercial contract and are subject to negotiation.
Work is currently underway on setting out new performance targets for train operators in public ownership.
Asked by: Lord Wigley (Plaid Cymru - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what discussions they have had with companies providing radioisotopes for cancer screening and treatment regarding the future security of supplies and options for manufacturing those isotopes in the UK; and what was the outcome of those discussions.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department regularly engages with suppliers, specialist clinicians, the British Nuclear Medicine Society, industry, and the UK Radiopharmacy Group to assist in the management of supply issues for medical radioisotopes, including those used for cancer screening and treatments. The Department also works with the National Health Service and other parts of the Government to better understand future needs for medical radioisotopes.
There is no current reactor-based production of medical radioisotopes in the United Kingdom. There is an existing network of cyclotrons for the close to hospital manufacture of specific medical radioisotopes in the UK, and these are directly contracted by the NHS on a trust level.
Asked by: Lord Wigley (Plaid Cymru - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what volume of goods entered the United Kingdom through the Port of Holyhead in each of the last three years.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The volume of trade entering into the United Kingdom through the Port of Holyhead in the last three years is as follows:
Table 1: The UK's goods imports into the Port of Holyhead, by trade value (£billions) and net mass (thousand tonnes) | ||
Years | Import Value | Import Net Mass |
2022 | 6.3 | 698 |
2023 | 7.8 | 827 |
2024 | 6.6 | 1,050 |
2025- January and February only | 0.7 | 121 |
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Source: HMRC Overseas Trade Statistics, uktradeinfo, compiled on 30th April 2025 | ||
Data is provisional for up to 18 months after it is published. Please see OTS methodology for details. The data can be revised and corrected during this time. | ||
The table shown is compiled of both EU and Non-EU import trade. Due to specific customs procedures, this data may not include the following:
Goods moved through Holyhead that have been declared at another port/airport.
Goods which are transiting through Holyhead but will not stay in the UK.
Goods which are not declared on a customs declaration or excluded from trade statistics.
HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) is responsible for the collection and publication of data on imports and exports of goods to and from the UK. HMRC releases this information monthly, as an accredited official statistic called the Overseas Trade in Goods Statistics (OTS), which is available via their dedicated website (www.uktradeinfo.com). From this website, it is possible to build your own data tables based upon bespoke search criteria.
Asked by: Lord Wigley (Plaid Cymru - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask His Majesty's Government how much land in Wales is owned by the Ministry of Defence, and what portion of that land is now available for sale for the purpose of building new houses.
Answered by Lord Coaker - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
As of 1 April 2024, Ministry of Defence (MOD) land holdings Wales comprised of some 23,300 hectares (6.8% of the MOD total).
The majority (85.4%) of this land is freehold land owned by the Department, the remainder is land held on a short term and contractual basis or through grants for a specific purpose.
It is too early to say at this time what proportion of this land may be used for the building of new homes.
Asked by: Lord Wigley (Plaid Cymru - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to repeal section 2(4) of the Law Reform (Personal Injuries) Act 1948.
Answered by Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede - Lord in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The Government does not currently plan to review or repeal section 2(4) of the Law Reform (Personal Injuries) Act 1948. The Department of Health and Social Care recognise that this is an important issue, and the Department is looking at the drivers of cost in clinical negligence cases.
Asked by: Lord Wigley (Plaid Cymru - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what are the latest employee activity rates for (1) England and each of the regions of England, (2) Northern Ireland, (3) Scotland, (4) Wales, and (5) the United Kingdom as a whole.
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.
A response to the Hon. Member's Parliamentary Question of HL6457 is attached.
The Rt Hon. the Lord Wigley
House of Lords
London
SW1A 0PW
8 April 2025
Dear Lord Wigley,
As National Statistician and Chief Executive of the UK Statistics Authority, I am responding to your Parliamentary Question asking what are the latest employee activity rates for (1) England and each of the regions of England, (2) Northern Ireland, (3) Scotland, (4) Wales, and (5) the United Kingdom as a whole (HL6457).
An employee activity rate measures the amount of time employees spend engaged in productive billable work, versus non-billable activities. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) does not collect any information from businesses on their estimated employee activity rates.
We can estimate the proportion of the population aged from 16 to 64 years, that are employed as employees, which may be interpreted as an employee activity rate.
The ONS uses the Annual Population Survey (APS), which is a survey of people resident in households in the UK, to estimates of the number of employees in the regions and countries of the UK and the proportion of the population aged from 16 to 64 years that this represents.
Table 1 contains APS estimates of the number of employees aged 16 to 64 years and the proportion of the population of that age this represents, for the regions and countries of the UK, for the period October 2023 to September 2024, the latest data currently available. Table 1 should be read in conjunction with the advice on quality contained in the footnotes of this response.
Yours sincerely,
Professor Sir Ian Diamond
Table 1: Number of employees aged 16 to 64 years and the proportion of the population of that age that represents, for the regions and countries of the UK, October 2023 to September 2024[1].
| Number of employees aged 16 to 64 years (thousands) | Proportion of population aged 16 to 64 years (%) |
North East | 1,050 | 64.1 |
North West | 2,962 | 65.4 |
Yorkshire and The Humber | 2,214 | 65.1 |
East Midlands | 2,007 | 67.4 |
West Midlands | 2,402 | 65.7 |
East of England | 2,555 | 66.8 |
London | 3,975 | 64.2 |
South East | 3,894 | 69.0 |
South West | 2,258 | 67.0 |
England | 23,316 | 66.2 |
Wales | 1,242 | 64.5 |
Scotland | 2,270 | 65.5 |
Northern Ireland | 760 | 64.6 |
United Kingdom | 24,558 | 66.1 |
Source: Annual Population Survey
[1]The ongoing challenges with response rates, response levels and weighting approach mean that labour market statistics based on both the Labour Force Survey (LFS) and the APS are considered ’official statistics in development’ until further review. Because of increased volatility of LFS and APS estimates, estimates of change should be treated with additional caution. The APS estimates have not been weighted to the same populations as the LFS. Therefore, all APS tables will be inconsistent with those used for LFS in the latest periods.
Asked by: Lord Wigley (Plaid Cymru - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask His Majesty's Government by what date they anticipate that all compensation payments arising from the Post Office Horizon issue will be fully paid.
Answered by Baroness Jones of Whitchurch - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
Horizon redress applications continue to be received and no deadlines have yet been set for them. However the Department’s target for the schemes which it administers is to respond to 90% of full claims within 40 working days. We hope, for example, to have settled nearly all cases in the GLO scheme by the end of 2025.
The Government remains committed to providing fair redress to all victims affected by this scandal as quickly as possible. We continue to encourage those victims who have not yet submitted a claim for redress to come forward. As of 31 March 2025, the total amount of redress paid to victims across all schemes has increased by more than three and a half times with £892 million having now been paid to over 6,200 claimants across all schemes.
Asked by: Lord Wigley (Plaid Cymru - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is the most recent figure for the number of people killed annually in road traffic accidents in England per million of the resident population; and how this compares with the rate of deaths in road traffic accidents in each of the other parts of the United Kingdom.
Answered by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
Data on road injury collisions are reported by police using the STATS19 system. In STATS19, a fatality is defined as a death that occurred within 30 days of the collision. The rates of fatalities in road collisions in 2023 per million population for different parts of the United Kingdom are shown in the table below.
Region | Fatality rate per million population (2023) |
United Kingdom | 24.8 |
Great Britain | 24.5 |
England | 23.7 |
Wales | 31.9 |
Scotland | 27.9 |
Northern Ireland | 37.0 |