Asked by: Charlie Dewhirst (Conservative - Bridlington and The Wolds)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, pursuant to the Answer of 14 October 2024 to Question 7007 on Department for Business and Trade: Official Cars, which senior officials in his Department have access to a government car; and whether those officials had that access before the general election.
Answered by Justin Madders - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The arrangements relating to the usage of vehicles in the Government Car Service are set out in the Civil Service Management Code.
Asked by: Charlie Dewhirst (Conservative - Bridlington and The Wolds)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, pursuant to the Answer of 14 October 2024 to Question 7006 on Department for Business and Trade: Official Cars, how many of those allocated three vehicles are electric cars.
Answered by Justin Madders - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
For security reasons specific details of allocations including make and model of vehicles are not issued.
Asked by: Charlie Dewhirst (Conservative - Bridlington and The Wolds)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what meetings (a) Ministers and (b) his officials have held with external stakeholders since 5 July 2024.
Answered by Justin Madders - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Details of ministers’ and senior officials’ meetings with external individuals and organisations are published quarterly in arrears on GOV.UK.
Data for the period of July to September 2024 will be published in due course.
Asked by: Charlie Dewhirst (Conservative - Bridlington and The Wolds)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, pursuant to the Answers of 6 September 2024 to Questions 2306 and 2308 on Ministers: Official Cars, which (a) Ministers and (b) officials in his Department have (i) been allocated a dedicated vehicle and (ii) access to use of a shared vehicle from the Government Car Service; what the (A) make, (B) model and (C) fuel type is for each car; and what the budget was for those cars in the 2024-25 financial year.
Answered by Justin Madders - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Government Car Service (GCS) offers vehicles to government departments as a shared resource. Each department independently determines the allocation of these vehicles to its ministerial cadre/officials, as under previous administrations.
The Department for Business and Trade is currently allocated three vehicles including allocated and shared vehicles.
For security reasons specific details of allocations including make and model of vehicles are not issued.
The average cost to a Department for a single DPC (Department Pool Car) in 2024/25 financial year is £108K per annum. This includes the cost of a car and driver time.
Asked by: Charlie Dewhirst (Conservative - Bridlington and The Wolds)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what his Department's policy is on the allocation of Government Car Service cars to senior officials; what the policy was on 24 May 2024; and which senior officials have been granted access to the service since 4 July 2024.
Answered by Justin Madders - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Government Car Service (GCS) offers vehicles to government departments as a shared resource. Each department independently determines the allocation of these vehicles.
The arrangements relating to the using of vehicles in the Government Car Service is set out in the Civil Service Management Code.
There has been no change in this policy since the general election.
Asked by: Charlie Dewhirst (Conservative - Bridlington and The Wolds)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what changes have been made to export licence approval procedures since 5 July 2024.
Answered by Douglas Alexander - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
No changes to export licensing procedures have been made since 5 July 2024.
All export licence applications are assessed on a case by case basis against the Strategic Export Licensing Criteria. We are satisfied that these Criteria continue to provide a thorough forward-looking risk assessment process for all export licence applications.
Asked by: Charlie Dewhirst (Conservative - Bridlington and The Wolds)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, how many export licences were approved in (a) August 2024 and (b) each of the preceding 12 months.
Answered by Douglas Alexander - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Official Statistics for 2024 have not yet been published. Information covering January to July 2024 are planned to be released by November 2024.
The UK operates one of the most transparent export licensing systems in the world. We publish quarterly and annual statistics on all our export licensing decisions. These can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/strategic-export-controls-licensing-data
We do not publish monthly licensing statistics, but we have published quarterly statistics for 2023:
Reporting period | Number issued |
2023 | 11,746 |
2023Q1 | 2,853 |
2023Q2 | 2,987 |
2023Q3 | 2,967 |
2023Q4 | 2,939 |