Chris Bloore

The Cabinet Office does not currently specifically offer (a) paid time off work and (b) other support to employees who become kinship carers.

However, the Cabinet Office has other mechanisms in place to support employees who are kinship carers, in parity with other forms of care leave.

UK listed companies are subject to the UK Corporate Governance Code which includes provisions for workforce representation on company boards by having either a worker on the board, a director responsible for engaging with the workforce or a formal workforce advisory panel. While the Department has not commissioned research in this area, the Financial Reporting Council’s annual review of reporting under the Code considers how boards have followed these provisions. The Government expects state-owned enterprises to follow the Code to the extent appropriate, and also expects directors of state-owned enterprises to comply with fiduciary duties followed by directors of private companies under the Companies Act 2006, including the need to have regard to employee and other stakeholder interests, and to the likely consequences of any decision in the long-term.

The Secretary of State has not had any recent discussions with the Competition and Markets Authority regarding the potential impact of regulatory compliance costs on market entry for small businesses. Ministers and officials regularly engage with the CMA on various topics, including the role of regulation in supporting growth.

The Government recognises the important role that employee ownership and co-operative business models can play in supporting business succession and growth.

Our call for evidence on business support for co-operatives and non-financial mutuals sought to gather evidence, including on barriers affecting business conversion and mutualisation. The Government response to this Call for Evidence will be published shortly.

We will continue to consider all options which can help ensure the policy and regulatory environment can best support businesses seeking to transition to employee and worker ownership.

The Government recognises the importance of maintaining an attractive investment environment for regulated infrastructure while ensuring that companies operate on a financially resilient basis.

Requirements relating to company financing are determined through the relevant statutory and sector-specific regulatory frameworks. My Department has made no recent assessment of the potential impact of introducing economy-wide debt-leverage restrictions on private sector investment in regulated infrastructure.

The Government recognises the important role private investment plays in delivering and maintaining the UK’s regulated infrastructure. Regulatory frameworks are kept under review to ensure they support investment, protect consumers and promote long-term resilience.

My Department has made no recent assessment of the potential impact of introducing economy-wide dividend-distribution limits on private sector investment in regulated infrastructure.

The Modern Industrial Strategy, published June 2025, focuses on driving sustainable, long-term economic growth by boosting business investment and increasing national productivity. Its Global Talent ambition is to attract and retain exceptional international talent to drive investment, innovation, productivity, research excellence and regional growth. My Department routinely reviews the approaches of other countries, including the use of state-backed investment visas, to attract such global talent.

Making the UK the best place to start and grow a business is central to the Government’s growth mission. The UK has a deep start-up talent pool and according to Dealroom’s European Spinouts Report 2025, the UK has half of the top ten universities in Europe for spin-outs.

The Industrial Strategy focuses on eight growth-driving sectors and the city regions and clusters across the UK where they concentrate, as detailed in its Technical Annex. We are supporting sectoral strengths such as in the Oxford to Cambridge Growth Corridor, including with a £20m Local Innovation Partnership Fund award focused on autonomous vehicles, high-performance engineering and space technology.

The Strategy included a significant uplift in the British Business Bank’s financial capacity to £25.6bn. Annual investments of around £2.5bn each year will crowd-in billions of additional private capital and support UK businesses to start, scale and stay in the UK.

We are improving access to scale-up finance for UK businesses, including the growing number of employee-owned businesses, through the British Business Bank (BBB). In November, we agreed the BBB’s five-year plan, which sets out how it will focus on scale-up finance, investing in more growth-stage funds, making more direct investments into strategically important scale-ups, and taking more risk by providing the first capital in deals supporting emerging technologies. We have also placed the Growth Guarantee Scheme on a longer-term footing, which will help more smaller businesses, including employee-owned businesses, to scale and grow.

The Industrial Strategy sets out how targeted regulatory reform will support key sectors to unlock investment and increase productivity. This is reinforced by the Regulation Action Plan which aims to tackle the regulatory burden and complexity; reduce uncertainty and challenge risk aversion to drive growth.

This is supported by targeted regulatory reviews in growth-driving sectors. For example, DBT is working with Defra and the Regulatory Innovation Office on a regulatory review of agri-tech as a frontier industry, to help SMEs navigate the regulatory landscape and support farmer adoption. This approach ensures regulation supports innovation and investment while maintaining essential protections.

We have established a baseline of the annual administrative burden of regulation on UK businesses, including SMEs. As set out in the technical annex to the policy paper ‘A new approach to ensure regulators and regulation support growth’, we used a pragmatic, top-down approach, building on the previous Administrative Burden Reduction Programme (2005-10), which was based on detailed feedback from businesses, including SMEs, in individual sectors.

Our approach was also informed by DBT’s Business Perceptions Survey, which draws from a large, representative sample of businesses across sectors and sizes to ensure our reforms are targeted effectively.

We have established a baseline of the annual administrative burden of regulation on UK businesses, including SMEs. As set out in the technical annex to the policy paper ‘A new approach to ensure regulators and regulation support growth’, we used a pragmatic, top-down approach, building on the previous Administrative Burden Reduction Programme (2005-10), which was based on detailed feedback from businesses, including SMEs, in individual sectors.

Our approach was also informed by DBT’s Business Perceptions Survey, which draws from a large, representative sample of businesses across sectors and sizes to ensure our reforms are targeted effectively.

This Government recognises the distinct value of downstream users, including in the manufacturing supply chain, alongside the importance of maintaining a resilient domestic steel sector.

The steel trade measure has been designed to addresses the serious threat posed by global steel overcapacity, which undermines the viability of UK steelmaking and, in turn, our critical national infrastructure and defence.

We have carefully balanced the needs of producers and downstream industry, and the product scope of the measure reflects this. This has involved extensive engagement with downstream industry, and we will review the measure after 12 months.

Cyber security of the UK is a key priority for this government and DSIT and NCSC have been taking significant action to help protect businesses against cyber attacks. This includes providing businesses with the tools, advice and support to protect themselves from cyber threats, including free training for boards and staff. We have also put in place:

• The Cyber Governance Code of Practice, which shows boards and directors how to effectively manage the digital risks to their organisation
• The highly effective Cyber Essentials scheme to prevent common attacks – reducing the likelihood of a cyber insurance claim by 92%. The certification scheme includes automatic cyber liability insurance for any UK organisation who certifies their whole organisation and has less than £20m annual turnover.

In cases of acute and exogenous disruption, including in the context of the cyber attack on Jaguar Land Rover, requests for support are assessed on a case‑by‑case basis. The support for JLR. The government agreed to back JLR with a loan guarantee through UK Export Finance, to unlock up to £1.5 billion in commercial financing. This loan covered by the guarantee will be re-paid over 5 years. JLR supports 154,000 UK jobs and protects a critical part of our automotive supply chain.

The Government will continue to prioritise its support and encouragement for cyber resilience across the economy, to reduce the likelihood and impact of incidents such as cyber attacks, while retaining the ability to respond flexibly using existing frameworks where this is justified.

As part of the Plan to Make Work Pay, the Department for Business and Trade intends to publish a consultation on blacklisting protections in due course. The consultation will cover, amongst other things, the powers of employment tribunals in regard to lists of blacklisted workers. The government will carefully consider responses to the consultation before outlining next steps.

Employees can apply for five days paid special leave as a friends and family carer, this can be increased to ten days in a 12-month period.

Employees also have the statutory right to take up to a week’s unpaid leave in any 12-month period, to provide or arrange care for a dependant with a long-term care need.

DBT has an Employee Assistance Programme which provides impartial and confidential advice, counselling and online resources for all employees. The department also has a Carer’s group which is a support network for carers working at DBT

This Government continues to follow EU regulatory developments with interest, engaging with the EU on key regulatory developments via TCA structures. The Drinking Water Directive has not been discussed or raised with my Department.

UK businesses exporting to the EU must ensure that they comply with EU requirements for accessing the EU market. Guidance in respect of regulatory compliance with the revised Drinking Water Directive is the responsibility of the European Commission.

Officials are currently considering options to increase public control in the energy system. As these options are developed, officials will consider impacts across areas including wholesale market price volatility where relevant.

Great British Energy – Nuclear (GBE-N) is driving forward the small modular reactor (SMR) programme, backed by £2.6 billion across the Spending Review period.

Following a competitive selection process, GBE-N and Rolls-Royce SMR entered into a Technology Partner contract earlier this year, and are now jointly undertaking design work to progress the Gwyndod SMR project on Anglesey in North Wales.

Ofgem, as the independent energy regulator, is responsible for setting the RIIO-3 network price controls, including determining investment allowances for regulated energy networks.

Ministers and officials engage regularly with Ofgem on strategic network investment requirements, including how the regulatory framework can respond to evolving electricity demand forecasts associated with economic growth, industrial electrification and the clean energy transition. While RIIO3 decisions remain for Ofgem, the government continues to work closely with the regulator to ensure the framework is adaptable to future network needs while delivering value for money consumers.

The potential impacts of zonal pricing formed part of the Government’s wider assessment of electricity market reform.

Previous modelling reflected the best available assumptions at the time of the July 2025 REMA decision. We intend to publish further analysis on zonal pricing and Reformed National Pricing by the end of 2026.

The Government is investing over £2.5 billion in fusion over five years to accelerate deployment. This includes £1.3 billion for the next phase of the STEP (Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production) programme, a prototype power plant planned in West Burton by 2040, which will stimulate investment in UK industry and supply chains. The UK Fusion Investment Prospectus, published in September 2026, is showcasing opportunities to developers, investors and manufacturers. The government has also published the draft National Policy Statement for Fusion Energy Generation (EN-8), providing planning certainty, building investor confidence, and enabling deployment in the UK.

Our Clean Energy Jobs Plan, published in October last year, sets out the government’s plan for delivering the pipeline of skilled workers needed for the clean energy transition.

This includes the launch of five new Clean Energy Technical Excellence Colleges, which will help to build a robust employer-aligned skills pipeline and raise the quality of provision.

The Nuclear Skills Plan aims to attract new talent, retain expertise and enable the skills infrastructure needed to support the sector. For low-carbon heating, the government is investing £7 million per annum in training up to 2029 through the Heat Training Grant.

The Department has not made such an assessment and does not hold this specific data.

The independent industry regulator Ofgem monitors and reports on levels of energy debt in Great Britain, and their latest statistical release can be found here: Debt and arrears indicators | Ofgem.

Ofgem is considering a range of options to reduce energy debt in the system, and we are working closely with them to understand the impacts of different approaches on consumers.

Government recognises that grid delays are holding up new housing developments and that action to ensure timely connections for demand is vital for economic growth and decarbonisation.

Government has already unblocked delays to housing developments in West London, working with DNOs to introducing flexible connection arrangements allowing developments to ramp up electricity use over 10 years.

We are now going further to reform the connections process for demand. The Department recently consulted on measures to manage queue oversubscription and enable government to prioritise connections for strategic demand projects, including housing. Government will respond to this consultation in due course.

The Clean Energy Industries Sector Plan takes a whole‑system approach to strengthening UK supply chains. Through Great British Energy, we are establishing a £1 billion Clean Energy Supply Chain Fund to support companies with the greatest potential to grow domestic manufacturing and capability.

We are mobilising public and private investment to scale supply chains across clean energy sectors and secure long‑term economic growth. We are also supporting energy‑intensive industries, including those in key manufacturing supply chains, through electricity cost relief and decarbonisation support. Where gas turbine supply chains contribute to the clean energy transition, they can benefit from these wider cross‑cutting interventions to strengthen UK capability and resilience.

Government recognises the impact of electricity infrastructure procurement times on data centres and is supporting supply chains and skills across industry through the Sector Growth Plan, to improve demand visibility, strengthen domestic manufacturing, and help reduce lead times and support earlier investment decisions.

This is part of a package of measures to accelerate network build and connections, including for data centres, that includes exploring direct high-voltage connections and self-build of electricity assets, reforms to manage speculative demand applications and accelerate strategically important projects including AI Growth Zones, and establishing the AI Energy Council to explore opportunities to attract investment.

As set out in the Clean Power Action Plan, maintaining security of electricity supply in a Clean Power system will require continued reliance on the existing gas fleet as the main mature, reliable source of long-duration flexibility until low-carbon alternative dispatchable technologies are deployed at scale. Given the age of the fleet, a limited amount of new unabated gas capacity may be needed to replace retiring plants as part of a diverse and resilient energy mix.

The Department is engaging with industry to understand global supply chain constraints, including gas turbine availability, and is considering policy options to ensure market signals support timely investment in both refurbishment of existing plant and, where necessary, new build capacity.