Dan Carden

We are committed to restoring public confidence in government and ensuring that all those in public service are held to the highest standards.

We will consider carefully the National Audit Office’s recommendations in its recent report ‘Managing Conflicts of Interest’.

The Department for Business and Trade is a newly formed Department established in February 2023. The new department absorbed the functions of the former Department for International Trade (DIT) and some of the functions of the former Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).

The amount spent on consultancy by both departments are as follows:

The Department publishes its annual expenditure on consultancy in its Annual Report and Accounts.

Standing charges recover ‘fixed’ costs that do not vary by energy use. This includes suppliers’ fixed operational costs of serving each customer, the cost of network upgrades and maintenance necessary to keep all consumers connected and fund investment in clean energy infrastructure. It also includes the cost of providing Warm Home Discount payments to eligible customers. However, we are committed to lowering the cost of standing charges and have worked constructively with the regulator, Ofgem, on this issue.

As part of their update on standing charges, Ofgem announced it will be undertaking a broad review of system costs considering how costs are allocated and recovered across domestic and non-domestic consumers. On 20 February, Ofgem launched a consultation ‘Introducing a zero standing charge energy price cap variant’ - https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/consultation/introducing-zero-standing-charge-energy-price-cap-variant.

The consultation seeks views on the introduction of an option - within the price cap – for a tariff that does not have a standing charge, providing households with more choice over how they pay for their energy. It also explores different ways a zero standing charge tariff could work, with options on a single unit rate, as well as block tariff options where the unit rates go up or down once a certain amount of energy is consumed.

Ofgem has not proposed moving people automatically onto a zero standing charge tariff because of the risks to vulnerable groups, such as people with disabilities, who have high energy use. We were clear that we would not support changes to standing charges that would disproportionately affect people with higher energy costs.

The consultation closed on 20 March and we stand ready to continue to work with Ofgem on this matter.

The government’s initial assessment of the challenges of building the skilled workforce to deliver the Clean Energy Superpower Mission has been outlined in the Clean Power Action Plan. The Plan includes an Evidence Annex which provides a basis for government to better understand the 2030 workforce requirements and support targeted skills planning.

By 2030, the clean energy transition could create hundreds of thousands of new jobs, benefiting communities across the UK representing the economic opportunity of the century.

The Government is committed to a fair, orderly and prosperous transition in the North Sea to boost Britain’s energy security and ensure good, long-term jobs. That is why we have already launched Great British Energy, begun the biggest ever investment in offshore wind, and are moving ahead with new North Sea industries like carbon capture and storage and hydrogen.

I refer the honourable member to my response on 29 January 2025 (UIN 25410).

The Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) is a market-led mechanism in which energy suppliers, not government, set both tariff levels and structure. This is to encourage innovation and competition between suppliers.

The Government keeps the SEG under regular review to ensure it continues to meet our objectives. The latest SEG report shows registered generators more than tripled between 2022/23 to 2023/24, from 92,946 to 283,666.

DSIT was created by a Machinery of Government (MOG) change on 7 February 2023, we have not provided data prior to DSIT becoming a fully operational department. Departmental Group consultancy spend in financial year 23-24, as disclosed in 2023-24 Annual report & Accounts (ARA), was £24.0 million.

We recognise the Government is committed to restoring the public finances and delivering value for the taxpayer. As part of this wider mission, the Government has pledged to reduce wasteful spend on non-essential and expensive consultants in order to save over £1.2 billion by 2026.

The Online Safety Act (OSA) will be the Governments key tool in combatting online mis- and disinformation. It sets out a clear regulatory framework to tackle both mis- and disinformation where it constitutes illegal content or harmful content to children.

In addition, we are educating and empowering users through our work on media literacy to increase society’s resilience to mis- and disinformation.

Officials also regularly meet with major platforms, about disinformation activity, emerging risks and platforms’ responses.

The consultation on the tax treatment of remote gambling is a matter for HM Treasury. I would encourage all interested stakeholders to respond to this consultation, which runs until 21 July. If any legislative changes are made to gambling duty following the consultation, they will be accompanied by a tax information and impact note from HM Treasury, as is standard practice.

The Government recognises the significant contribution horseracing makes to our regional economies and our country’s cultural life. DCMS will continue to meet with racing stakeholders to ensure a sustainable and prosperous future for the sport.

The issue of illegal gambling is a concern for this government and we are working closely with the Gambling Commission to ensure that illegal gambling, in all its forms, is addressed. The Crime and Policing Bill, introduced in Parliament on 25 February 2025, will grant the Gambling Commission with new powers to more quickly and effectively take down illegal gambling websites.

The consultation on the tax treatment of remote gambling is a matter for HM Treasury. I would encourage all interested stakeholders to respond to this consultation, which runs until 21 July. If any legislative changes are made to gambling duty following the consultation, they will be accompanied by a tax information and impact note from HM Treasury, as is standard practice.

The Government recognises the significant contribution horseracing makes to our regional economies and our country’s cultural life. DCMS will continue to meet with racing stakeholders to ensure a sustainable and prosperous future for the sport.

The issue of illegal gambling is a concern for this government and we are working closely with the Gambling Commission to ensure that illegal gambling, in all its forms, is addressed. The Crime and Policing Bill, introduced in Parliament on 25 February 2025, will grant the Gambling Commission with new powers to more quickly and effectively take down illegal gambling websites.

The consultation on the tax treatment of remote gambling is a matter for HM Treasury. I would encourage all interested stakeholders to respond to this consultation, which runs until 21 July. If any legislative changes are made to gambling duty following the consultation, they will be accompanied by a tax information and impact note from HM Treasury, as is standard practice.

The Government recognises the significant contribution horseracing makes to our regional economies and our country’s cultural life. DCMS will continue to meet with racing stakeholders to ensure a sustainable and prosperous future for the sport.

The issue of illegal gambling is a concern for this government and we are working closely with the Gambling Commission to ensure that illegal gambling, in all its forms, is addressed. The Crime and Policing Bill, introduced in Parliament on 25 February 2025, will grant the Gambling Commission with new powers to more quickly and effectively take down illegal gambling websites.

The government’s consultation on Copyright and AI, launched 17 December and closing 25 February, was published alongside an accompanying options assessment. One of the main reasons for the consultation is to gather further evidence on the potential impact on the creative industries of any change to the copyright regime in the context of AI training.

Following the consultation, if legislative changes are needed to bring clarity to the UK copyright regime, a full economic impact assessment will be undertaken.

At the recent Budget, the government took a number of difficult decisions on tax, welfare, and spending to fix the foundations of the public finances, fund public services, and restore economic stability.

Ministers have met with representatives from the voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector to discuss this issue and the department is aware of their concerns about the impacts of the increase to employer National Insurance Contributions (NICs).

The government recognises the need to protect the smallest businesses and charities, which is why we have more than doubled the Employment Allowance to £10,500. This means that more than half of businesses (including charities) with NICs liabilities will either gain or see no change next year.

We are also expanding eligibility of the Employment Allowance by removing the £100,000 eligibility threshold, to simplify and reform employer NICs so that all eligible employers now benefit. Businesses and charities will still be able to claim employer NICs reliefs including those for under 21s and under 25 apprentices, where eligible.

The Government publishes Tax Information and Impact Notes (TIINs) for tax policy changes, which give a clear explanation of the policy objective and an assessment of the impacts. The TIIN for the employer NICs changes was published on 13 November 2024.

Within the tax system, we provide support to charities through a range of reliefs and exemptions, including reliefs for charitable giving. More than £6 billion in charitable reliefs was provided to charities, Community Amateur Sports Clubs and their donors in 2023 to 2024. The biggest individual reliefs provided are Gift Aid at £1.6 billion and business rates relief at nearly £2.4 billion.

I refer my hon. Friend, the Member for Liverpool Walton to the answer of 29 January 2025 to Question 26025.

I refer my hon. Friend, the Member for Liverpool Walton to the answer of 14 February 2025 to Question 29850.

This government’s ambition is that all children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) or in alternative provision receive the right support to succeed in their education and as they move into adult life.

Following the Autumn Budget 2024, the department is providing an increase of £1 billion for high needs budgets in England in the 2025/26 financial year, bringing total high needs funding for children and young people with complex SEND to £11.9 billion in England. Of that total, Liverpool City Council is being allocated over £103 million through the high needs funding block of the dedicated schools grant (DSG), which is an increase of £10 million on this year’s DSG high needs block, calculated using the high needs national funding formula (NFF). This NFF allocation is an 10% increase per head of their 2 to 18-year-old population, on their equivalent 2024/25 NFF allocation.

In addition to the DSG, local authorities will also receive a separate core schools budget grant (CSBG), and funding in respect of the increase in employers’ National Insurance contributions, in 2025/26. This CSBG continues the separate grants payable this year, which are to help special schools and alternative provision with the costs of teachers’ pay and pension increases, and other staff pay increases. Individual local authorities’ allocations for both grants for 2025/26 will be published in due course.

School libraries complement public libraries by giving pupils access to a range of books and other kinds of texts, both in and out of school. The national curriculum states that teachers are expected to encourage pupils to develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information. There are a number of strong links between reading for pleasure and attainment. For example, the 2021 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study report found a 34 point difference in reading performance between pupils in England who “very much” liked reading and pupils who “do not” like reading. Additionally, the 2022 Programme for International Student Assessment study found that enjoyment of reading links to pupils’ reading engagement, and that reading engagement was strongly positively correlated with reading performance. There is also a strong evidence base linking reading for pleasure to other positive effects, such as improved text comprehension and grammar, increased general knowledge and character development.

It is for individual schools to decide how best to provide and maintain a library service for their pupils, including whether to employ a qualified librarian. Headteachers have autonomy to decide how best to spend the core schools funding that is allocated to them by the department. The Autumn Budget 2024 announced an additional £2.3 billion for schools for the 2025/26 financial year, compared to 2024/25, bringing the total core schools budget to almost £63.9 billion in 2025/26.

Given this autonomy, the department does not collect information on the number of school libraries or school librarians. ​​There are currently no plans to make it a statutory requirement for primary schools to have a library, although we will continue to keep this matter under review.

​The government’s reading framework offers non-statutory guidance for teachers and school leaders, including helpful guidance for schools on how to organise their school library, book corner or book stock to make reading accessible and attractive to readers.

The department publishes national statistics on those not in education, employment or training (NEET) for England from the labour force survey for young people aged 16 to 24. However, these are only published at national and regional level due to limitations with sample sizes for lower-level geographies. Therefore, NEET rates for young people aged 16 to 24 cannot be provided for the area requested. The available statistics can be found at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/neet-statistics-annual-brief.

Local authorities are required to encourage, enable or assist young people’s participation in education or training and return management information for young people aged 16 and 17. This data shows that of the 10,372 young people aged 16 and 17-years-old who were known to Liverpool local authority around the end of 2022 (average of December 2022, January 2023 and February 2023), 885 were NEET or their activity was not known (530 known to be NEET and 355 young people whom the local authority could not confirm their activity). This data is published here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/neet-and-participation-local-authority-figures. These are not national statistics but published as transparency data so some caution should be taken if using these figures. Data is not available for Liverpool, Walton constituency.

In addition, 16 to 18 destination measures are published. These official statistics show the percentage of pupils not continuing to a sustained education, apprenticeship or employment destination in the year after completing 16 to 18 study, that is 6 months of continual activity. This can be used as a proxy for NEET at age 18. Data for Liverpool Walton is available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/55eab43f-7467-408e-90c8-08dd184e91f8. This shows that out of 357 pupils completing 16 to 18 study in the 2021/22 academic year in Liverpool Walton, 39 pupils were not recorded as having a sustained destination in the 2022/23, and 23 pupils did not have their activity captured.

Expenditure on consultancy is reported each year in the Annual Report and Accounts.

For 2021-22, this is shown on page 111 at

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/635a7f1e8fa8f5653f83f4f0/defra-annual-report-2021-2022.pdf

For 2022-23, this is shown on page 108 at

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/653a9479e6c9680014aa9be8/annual-report-and-accounts-2022-23.pdf

The 2023-24 figures are being audited and are not yet finalised or published.

The Government is committed to restoring the public finances and delivering value for the taxpayer.

As part of this wider mission, the Government has pledged to reduce wasteful spend on non-essential and expensive consultants in order to save over £1.2 billion by 2026.

In July, the Secretary of State confirmed the Government’s intention to launch a rapid review of the Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP). Our review will make sure that the EIP is fit for purpose to deliver on our ambitious targets, including 30by30, and we will communicate updates in the usual way.

The table shows the total departmental spend on consultancy for financial years 2020/2021 to 2023/2024. The total includes the central department (DfTc), Executive Agencies and Arm Length Bodies (ALBs).

Departmental total spend (£)

2020/21 175,720,840

2021/22 198,001,723

2022/23 225,477,742

2023/24 165,372,920

The findings from the Autonomy Institute's report, entitled ‘Transforming Employment and Support Infrastructure’, demonstrates the importance of reforming Jobcentres and the difference this can make to citizens.

Through the Get Britain Working White Paper published in November 2024, the government set out our vision to reform Jobcentre Plus and create a new service across Great Britain that will enable everyone to access employment support, aligned more effectively with skills and careers. We recognise that people are individuals with different support needs, and we want everyone who wants it to be able to access tailored support, not just those on benefits.

We are taking a test and learn approach to developing the new service and are committed to working with users of the new service, and organisations representing their needs, throughout the design process to ensure the new service is inclusive, accessible, and works for everyone.

We want to shift the focus of the customer-work coach relationship away from compliance and box-ticking around these requirements to make room for more constructive, personalised, career-focused conversations. As we set out in the White Paper, we have committed to develop the work coach profession and the careers adviser profession in England. Further building our work coaches’ capabilities is essential to delivering our ambition for the new service. We will launch a coaching academy that will upskill our teams and ensure they can deliver the high-quality, personalised, action-oriented coaching conversations.

The Department’s campaign to promote Pension Credit has been running across Great Britain since September. The latest phase of the campaign, which launched on 8 November, is aimed at friends and family - especially adult children of eligible pensioners - asking them to tell people they know about Pension Credit, encourage them to check their eligibility, as well as help them make a claim. It is running on TV, radio, social media such as Facebook and Instagram, on YouTube and on advertising screens, including on GP and Post Office screens.

The Department’s ‘Invitation to Claim’ initiative was launched on 30 October. Since then, we have written to around 120,000 pensioner households across Great Britain who are in receipt of Housing Benefit but not Pension Credit. The letter and accompanying leaflet urge these households to claim Pension Credit by the 21 December, which is the latest date for making a successful backdated Pension Credit claim and qualify for a Winter Fuel Payment in winter 2024/25.

The reforms to Jobcentres across Great Britain that we have announced in the recent Get Britain Working White Paper will be transformative.

Key to the White Paper’s successful delivery will be ensuring it is locally responsive and engaged. This will mean it will operate differently in different areas to reflect local systems and needs.

We will work closely with key partners, including Mayoral Combined Authorities, as we design, develop and test the new service into the next year. These tests will help us discover how we can shape a local service, while the UK Government maintains overall accountability for it.

In the Get Britain Working White Paper, the Government announced £45 million of funding for eight trailblazers in England to test delivery of the Youth Guarantee. Liverpool City Region are one of the eight areas set to receive a proportion of this funding to support 18-21 year olds access education, training and employment opportunities in their area.

Working closely on the detail of the design and delivery in the Liverpool City Region, we will be able to maximise the difference it makes to young people’s lives locally. Further analysis will be available through the course of the trailblazer.

The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) continues to engage regularly with stakeholders as we consider CMS reform. We are currently considering the recommendations and our response to the Gingerbread report ‘Fix the CMS’.

The CMS Service Modernisation Programme has delivered improvements to the customer experience enabling parents to access their on-line My Child Maintenance Case, ensuring parents can report changes of circumstances and access their digital communications at any time of the day. In addition, caseworker training to support vulnerable customers has been updated following invaluable engagement with stakeholders.

The CMS has recently consulted on significant reforms and are analysing the responses. This included removing the Direct Pay service and managing all CMS cases in one service to allow the CMS to tackle non-compliance faster.  The consultation also sought views on how victims and survivors of domestic abuse can be better supported to use CMS and whether removing Direct Pay completely would benefit victims and survivors of domestic abuse. The Government will publish a response in due course.