Dan Carden

The Government is determined to ensure public money spent on public procurement delivers economic growth, supports small businesses, champions innovation, creates good jobs and skills opportunities across the country, and maximises social value.

Public sector procurement is subject to a legal framework set out by the Procurement Act, which encourages free and open competition and a focus on delivering value for money, in line with internationally and nationally agreed obligations and regulations. There is no specific legal requirement to consult trade unions on the award of public contracts or the selection of Strategic Suppliers. Individual Contracting Authorities are responsible for their own procurement and contract award decisions under the Act. Strategic Suppliers are selected based on the scale, scope and criticality of the services they provide, and are overseen centrally to observe their performance in the delivery of public services.

The Government is determined to deliver high quality public services and better value for money for the taxpayer. The Government is currently consulting on introducing a public interest test to assess whether expiring contracts could be better delivered, and drive better value for money, in-house. Contracting authorities are responsible for their own procurement decisions; introducing a public interest test will mean that authorities make evidenced-based decisions on the best way to deliver public services.

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.

The department does not collect the pupil characteristics data for reinstated when an Independent Review Panel (IRP) has quashed a permanent exclusion.

The department is taking action to strengthen the oversight and monitoring of all exclusion data collected through the school census, particularly for pupils who may be disproportionately affected by exclusion. This includes strengthening the monitoring of IRP decisions, with a stronger focus on the reinstatement of pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities.

The department does not collect the pupil characteristics data for reinstated when an Independent Review Panel (IRP) has quashed a permanent exclusion.

The department is taking action to strengthen the oversight and monitoring of all exclusion data collected through the school census, particularly for pupils who may be disproportionately affected by exclusion. This includes strengthening the monitoring of IRP decisions, with a stronger focus on the reinstatement of pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities.

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.

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 Government is bringing in changes to Statutory Sick Pay through the Employment Rights Bill which will mean up to 1.3 million low-paid employees will now be entitled to SSP, and all eligible employees will be paid from the first day of sickness absence, benefitting millions of employees.

Removing the waiting period means that all employees will receive at least £60 extra at the start of their sickness absence, rising to £150 if they work two days per week, compared to the current system.

With these changes, we believe the current rate is fair and achieves the right balance between providing support for employees who are unable to work due to sickness or ill-health whilst limiting the cost to employers. We also know that many employees are eligible for more than the statutory minimum through contractual or occupational sick pay arrangements with their employer.

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 Department recognises the importance of raising awareness of conditions such as paediatric acute-onset neuropsychiatric syndrome (PANS) and paediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorder associated with streptococcus (PANDAS) among healthcare professionals, and improving the health and care system for the people living with them.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is the independent, expert body that develops evidence-based guidelines for the National Health Service on best practice. While the NICE currently has no plans to issue guidance on PANS and PANDAS, should the evidence base develop further, we would look to the NICE to update clinical policy.

In the meantime, integrated care systems are responsible for planning care for their populations’ conditions, and clinicians will want to take account of any new research and developments in guidance, such as those being overseen by the PANS PANDAS Steering Group, to ensure that they can continue to provide high quality care to their patients.

The Department is committed to getting the National Health Service diagnosing cancer earlier and treating it faster so that more patients survive this horrible set of diseases, including children and young people. To achieve this, the NHS has delivered an extra 40,000 operations, scans, and appointments each week as the first step to ensuring early diagnosis and faster treatment.

On 4 February 2025, the Department relaunched the Children and Young People Cancer Taskforce to identify tangible ways to improve outcomes and experiences for children and young people with cancer.

The forthcoming National Cancer Plan will include further details on how we will improve outcomes for cancer patients, including for children and young people with cancer, and will highlight how we aim to improve diagnosis rates for people across England.

The Department formally consults with the British Dental Association on the details of contract uplift proposals before these are implemented, as the recognised representative body for dentists. We consulted the British Dental Association on the proposed uplift for 2024/25, as we do each year.

The Government implemented the overall uplift to contract values on 29 January. Uplifted payments will be made in March, backdated to 1 April 2024.

There are currently no plans to commission a public inquiry into the safety of Poly Implant Prothèse (PIP) breast implants.

As part of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency’s (MHRA) market surveillance for medical devices, we worked with the National Health Service and other health partners to ensure the PIP issue was properly investigated. PIP breast implants were withdrawn from the market in 2010. It is important to note that while PIP implants are associated with a higher risk of rupture, leading to symptoms such as tenderness or swollen lymph glands, there is no evidence linking ruptured PIP implants to serious long-term health issues.

As with any medical device, breast implants do not come without risks. The current advice from the MHRA remains that anyone with a PIP breast implant should consult with their doctor about the possibility of removal. The NHS and MHRA provide guidance for patients on the available options for PIP implant removal. This is available at the following link:

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/pip-implants/

Since PIP breast implants were withdrawn, two independent reviews have identified lessons learnt, specifically the Howe Review in 2012 and the Keogh Review in 2013. The health system has since enacted important changes. As a result of the Keogh Review, since 2016 the Breast and Cosmetic Implant Registry collects data on all types of breast implant and removal surgeries in England and Scotland, aiming to help detect emerging safety issues and trace patients if necessary.

The MHRA is developing a future regulatory framework for medical devices that will ensure that patients have access to the safe and effective medical devices they need. The first step is the introduction of new Post-Market Surveillance regulations, which will come into force in June, and will put in place strengthened legal requirements for how manufacturers monitor and report on their devices once they are being used in the real world. We intend to follow this with updates to the UK Medical Device Regulations later this year, which will bring further improvements to device traceability and patient safety by introducing additional measures that must be taken before a product can be placed on the market. This will include requirements for unique device identifiers, implant cards, new rules to ensure that claims are consistent with the intended purpose, and changes to the classification of some medical devices, such as implantables, to better reflect the potential risks to patients and ensure risk proportionate requirements for manufacturers.

NHS England’s regional teams have worked closely with the integrated care boards to ensure that appropriate action is taken to address and mitigate the issues identified within each declared critical incident, including at the Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.