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Written Question
Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy: Internet
Monday 12th March 2018

Asked by: James Gray (Conservative - North Wiltshire)

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many and what proportion of his Department’s cloud-hosting contracts have been awarded to (a) hyperscale cloud providers and (b) UK SMEs; and what the value of those contracts was in each of the last three years.

Answered by Lord Harrington of Watford

Information regarding how many and what proportion of the Department’s (BEIS) cloud-hosting contracts have been awarded to (a) hyperscale cloud providers and (b) UK SMEs: and the value of those contracts in each of the last three years, is not held in a format that can be fully and easily extracted. This could only be provided at disproportionate cost.

However, we can confirm the following in relation to (a) and (b).

a) From records held centrally, BEIS has four cloud hosting contracts. We regard three of these to be hyperscale providers. In total these contracts have a value of £883k for 2017/18.

b) The other cloud hosting provider is an SME. This contract has a maximum value of £280k over the last three years.


Written Question
Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy: Internet
Monday 12th March 2018

Asked by: James Gray (Conservative - North Wiltshire)

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what estimate he has made of the volume of UK citizens’ data held by companies (a) supplying cloud services to his Department and (b) contracted to deliver cloud services on behalf of his Department that is subject to information requests from US Government bodies.

Answered by Lord Harrington of Watford

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy does not centrally collect the specific data requested.

Information regarding contracts above the value of £10,000 is published on Contracts Finder on GOV.UK, available at https://www.gov.uk/contracts-finder.

The Interception of Communications Commissioner and the Information Commissioner’s Office also have responsibilities in this area.


Written Question
Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy: Postal Services
Thursday 23rd November 2017

Asked by: James Gray (Conservative - North Wiltshire)

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what security measures his Department has in place relating to the receipt by his Department of incoming post and parcels; and what discussions he has had with the British Forces Post Office on providing such services.

Answered by Margot James

The Department has appropriate physical security measures to ensure a safe and secure working environment for staff. However, the Department does not provide specific details on the security measures it has in place.

There has been no correspondence between my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and the British Forces Postal Office on providing such services. Details of Ministers’ meetings with external organisations are published quarterly on the Gov.UK website:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications?departments%5B%5D=department-for-business-energy-and-industrial-strategy&publication_type=transparency-data

Information for July – September 2017 will be published in due course.