First elected: 5th May 2011
Speeches made during Parliamentary debates are recorded in Hansard. For ease of browsing we have grouped debates into individual, departmental and legislative categories.
e-Petitions are administered by Parliament and allow members of the public to express support for a particular issue.
If an e-petition reaches 10,000 signatures the Government will issue a written response.
If an e-petition reaches 100,000 signatures the petition becomes eligible for a Parliamentary debate (usually Monday 4.30pm in Westminster Hall).
These initiatives were driven by Jonathan Ashworth, and are more likely to reflect personal policy preferences.
MPs who are act as Ministers or Shadow Ministers are generally restricted from performing Commons initiatives other than Urgent Questions.
Jonathan Ashworth has not introduced any legislation before Parliament
Jonathan Ashworth has not co-sponsored any Bills in the current parliamentary sitting
The Government welcomes the recent inquiry into the menopause by the Woman and Equalities Select Committee. As we have made clear, women experiencing the menopause already benefit from protection in the Equality Act 2010. The protected characteristics of sex, age and disability are all potentially relevant in offering this protection in the field of employment.
The Attorney General’s Office spent £12,245 in financial year 2020-21, £0 in financial year 2021-22, and £1,470 in financial year 2022-23 on external recruitment consultants.
The GREAT Britain and Northern Ireland campaign is the UK’s international brand marketing campaign, which works closely with UK businesses, not-for-profit organisations and high-profile figures to promote the best of the UK abroad. Since 2021/22, the GREAT campaign has had an annual overall budget of circa £60m (2021/22: £60m; 2022/23: £57.12m; and 2023/24: £57.12m). The results of individual GREAT campaigns vary but, on average, externally verified analysis shows £1 of GREAT spend on marketing generates £15 for the UK by encouraging people to visit, study, trade, invest, live and work in the UK.
Encouraging prospective international students to choose to study in UK higher education institutions brings strong return on investment. For example, the GREAT Study UK campaign generated £407m in 2021/22 and £548m in 2022/23 (specifically from international students studying for up to three years in the UK). The 2023/24 results are currently being verified and are expected by June 2024.
The GREAT Britain and Northern Ireland campaign is the UK’s international brand marketing campaign, which works closely with UK businesses, not-for-profit organisations and high-profile figures to promote the best of the UK abroad. Since 2021/22, the GREAT campaign has had an annual overall budget of circa £60m (2021/22: £60m; 2022/23: £57.12m; and 2023/24: £57.12m). The results of individual GREAT campaigns vary but, on average, externally verified analysis shows £1 of GREAT spend on marketing generates £15 for the UK by encouraging people to visit, study, trade, invest, live and work in the UK.
Encouraging prospective international students to choose to study in UK higher education institutions brings strong return on investment. For example, the GREAT Study UK campaign generated £407m in 2021/22 and £548m in 2022/23 (specifically from international students studying for up to three years in the UK). The 2023/24 results are currently being verified and are expected by June 2024.
The GREAT Britain and Northern Ireland campaign is the UK’s international brand marketing campaign, which works closely with UK businesses, not-for-profit organisations and high-profile figures to promote the best of the UK abroad. Since 2021/22, the GREAT campaign has had an annual overall budget of circa £60m (2021/22: £60m; 2022/23: £57.12m; and 2023/24: £57.12m). The results of individual GREAT campaigns vary but, on average, externally verified analysis shows £1 of GREAT spend on marketing generates £15 for the UK by encouraging people to visit, study, trade, invest, live and work in the UK.
Encouraging prospective international students to choose to study in UK higher education institutions brings strong return on investment. For example, the GREAT Study UK campaign generated £407m in 2021/22 and £548m in 2022/23 (specifically from international students studying for up to three years in the UK). The 2023/24 results are currently being verified and are expected by June 2024.
The information requested is not held centrally from 2010 to date.
The Digital and Data profession issues a Workforce Planning data Commission twice a year in April and October. Below are the number of full-time Civil Servant professionals in filled positions for the years 2022 and 2023:
a) 2022, April commission: 16,662
b) 2023, April commission: 20,163
c) 2023, October commission: 21,366
The 2024 April commission is being issued this month (March 2024), workforce data is therefore not yet available. We are firmly on track to reach its target 6% of the overall civil service workforce by 2025.
The Government Recruitment Service collaborates with departments, functions and professions to develop and deliver high quality, customer-focused recruitment that identifies and attracts the best people for roles whilst offering a wide range of services. It offers core low-cost solutions to meet routine recruitment needs and handles more complex or specialist campaigns by tailoring its approach to attract and recruit the highest quality candidates.
The following table presents civil service recruitment campaigns with successful and unsuccessful vacancy outcomes for campaigns managed by the Government Recruitment Service.
Year | Vacancy Outcome Successful | Vacancy Outcome Unsuccessful | Total number of vacancies |
2020 | 10080 | 5146 | 15226 |
2021 | 15871 | 9511 | 25382 |
2022 | 16047 | 9851 | 25898 |
2023 | 13909 | 9576 | 23485 |
Total | 55907 | 34084 | 89991 |
The Government Recruitment Service does not hold any data on why candidates are not successful. However, there could be a range of reasons for non-appointment. All candidates will have been sifted or interviewed out of the recruiting process.
Non executive board members are not employees of the Cabinet Office and act in an advisory capacity. Non-executive’s personal data, including those relating to personal taxation or status, are protected by the UK General Data Protection Regulation. Collection of personal data on non-dom status is not routinely collected and is generally not required for making public appointments. If any such data was held it could only be published if doing so was in compliance with data protection law.
Data relating to public appointments are covered by the Public Appointments Privacy Statement found here https://apply-for-public-appointment.service.gov.uk/privacy.
Data Maturity is a recognised priority in central government departments. Departments are committed to completing a targeted Data Maturity Assessment of a strategically important part of the department within the year.
The Data Marketplace provides a front door to discover, share and deliver government data in a legal, ethical and trusted way. It passed its initial Alpha assessment in September and will be available as public Beta at the end of March 2024. We are currently working with a number of departments in private beta to develop the service. The Data Marketplace committed spend covering the period April 2022 to April 2024 is £6.7m with a further £4m forecast in the following financial year, 2024/25.
Data Maturity is a recognised priority in central government departments. Departments are committed to completing a targeted Data Maturity Assessment of a strategically important part of the department within the year.
The Data Marketplace provides a front door to discover, share and deliver government data in a legal, ethical and trusted way. It passed its initial Alpha assessment in September and will be available as public Beta at the end of March 2024. We are currently working with a number of departments in private beta to develop the service. The Data Marketplace committed spend covering the period April 2022 to April 2024 is £6.7m with a further £4m forecast in the following financial year, 2024/25.
The GOV.UK One Login programme is continuing to expand its customer and technical support, as planned. In addition to a new contact centre that provides real-time multi-channel assistance to users, GOV.UK One Login recently launched an enhanced technical service desk with round-the-clock monitoring and support for more complex technical issues. We regularly review user demand, performance levels and customer feedback to optimise operational capacity, using automation where appropriate to ensure high quality and efficient service provision. GOV.UK One Login has robust security and resilience measures in place to keep users’ data safe.
The information is not centrally held in the form requested. Government external expenditure will include Civil Service fast stream, public appointments, workforce planning, and on training and development.
Identifying spending specifically on using consultancies to recruit temporary or permanent staff could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
The Prime Minister’s Office is an integral part of the Cabinet Office. I refer the hon. Member to the answer of 28th February 2024, Official Report, PQ 5332.
The UK government is proud of its record in proactively seeking to find and prevent more fraud in the system and has invested over an extra £1bn in tackling fraud and error since Autumn 2021 across government. This includes the launch of the Public Sector Fraud Authority in August 2022 which builds on lessons learned in the management of fraud risk and loss in the pandemic.
The government’s ‘Cross-Government Fraud Landscape Annual Report 2022’ showed that at the end of March 2021 there had been £88.2m of fraud and error recovered within COVID-19 schemes (excluding HMRC-administered COVID-19 schemes and any fraud and error related to tax and welfare). Of this, £19.6m was reported by departments as fraud and £68.6m was reported as error. These figures only represent 2020-2021 data, since then, further funds have been recovered.
This information is not centrally held. Every department is responsible for their own consultancy spend with governance, assurance and control over budgets to ensure value for money.
The government continues to prioritise ongoing work to provide estimates of the value of detected and prevented fraud associated with the pandemic. The 2022 Fraud Landscape Report showed that in 2020/21, across government and outside of tax and welfare, the Fraud Landscape Report has reported £88m of recovered fraud and error related to COVID-19. However since then further funds have been recovered and further efforts to recover funds is ongoing. More uptodate figures will be published in due course.
It was only right that the Government and local authorities stepped up to support the country in unprecedented times during the pandemic – saving businesses and the jobs they create.
The Government is committed to transparency in its efforts to tackle fraud against the public sector. The UK is one of the few countries to estimate fraud and error within the public sector and to openly publish this estimate. The Government also continues to prioritise ongoing work to provide estimates of the value of detected and prevented fraud associated with the pandemic. In 2021, the Government recovered a total of £88m from fraud and error relating to COVID-19 support schemes.
The 2022 Fraud Landscape Report showed that in 2020/21, across government, detected fraud amounted to £54m within COVID-19 specific schemes.
The One Login programme has agreed an adoption roadmap with 15 major government departments, in line with the commitment in the Transforming for a digital future: 2022 to 2025 roadmap for digital and data.
In its 2022-2025 Roadmap for Digital and Data, the Government committed that by 2025, at least 50 of government’s top 75 identified services will move to a ‘great’ standard, against a consistent measure of service performance.
The framework, developed by the Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO) in the Cabinet Office, in consultation with departments, has quantitative and qualitative elements to assess the end-to-end service, and focuses on usability, efficiency, and compliance. The metrics used to measure these are:
Usability:
Digital adoption - proportion of transactions completed online
Digital completion - proportion that are start online are completed
User satisfaction - proportion of users that are satisfied
Efficiency:
Cost per transaction - the cost to provide the service including staffing, technology and operational costs
Compliance:
Accessibility - whether it meets legal accessibility requirements
These quantitative measures are consistently assessed using a benchmark of government services and industry standards to provide a robust assessment. Additional data and context can be included through qualitative assessment to ensure a complete and accurate assessment.
Further information on the framework has been published at
The GOV.UK One Login programme’s total budget for the three years from 2022/23 to 2024/25 is £305.4 million. Of this, the programme is forecasting expenditure of £132.7m on the development and roll out of the system by the end of the current financial year.
Over 1.5 million users have successfully used GOV.UK One Login to access services. The programme will help save over £700 million over the next three years, as well as people’s time and effort.
The GOV.UK One Login programme has recently expanded its customer support offering with the launch of a contact centre to provide real-time multi-channel assistance to users. Alongside this, One Login will shortly roll out an enhanced technical service desk to provide round-the-clock monitoring and technical support. Both of these initiatives will be scaled up over time as more government services and users onboard to GOV.UK One Login.
In line with the programme’s agreed scope, we are on track to onboard at least 145 services to GOV.UK One Login by the end of 2024/25. We are working closely with departments to identify further services for onboarding as part of the programme’s longer-term roadmap beyond March 2025.
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.
A response to the Hon gentleman’s Parliamentary Question of 21 June is attached.
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.
A response to the Hon gentlemen’s Parliamentary Question of 21/03 is attached
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority. A response to the Rt Hon Member's Parliamentary Question of 10 February is attached.
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority. A response to the Rt Hon Member's Parliamentary Question of 10 February is attached.
My Office has no record of receiving this letter. I have asked my Office to contact the organisation to see if they can re-send the correspondence.
Details of the systems for handling sanitary and phytosanitary checks on relevant goods movement between Great Britain to Northern Ireland are set out in published guidance on gov.uk.
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority. I have therefore asked the Authority to respond.
Details of central government contracts above £10,000 are published on Contracts Finder: https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Search.
The Cross-Government Fraud Landscape: Annual Report 2022, published on 21 March 2023 does not mention Department for Business and Trade.
The Fraud Landscape Report figures were reported to the Public Sector Fraud Authority (formerly the Counter Fraud Centre of Expertise) as part of established reporting cycles.
The government defines error as losses arising from unintentional events, processing errors and official government errors - such losses are judged as without fraudulent intent.
Since 2014, Fraud Landscape Reports show an increase in both detected fraud and error across government. This is in line with the government's explicit objective to find more fraud in the system. By detecting more, we can understand fraud better - and deal with it better.
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy detected error was £13.4m in 2019/20 as published in the Fraud Landscape Bulletin and increased to £160.7m in 2020/21 as published in the Fraud Landscape Report.
The Department for Business and Trade was created on 7 February in a Machinery of Government change. During the period in question, the Department for International Trade (DIT) and the Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) were operating as two separate Departments.
DIT expenditure as below.
It is not possible to disaggregate the BEIS expenditure.
DIT spend
Year | Total Spend |
20/21 | £183,480.00 |
21/22 | £161,970.70 |
22/23 | £377,336.77 |
The Department for Business and Trade works with a number of other Departments to promote flexible working. Several of them are members of the Department for Business and Trade / Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development co-chaired Flexible Working Taskforce, alongside business and family representative groups. In December 2022 the Government announced plans[1] to make the right to request flexible working a day one right, alongside other changes to make flexible working more accessible to all employees. The Government is pleased to support the Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Private Members’ Bill[2] which will deliver several of these changes.
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/making-flexible-working-the-default
The Legacy Risk Assessment will be prepared and submitted to Cabinet by the end of the current Financial year.
The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero did not exist as a separate department for the years in question. It is not possible to split the value of external recruitment consultants from the rest of the Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy.
External recruitment agencies and search firms are an important resource which support the Civil Service's ability to recruit - to find talented people, in the right places, with the right capabilities to deliver for the people of the United Kingdom. The Civil Service has developed a number of commercial frameworks which provide transparency, high quality services and value for money.
Across the UK Government we are committed to delivering the best possible outcomes for all citizens, no matter where in the country they call home. All citizens contribute to the strength of the United Kingdom which is the most successful political and economic union the world has ever seen.
We do not hold information centrally on all Ministerial visits to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland conducted since the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology was established in February 2023. However, we are able to provide some detail of recent Ministerial visits.
This week, the Minister for Science visited Edinburgh for Arctic Science Summit Week.
In December 2023, Minister for Technology and the Digital Economy visited the compound semiconductor cluster in South Wales.
In May 2023, Chloe Smith MP also visited the compound semiconductor cluster in May 2023 during her time as Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology.
Earlier this month, the Minister for AI and Intellectual Property visited Belfast for CyberNI Week. The Minister also visited Belfast for CyberNI week in April 2023, along with a visit to the Intellectual Property Office HQ Newport, Wales in November 2023.
Such information is not centrally recorded or collated in the form requested. More generally, I would refer the hon. Member to the long-standing policies on legal expenditure, as set out recently by Cabinet Office Ministers on 12 March 2024, Official Report, PQ 17709 and 12 March 2024, Official Report, House of Lords, Cols.1901-1904.
The Government publishes on GOV.UK details of the cost of overseas Ministerial travel, including costs of travel, and on other costs (vias, accommodation, meals).
The Government publishes on GOV.UK details of the cost of overseas Ministerial travel, including costs of travel, and on other costs (vias, accommodation, meals).
The Government is proud of its record in proactively seeking to find and prevent more fraud in the system. We have established the dedicated Public Sector Fraud Authority (PSFA). In its first year it delivered £311 million in audited counter fraud benefits.
Due to the Machinery of Government changes, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology have not yet produced fraud and error estimates, but this will be published in the 23/24 annual report and accounts.
The latest Government figures for former BEIS can be found in the BEIS Annual Report and Accounts (2022/2023).
The requested information is not centrally held, and complying with this request would incur a disproportionate cost to the department. Reports and guidance that the Department has published can be found on gov.uk
The Machinery of Government change in February 2023 created three new departments: the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), the Department Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), and the Department of Business and Trade (DBT).
The financial records for these organisations were split effective on 1 August 2023. We can only provide information for DSIT from then as any prior data will be combined with fBEIS.
Following the Machinery of Government change, funding was not specifically allocated to Advertising. Analysis of transactions shows that £ 283,068.85 has been spent to date in DSIT.
I refer the Honourable Member to the answer given in response to PQ 15898.
As the Hon Member will know, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) was only created in February 2023 so did not exist three years ago.
Analysis of transactions shows that £157,441 has been spent to date in DSIT on subscriptions of all types.
There are 19 vacancies in the digital directorate among 178 posts. We do not centrally hold information on Digital posts and vacancies around the department.
The accounting systems track IT spend, but do not capture the level of detail to readily identify spend on Infrastructure or legacy systems. Determination of legacy IT will require more work, the Legacy Risk Assessment will be prepared and submitted to Cabinet by the end of the current Financial year. Currently, within our centrally managed Digital function, there is no legacy IT of any material size or value so spend in the last 3 years for legacy software patching would be zero.
External recruitment agencies and search firms are an important resource which support the Civil Service's ability to recruit - to find talented people, in the right places, with the right capabilities to deliver for the people of the United Kingdom. The Civil Service has developed a number of commercial frameworks which provide transparency, high quality services and value for money.
As the Hon member may recall, the Prime Minister announced the creation of DSIT on 7 Feb 2023. For the time periods specified in this request the Department therefore did not exist or systems had not yet been put in place to separate the new departments and the parliamentary supply was not disaggregated.
As such the answer for DSIT is nil.