Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of introducing a statutory right to time off for necessary medical appointments for (a) disabled employees and (b) employees with long-term health conditions.
Answered by Kate Dearden - Minister of State (Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade)
The government is committed to helping working people balance their jobs with their personal lives, including those managing disabilities and long-term health conditions. The Keep Britain Working Vanguard is focused on testing voluntary employer action, so a statutory right is not currently in scope. We will engage with unions, Disabled People’s Organisations and people with lived experience as solutions develop, to ensure the system is fair and works for everyone. Where a disability is covered by the Equality Act 2010, employers have a duty to make reasonable adjustments, which may include flexibility to attend medical appointments.
Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, what steps his Department is taking to support the hospitality sector in the context of rising operating and employment costs; and what assessment he has made of the case for targeted employer National Insurance relief for under-25s in qualifying entry-level roles in that sector.
Answered by Kate Dearden - Minister of State (Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade)
The Government recognises the pressures facing hospitality businesses from rising operating and employment costs. Hospitality businesses play a vital role in communities, high streets and local economies across the UK, and we are taking action to support them. From April 2026, eligible retail, hospitality and leisure properties benefit from permanently lower business rates multipliers. We have also increased the Employment Allowance from £5,000 to £10,500, reducing employer National Insurance costs for many eligible businesses.
Businesses can also claim employer National Insurance reliefs, including those for under-21s and under-25 apprentices. This means employers pay no employer National Insurance contributions for apprentices under 25 or employees under 21 on earnings up to £50,270. These reliefs were estimated to be worth around £2.5 billion in 2025/26.
The Government keeps all taxes under review and carefully considers the impact, cost and complexity of any proposed new tax reliefs as part of the policy-making process.
Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, what assessment he has made of the potential impact on business investment, job creation and high street confidence of (a) providing longer notice and implementation periods for significant fiscal and regulatory changes and (b) tackling illicit and persistently non-compliant retail operators.
Answered by Blair McDougall - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade) (Jointly with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
On significant regulatory changes, the Government seeks to give businesses sufficient notice and implementation time. Departments are also encouraged to use the common commencement dates of 6 April and 1 October to reduce burdens on business.
On tackling illicit and persistently non-compliant retail operators, serious and organised crime has a direct and damaging impact on local communities, undermining legitimate businesses, fuelling wider criminality, and eroding public confidence in the safety and vitality of our high streets. Criminal groups exploit apparently legitimate businesses to conceal their activities, with money laundering playing a key role in allowing these networks to operate and profit.
As such, addressing this threat is a priority for the Government and, on 19 May, the Government announced a £30 million crackdown targeting cash intensive businesses such as barber shops, vape stores, mini-marts and sweet shops operating on our high streets, over three years.
Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, what assessment his Department has made of trends in the level of public sector software licensing and cloud computing costs since the publication of the Competition and Markets Authority's 2025 final decision report on cloud services.
Answered by Kate Dearden - Minister of State (Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade)
The Department has not made a specific assessment of trends in the level of public sector software licensing and cloud computing costs since the publication of the Competition and Markets Authority's (CMA) final report on cloud services in July 2025. The CMA provided input into Government's State of Digital Government review, published in January 2025, which assessed the public sector's use of digital technology.
Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, what lessons his Department has learned from the Competition and Markets Authority's 2025 final decision report on cloud services.
Answered by Kate Dearden - Minister of State (Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade)
The CMA was clear that the market for cloud services is not working well and the Government welcomes the package of measures on cloud the CMA announced earlier this year to address the lessons from its investigation.
Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, what steps his Department is taking to ensure the Competition and Markets Authority releases a public roadmap for its Strategic Market Status investigation into Microsoft’s business software ecosystem; and how his Department is supporting the timely completion of that investigation.
Answered by Kate Dearden - Minister of State (Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade)
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is operationally independent of Government and is responsible for conducting Strategic Market Status (SMS) investigations. The CMA has committed to operating the digital markets regime in a way that provides predictability. As part of this commitment, it has previously published roadmaps outlining potential future interventions following an SMS designation.
Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, what estimate his Department has made of the potential value to UK exporters of resolving the market access barriers recorded on the Digital Market Access Service in the 2025-26 financial year.
Answered by Blair McDougall - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade) (Jointly with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
323 market access barriers were reported in the financial year 2025/26. It includes all barriers that have been recorded onto the DMAS within one financial year. Once these have been resolved, the Department publishes their potential value in DBT annual report and accounts as indicators on departmental performance. These are valued using the BIST methodology on valuing market access barriers published on Gov.UK. In the financial year 2025 - 26, the Department resolved 133 barriers in full, worth around £13 billion in potential additional exports to UK businesses over 5 years.
Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential impact on trade in pound sterling of publishing a sector by sector summary of each trade deal that the UK has signed, including a guide for businesses on how to take full advantage of the potential merits of said deal.
Answered by Blair McDougall - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade) (Jointly with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
My Department publishes a series of policy and sector guides for new Free Trade Agreements at Entry into Force (EIF). We have recently published guides on the UK-India FTA including nine sector guides. We have also published guides for the UK’s FTAs with Australia, New Zealand, and CPTPP, which can be found on Business.gov.uk market pages. We will continue to publish guides for future FTAs at EIF.
For new FTAs, we publish impact assessments (IAs) to support the parliamentary scrutiny process, including sector assessments. The IAs for FTAs with Australia, New Zealand, CPTPP, and India can be found on gov.uk.
Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, what estimate his Department has made of the potential impact on the value of UK exports in pound sterling of removing all of the market access barriers reported to his Department in 2025/2026.
Answered by Blair McDougall - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade) (Jointly with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
323 market access barriers were reported in the financial year 2025/26. In the financial year 2025 - 26, the Department resolved 133 barriers in full, worth around £13 billion in potential additional exports to UK businesses over 5 years. These are valued using the BIST methodology on valuing market access barriers published on Gov.UK.
The impact on UK exports of removing these market access barriers can take several years following the resolution of a barrier. Furthermore, the extent to which UK exporters are able to realise the potential value of the opportunity related to a market access barrier can depend on a variety of wider factors, such as global trading conditions. The Department is monitoring take-up and we will review impact over time in line with standard obligations to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of government interventions.
Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, what steps his Department has taken to help rights holders identify when their works have been used to train artificial intelligence models since March 2026.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Minister of State (Cabinet Office) (Jointly with the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Technology)
The Government recognises that greater transparency about how AI developers train their models can support licensing, enforcement and creator control.
Our March report on AI and copyright committed to further work on input transparency. Since then, we have engaged 38 stakeholders and continue to engage to understand what information is needed, what can feasibly be provided, and discuss best practice.
We are also taking forward research into tools to help creators understand and manage how their works are used online, including technical solutions and standards. This work will help establish what works and whether there is an appropriate role for government.