Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
What steps he is taking to help reduce the number of late payments to small businesses.
Answered by Paul Scully
I wrote in May to the FTSE 100 Group and accountancy firms, highlighting the importance of paying promptly.
We are engaging with Prompt Payment Code signatories on reforming the Code and will consult on strengthening the Small Business Commissioner’s powers.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many members of staff his Department employs.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
Data regarding the number of staff employed by each Government Department is published monthly as part of routine Government transparency. The most recent report was published in August, covering the Department’s headcount and payroll data for July 2020, and can be found on GOV.UK at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/beis-workforce-management-information-july-2020.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many members of staff in their Department have one or more of the words equality, diversity, inclusion, gender, LGBT or race in their job title.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
There are six members of staff in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy that have equality, diversity, inclusion, gender, LGBT or race in their job title.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how much the Department spent on unconscious bias training in each of the last five years.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The Department encourages all staff to complete Unconscious Bias training through Civil Service Learning.
We are only able to draw data from 1st April 2018, and 84% of Unconscious Bias training since that date was delivered online and therefore incurred no cost.
The estimated cost of the face-to-face training over the same period is shown in the table below.
| Face-to-face training | Cost |
2018/19 | 221 | £44,200 |
2019/20 | 167 | £33,400 |
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Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many members of staff in his Department have equality, diversity or inclusion in their job title.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
There are six members of staff in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy that have equality, diversity or inclusion in their job title.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many staff in his Department have undertaken unconscious bias training in each of the last five years.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The Department encourages all staff to undertake Unconscious Bias training through Civil Service Learning.
The data in the table below shows the number of individuals completing training by financial year since 1st April 2018.
| Face-to-face training | Online training |
2018/19 | 221 | 1,080 |
2019/20 | 167 | 1,038 |
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Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how much funding each UK higher education institution has received from Huawei over the last 10 years.
Answered by Amanda Solloway - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
Higher education providers are independent, autonomous organisations. HM Government does not collect data of this sort.
Higher education providers in the UK are required to submit certain categories of data to the Higher Education Statistics Agency. This is published annually. This includes their overall income from a variety of sources and for a range of different activities, including teaching, research and commercial. This includes research grant and contract income from business. However HESA data does not indicate the individual businesses concerned.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, which higher education institutions have received funding from Huawei in the last ten years.
Answered by Amanda Solloway - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
Higher education providers are independent, autonomous organisations. HM Government does not collect data of this sort.
Higher education providers in the UK are required to submit certain categories of data to the Higher Education Statistics Agency. This is published annually. This includes their overall income from a variety of sources and for a range of different activities, including teaching, research and commercial. This includes research grant and contract income from business. However HESA data does not indicate the individual businesses concerned.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
What steps he is taking with UK Research and Innovation to increase funding allocated to projects in regions of lower productivity.
Answered by Amanda Solloway - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
We will publish an ambitious place strategy for R&D in the next few months. This will build on existing and emerging research and innovation capabilities across the country, enabling areas to ‘level up’ and reach their economic potential. This is an important part of our ambition to increase R&D investment across the economy.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps the Government is taking to tackle incidents of late payments to small and medium-sized enterprises by larger businesses.
Answered by Margot James
The Government knows how important tackling late payment is, especially for smaller businesses. We have recently introduced a number of measures to improve payment practices, specifically for small and medium-sized enterprises.
The Reporting on Payment Practices and Performance Regulations 2017 came in to force this year. This statutory requirement increases transparency, providing small and medium-sized businesses with better information about the payment practices of large businesses they intend to trade with.
The recently announced Small Business Commissioner builds on a package of measures to tackle late payment and unfavourable payment practices in the private sector. The Commissioner will empower small businesses to resolve payment disputes with larger businesses and avoid future issues by encouraging a culture change in payment practices and how businesses deal with each other.