Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people are claiming (a) housing benefit and (b) the housing element of universal credit in each broad rental market area (BRMA) and what was the average amount claimed in each BRMA in 2025.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Information on the number of households receiving the UC Housing Element in the Private Rented Sector by Broad Rental Market Area is available on Stat-Xplore (https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/).
Providing the rest of the information requested would incur disproportionate cost.
Information on HB caseload and average award is available on Stat-Xplore (https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/) disaggregated by Local Authority, but not BRMA.
Breakdowns of the UC Housing Element and Housing Benefit are available at national level in the Benefit Caseload and Expenditure Tables (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/benefit-expenditure-and-caseload-tables-2025).
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, with reference to table 1 of Annex A of the Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25, if he will publish a breakdown of the spending of both (a) Resource Departmental Expenditure Limit and (b) Capital Departmental Expenditure Limit on Delivering Affordable energy for households and businesses in that financial year.
Answered by Michael Shanks - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
A detailed breakdown of the Resource and Capital Departmental Expenditure limit spending in 2024-25 under Delivering Affordable energy for households and businesses and Ensuring that our energy system is reliable and secure is held on the HM Treasury database OSCAR and published at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/oscar-annual-release-november-2025.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, with reference to table 1 of Annex A of the Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25, if he will publish a breakdown of the spending of both (a) Resource Departmental Expenditure Limit and (b) Capital Departmental Expenditure Limit on Ensuring that our energy system is reliable and secure in that financial year, including the value of the Bulb loan which was repaid in that financial year.
Answered by Michael Shanks - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
A detailed breakdown of the Resource and Capital Departmental Expenditure limit spending in 2024-25 under Delivering Affordable energy for households and businesses and Ensuring that our energy system is reliable and secure is held on the HM Treasury database OSCAR and published at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/oscar-annual-release-november-2025.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to table SoPS 1.2 of his Department's annual report and accounts 2024 to 2025, if he will publish a breakdown of the Gross Outturn and Income of CDEL in the Local Growth and Devolution Estimate Line in financial year 2024-25.
Answered by Samantha Dixon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Please see table below for a breakdown of the gross outturn and income expenditure streams of the requested estimate row for CDEL.
Estimate Row | Main Expenditure Streams | Gross | Income | Net |
Communities DEL Estimate Rows | 24/25 | £k | £k | £k |
C: Local Growth and Devolution CDEL |
| 787,168 | - | 787,168 |
| 503,113 | - | 503,113 | |
| 431,579 | - | 431,579 | |
| 343,438 | - | 343,438 | |
| 246,760 | -246,760 | 0 | |
| 152,500 | - | 152,500 | |
| 143,610 | - | 143,610 | |
| 141,676 | - | 141,676 | |
| 103,286 | - | 103,286 | |
| 84,083 | - | 84,083 | |
| 81,266 | - | 81,266 | |
| 99,839 | -1,719 | 98,120 | |
Total | 3,118,318 | -248,479 | 2,869,839 |
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, for what reason (a) the number of staff and (b) staff costs have increased at the Financial Reporting Council since April 2017.
Answered by Blair McDougall - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has taken on several new responsibilities following its (2016) designation as competent authority for audit, and additional work resulting from the UK's exit from the European Union. These include the registration of additional third country auditors, a new programme of assessing third country audit regulatory equivalence and adequacy, and supporting agreements on the mutual recognition of professional qualifications. The FRC has also put extra resource into the supervision of audits and expediting enforcement proceedings.
Staff costs have increased in direct proportion to the increase in headcount.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, for what reason (a) the number of staff and (b) staff costs have increased at Companies House since April 2017.
Answered by Blair McDougall - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Companies House’s staff numbers have increased in recent years as a result of its extensive transformation to strengthen the integrity and transparency of the UK corporate register. The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 has significantly expanded Companies House’s remit, introducing new powers such as identity verification and enhanced investigation and enforcement to tackle misuse of the register and combat economic crime. Alongside enhancements to its digital and data systems, these changes have required additional specialist capability to implement and maintain. These factors, together with the implementation of civil service pay awards, have affected staff costs over this period.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to Question 100498, how many households on Housing Benefit and Universal Credit who have flowed off the benefit cap are in the Other outcome category by reason of receiving an exempting benefit during the quarter to (a) August 2025, (b) May 2025, (c) February 2025 and (d) November 2024.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department publishes Official Statistics on the number of households in Great Britain on Housing Benefit (HB) or Universal Credit (UC) that have flowed off the benefit cap, including outcome at off-flow, in the HB Cumulative Caseload dataset and the UC Cumulative Caseload dataset, which are published quarterly on Stat-Xplore, with monthly off-flows data currently available to July 2025.
The HB statistics do have an Outcome at off-flow category for ‘Household receiving other exempt benefit (Employment Support Allowance support group / Disability Living Allowance / Industrial Injuries / Personal Independent Payment).’
However, statistics on the number of exempting benefit outcomes for UC are included in the Outcome at off-flow category of ‘Other outcome’, and to produce a further breakdown of this group would incur disproportionate cost.
Users can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest and, if needed, can access general guidance on how to extract the information required.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, for what reason (a) the number of staff and (b) staff costs have increased at The Insolvency Service since April 2017.
Answered by Blair McDougall - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Insolvency Service has expanded its responsibilities in respect of resourcing the transfer of criminal enforcement functions from the Department, work to distribute payments to creditors from Payment Protection Insurance realisations, and the Insolvency Service's expanded role as it has taken on responsibility for enforcement activity related to the economic crime programme.
These factors, together with the implementation of civil service pay awards, have also affected staff costs over this period.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, with reference to table 1 of Annex A of the Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25, if he will publish a breakdown of the spending of Capital Departmental Expenditure Limit (CDEL) spending on Science and Research, excluding CDEL on Science and Research (ALB), net in that financial year.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Please find below a breakdown of the Science and Research line outturn for FY 2024-25 per table 1 in Annex A of the DSIT Annual Report and Accounts 2024-25:
British Academy | £60.228m |
Research Base | £113.700m |
Royal Academy of Engineering | £41.971m |
Royal Society | £111.429m |
Space Directorate | £30.841m |
UK Space Agency | £607.077m |
Research Capital Investment Fund | £37.949m |
Horizon and Copernicus Association | £1,043.123m |
Office for Quantum | £1.197m |
Total | £2,047.515m |
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if she will review the Answer her Department provided to Question 99845 on 18 December 2025, with reference to the Answer provided to Question 99844 on 8 January 2026.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
We have corrected the answer to PQ 99845 and apologise for the error.