Nigel Mills

International Trade Advisers and other UKTI staff at overseas posts and in London have regular contact with businesses and business organisations and the subject of the Bribery Act and guidance on it may arise during any of those discussions. No records are kept of when the subject has arisen during these routine interactions.

Colombia, Peru, Panama and the region of Central America have recently negotiated access to the EU sugar market through their Free Trade Agreements.

UK sugar cane refiners also benefit from duty free access to sugar imports from Least Developed Countries under the Everything But Arms Agreement (EBA) and the EU’s Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with African, Caribbean and Pacific countries. From 2009 these agreements have increased the quantity of cane sugar which can be imported duty-free.

EPA negotiations between the EU and Southern Africa were recently concluded and we expect this EPA to provide UK sugar cane refiners with improved access to cane sugar from Swaziland and South Africa. In addition, the recently negotiated EU-Fiji EPA should also allow UK firms to continue to buy duty-free Fijian cane sugar.

I refer the Hon Member to HCWS500.

The Government has set out that a policy statement in response to the Upholding Standards in Public Life Report from the Committee on Standards in Public Life and the review into the development and use of Supply Chain Finance in government by Nigel Boardman will be published in due course.

Ministers and Permanent Secretaries are responsible for ensuring compliance with internal and external requirements in their departments in line with legislation, the relevant Codes of Conduct and requirements of Managing Public Money. They are supported by legal, HR and finance professionals in discharging these obligations. The Cabinet Office and HM Treasury provide a coordination role across such functions and can provide advice and guidance in specific cases.

Direct Ministerial appointments reflect the successive practice of administrations in engaging eminent individuals to provide independent views and advice to Government on specific areas. Such appointments should, by nature, be flexible to the circumstances of the situation and in line with wider public law duties. Appointments are made by Ministers. Appointees must abide by the Seven Principles of Public Life and the Code of Conduct for Board Members of Public Bodies, and should ensure that any relevant interests are declared to the Senior Civil Servant sponsoring their work to ensure that no actual or reasonably perceived conflicts arise.

Departments are responsible for their own transparency releases as they hold the information required to generate them and must take steps to ensure the accuracy of the information. The Cabinet Office provides central guidance to ensure consistency of information.

I refer the Hon Member to HCWS500.

The Government has set out that a policy statement in response to the Upholding Standards in Public Life Report from the Committee on Standards in Public Life and the review into the development and use of Supply Chain Finance in government by Nigel Boardman will be published in due course.

Ministers and Permanent Secretaries are responsible for ensuring compliance with internal and external requirements in their departments in line with legislation, the relevant Codes of Conduct and requirements of Managing Public Money. They are supported by legal, HR and finance professionals in discharging these obligations. The Cabinet Office and HM Treasury provide a coordination role across such functions and can provide advice and guidance in specific cases.

Direct Ministerial appointments reflect the successive practice of administrations in engaging eminent individuals to provide independent views and advice to Government on specific areas. Such appointments should, by nature, be flexible to the circumstances of the situation and in line with wider public law duties. Appointments are made by Ministers. Appointees must abide by the Seven Principles of Public Life and the Code of Conduct for Board Members of Public Bodies, and should ensure that any relevant interests are declared to the Senior Civil Servant sponsoring their work to ensure that no actual or reasonably perceived conflicts arise.

Departments are responsible for their own transparency releases as they hold the information required to generate them and must take steps to ensure the accuracy of the information. The Cabinet Office provides central guidance to ensure consistency of information.

I refer the Hon Member to HCWS500.

The Government has set out that a policy statement in response to the Upholding Standards in Public Life Report from the Committee on Standards in Public Life and the review into the development and use of Supply Chain Finance in government by Nigel Boardman will be published in due course.

Ministers and Permanent Secretaries are responsible for ensuring compliance with internal and external requirements in their departments in line with legislation, the relevant Codes of Conduct and requirements of Managing Public Money. They are supported by legal, HR and finance professionals in discharging these obligations. The Cabinet Office and HM Treasury provide a coordination role across such functions and can provide advice and guidance in specific cases.

Direct Ministerial appointments reflect the successive practice of administrations in engaging eminent individuals to provide independent views and advice to Government on specific areas. Such appointments should, by nature, be flexible to the circumstances of the situation and in line with wider public law duties. Appointments are made by Ministers. Appointees must abide by the Seven Principles of Public Life and the Code of Conduct for Board Members of Public Bodies, and should ensure that any relevant interests are declared to the Senior Civil Servant sponsoring their work to ensure that no actual or reasonably perceived conflicts arise.

Departments are responsible for their own transparency releases as they hold the information required to generate them and must take steps to ensure the accuracy of the information. The Cabinet Office provides central guidance to ensure consistency of information.

I refer the Hon Member to HCWS500.

The Government has set out that a policy statement in response to the Upholding Standards in Public Life Report from the Committee on Standards in Public Life and the review into the development and use of Supply Chain Finance in government by Nigel Boardman will be published in due course.

Ministers and Permanent Secretaries are responsible for ensuring compliance with internal and external requirements in their departments in line with legislation, the relevant Codes of Conduct and requirements of Managing Public Money. They are supported by legal, HR and finance professionals in discharging these obligations. The Cabinet Office and HM Treasury provide a coordination role across such functions and can provide advice and guidance in specific cases.

Direct Ministerial appointments reflect the successive practice of administrations in engaging eminent individuals to provide independent views and advice to Government on specific areas. Such appointments should, by nature, be flexible to the circumstances of the situation and in line with wider public law duties. Appointments are made by Ministers. Appointees must abide by the Seven Principles of Public Life and the Code of Conduct for Board Members of Public Bodies, and should ensure that any relevant interests are declared to the Senior Civil Servant sponsoring their work to ensure that no actual or reasonably perceived conflicts arise.

Departments are responsible for their own transparency releases as they hold the information required to generate them and must take steps to ensure the accuracy of the information. The Cabinet Office provides central guidance to ensure consistency of information.

The UK’s fifth National Action Plan was published in January 2022. Owing to the necessary implications of Covid-safe working practices, engagement between government and civil society has taken place exclusively via online platforms. This has enabled the involvement of a greater number of stakeholders from across the UK.

The Government will amend and develop the Plan with civil society over the course of 2022, with a multi-stakeholder forum due to meet in May to reflect on the commitment areas and discuss next steps. A timeline for amendments will then be published.

The table below details how many prosecutions there were for financial statements that failed to comply with the requirements of the Companies Act 2006 and associated legislation and regulation for the periods shown.

Charges that are withdrawn are generally because the company has brought its public record up to date.

Companies House does not gather information related to the constituency map of the UK, so is unable to provide the number of companies that have their registered off address in each parliamentary constituency.

Companies House does not hold information on the number of companies that had their financial statements rejected. However, the table below shows the number of financial statements that were rejected by Companies House as unsuitable for filing in the periods requested. These figures are not reflective of the number of companies which have had financial statements rejected, as it is possible that more than one set of financial statements were rejected for individual companies within the year in question’

The number of companies struck off the register, how this was initiated, how many of those companies had (a) never filed accounts and (b) had accounts overdue for filing at the time the application for the periods concerned are shown in the tables below.

The part of the question relating to ‘how many months each company in each category struck off by the Registrar had been in existence since their incorporation’ has been provided as a separate document due to the volume of information requested.

The table below shows the number of companies struck off the register where their application for strike off was put on hold as a result of any objection; how many of those objections were received from HM Revenue and Customs and how many applications in each category resulted in a striking off within six months of an objection being made regardless of that objection.

* A very small number of objections in this category were received from the Home Office, whose objections are logged together with those from HMRC.

None.

The Government response to the 2021 consultation on the introduction of EPR was approved by the Domestic and Economic Implementation Committee. While the publication of the response was conditional upon several requirements being met, there were no substantive changes to our proposals requested at this stage.

As part of the development of our proposals for introducing EPR in the UK, we looked at many of the EPR schemes operating across the EU, with a particular focus on the systems in Belgium, France and Germany. This experience was reflected in many of the proposals put forward in our 2021 consultation and 2022 Government response, including scheme governance, the payment mechanism for local authorities, producer contributions to costs of public communications campaigns on recycling, and our decision to move to a single point of producer compliance.

I have not engaged directly in cabinet discussions in relation to Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for packaging, however the Government Response to the consultation on packaging EPR was subject to Cabinet write round approval prior to publication in March 2022 and my officials continue to engage with officials in other government departments on policy implementation. Alongside the Government Response we published an Impact Assessment setting out the costs and benefits of the policy. We have published new guidance on ‘How to collect your packaging data for EPR’ for all UK organisations that will be affected by EPR for packaging and have also conducted several webinars to provide information to producers. The guidance will continue to be updated and we continue to work closely with industry to ensure they will be ready for EPR.

We have considered the approach of many international Extended Producer Responsibility schemes for packaging and drawn on this experience in developing our proposals for the UK. We will continue to engage with obligated businesses as we prepare for implementation and as we develop the next phases of EPR. In doing so we will continue to keep abreast of international best practice and learn from industries experience of schemes in other countries.

On 13 January DWP published its review of the default fund charge cap. This included a commitment to end flat fees on pension pots of £100 and under.

At present, price comparison of the costs of automatic enrolled pensions is not possible – and this needs to change.

Protecting savers and giving them value for their money is my priority. I will be looking into standardisation of charges so savers can better assess the value for money of their investment.

Automatic enrolment will give around 11 million people the opportunity to save into a workplace pension. We expect around 10 million people to be newly saving or saving more by 2018. Figures released on 13 December by the Pensions Regulator show that over 7 million people have now been automatically enrolled by more than 341,000 employers.

We have recently undertaken a Call for Evidence to consider whether the National Employer Savings Trust should offer decumulation services and extend access to the scheme. The Call for Evidence closed on 5 October, and the Government is considering the full range of evidence submitted, including the organisation’s Public Service Obligation, and effect on competition. We intend to publish our response in due course.

We have recently undertaken a Call for Evidence on whether the National Employment Savings Trust should be able to offer decumulation services and extend access to the scheme. We received a wide range of responses which we are taking into consideration, including evidence on the potential demand from members and impact on savers. We intend to publish a Government response in the New Year.

We have recently undertaken a Call for Evidence to consider whether the National Employer Savings Trust should offer decumulation services and extend access to the scheme. The Call for Evidence closed on 5 October, and the Government is considering the full range of evidence submitted, including the likely potential implementation costs. We intend to publish our response in the New Year.

The Department is working with the NHS Business Services Authority, which has administered the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme since November 2021, to reduce the backlog of claims.

The NHS Business Services Authority has increased the scheme’s capacity with 40 named caseworkers, additional supporting staff and the appointment of an independent third-party supplier to provide additional medical assessments. The NHS Business Services Authority has also introduced time limits for the provision of records and a call back process to improve the return rate of medical records required for assessments.

The information requested at county level is not currently available. In addition, constituency level vaccination and eligibility data is not available in the format requested as of 7 January 2021.

Data on the number of vaccinations delivered is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-vaccinations/

The information requested at county level is not currently available. In addition, constituency level vaccination and eligibility data is not available in the format requested as of 7 January 2021.

Data on the number of vaccinations delivered is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-vaccinations/