Stewart Hosie

The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) was created following the Machinery of Government change announced on 7 February 2023. Previous to the Machinery of Government change, the Department for International Trade spent £2,056,432 in the last 5 years. Since the change, the Department for Business and Trade has spent £214,654.

The Government is strongly supportive of the radio sector and recognises the great value that it offers to communities across the UK. Radio plays an important role in our cross-channel strategy, with the merits of its use being assessed in relation to this.

Evaluating the effectiveness of Government communications is paramount to its success. Therefore, no matter the form of communication, we constantly and regularly evaluate our campaigns to ensure effectiveness and value for money.

Spend by DESNZ (including spend as BEIS) on broadcast radio in the last five years totalled £3,717,221, as provided by the contracted media buying agency, MGOMD. This excludes spend from cross-channel partnerships.

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology was established in February 2023. Since its creation the Department has spent nothing on radio adverts.

As of 19 December 2022, the Brexit Opportunities Unit had 18 civil servants working on the Bill.

The total number of civil servants will expand or reduce to accommodate the requirements of the Retained EU Law Bill work programme.

The Civil Servants working on the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill were drawn from existing resources within the government in the Brexit Opportunities Unit. The cost to the public purse was therefore absorbed within existing departmental resource limits.

Proportionate analysis for the impact assessment for the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill was undertaken using existing analytical resources within government. This process was led by the Brexit Opportunities Unit, supported by analysts across Whitehall. The cost to the public purse was therefore absorbed within existing departmental resource limits.

On 1 April 2023, the Government will increase the National Living Wage (NLW) for workers aged 23 years and over by 9.7% to £10.42. This keeps the Government on track to achieve its manifesto commitment for the NLW to equal two-thirds of median earnings by 2024. The age threshold is also set to lower to 21+ in 2024. The UK is the first country in the world to set such an ambition. This policy will support the Government’s ambition of ending low pay in the UK.

The Department is supporting the Government’s review into retained EU Law, which provides an authoritative assessment of where retained EU law is concentrated on the statute book and assists the consideration of future legislative requirements.

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy currently has approximately 53 FTE officials working on Retained EU Law (as of 9 September 2022).

The Government runs a number of campaigns across all media channels. The channels selected for government paid marketing campaigns are driven by the target audience. We do not have a breakdown of spend per radio station.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has spent £234,820.52 on radio advertising from 2018 - 2023. This includes the following: £197,039.52 spent in 2018 on the GDPR campaign and £37,781 spent in 2020 on the Broadband Upgrade Fund campaign.

This also includes spending on digital and tech campaigns from 2018 - 2023 when the Department was previously the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and responsible for these sectors.

The Government is focused on making the UK the safest place in the world to be online. To that aim, the Government introduced the Online Safety Bill in March this year and it is continuing its passage through Parliament.

We are firmly committed to international cooperation to promote a safer online environment.

The Department regularly uses local and national radio as part of the behaviour change and public information campaigns used to deliver manifesto commitments and policy objectives, with the aim of reaching a variety of target audiences across England.

Examples of this include helping the Department to recruit school and college teachers, promoting free childcare to parents and increasing the uptake of skills bootcamps to help adults to gain the skills in demand by businesses.

Radio is a powerful channel to reach a variety of audiences including young people, pupils, parents and businesses. However, the Department’s financial records do not record the breakdown of campaign spend between radio, television, digital or other media channels and so records of spend on individual radio stations are not held.

As set out in previous written parliamentary question responses and freedom of information (FOI) requests, over the previous five years, the Department has spent the following, in total, on campaigns including different types of marketing activity, some of which was radio advertising:

• 2018/19 - £27.2 million*
• 2019/20 - £33.3 million*
• 2020/21 - £20.5 million*
• 2021/22 - £25.7 million*
• 2022/23 - £39.5 million

To note: * denotes that this information has already been released in a written parliamentary question response or FOI response.

The Government is strongly supportive of the radio sector and recognises the great value that it offers to communities across the UK. Radio plays an important role in our cross channel strategy, with the merits of its use being assessed in relation to this.

Government public information campaigns utilise a wide range of channels to maximise reach and engagement and to ensure our messaging reaches as many people as possible, including radio. The Government runs a number of campaigns across all media channels. The channels selected for government paid marketing campaigns are driven by the target audience.

Evaluating the effectiveness of Government communications is paramount to its success. Therefore, no matter the form of communication, we constantly and regularly evaluate our campaigns to ensure effectiveness and value for money.

Total spend on radio advertising from the department over the past five years is £284,110.16.

Coordinating work related to the proposed Retained EU Law (Reform and Revocation) Bill is spread across several teams in Defra, with cumulative staff time spent on this work amounting to approximately three FTE officials. In addition, Defra policy officials and legal officials are supporting this work as part of their normal business activities.

The Government recognises the economic and cultural importance of UK geographical indications (GIs).

The protection of UK GIs in the EU and EU GIs in the UK is subject to ongoing negotiations, and we are working as quickly as possible to come to a solution. However, we anticipate that all current UK GIs will continue to be protected by the EU’s GI schemes after we leave the EU.

We will use the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 to ensure GI schemes for wines, aromatised wines, spirit drinks, agricultural products and foodstuffs are in place once the UK is no longer bound by EU law. This will provide UK protection for UK GIs when we leave the EU and ensure that the UK fulfils its obligations under World Trade Organisation Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights rules.

Like all departments, Defra is planning for a number of scenarios for the UK’s departure from the EU to make sure we are ready on Day 1. Over £250m of additional funding has been approved across a number of departments, including Defra, in 2017/18 to make necessary preparations. Additional funding received from the reserve for 2017/8 will be set out at Supplementary Estimates. The costs of EU Exit in 2018-19 will be affected by negotiations over the coming months.

The Government is committed to working with third countries to provide continuity across our existing trade agreements to deliver certainty for businesses in all scenarios, including professional services companies. Some of these agreements contain services chapters. We will inform Parliament and the public when agreements have been signed and will post details of completed agreements on gov.uk.

The EU has agreed to notify third countries that, during the implementation period, the UK is to be treated as an EU member state for the purposes of international agreements, including trade agreements. This provides a basis for continuity during this period.

Should arrangements to maintain particular preferences in a no deal scenario not be in place on exit day, trade would then take place on a ‘Most-Favoured Nation’ (MFN) basis, which is sometimes referred to as ‘World Trade Organization (WTO) Terms’, until a new arrangement has been implemented.

For services, the MFN principle means WTO members are required to grant treatment to UK services and service suppliers, which is no less favourable than to services and service suppliers of any other WTO member

I refer the Hon Member for Dundee East to the answers I gave today, UIN: 5362 and 5363.

Our people are drawn from a wide range of backgrounds and have a corresponding range of experience of international trade negotiations, trade remedies and trade defence working on EU trade negotiations such as Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) and multilateral agreements in the WTO.

To build the trade policy and negotiating experience in the Department for International Trade (DIT), over the 24 months to end-March 2020, around 350 places will have been taken by people in DIT on Expert Level training in technical areas of trade policy and around a further 350 places taken on Expert Level Free Trade Agreement negotiations training.

The Department has a strong core of trade policy officials which has grown significantly since July 2016 (from 45 to approximately 575 currently) and is continuing to grow. Trade Policy Group is also supported by around 70 lawyers and 90 analysts.

The number of negotiators and the training they require is dependent on how many trade agreements are ongoing at any given time, the specific chapters in that negotiation and the complexity of that chapter. Negotiating teams will differ in sizes, with expertise relevant to the specific chapters of sectors.

We are working with countries across the world to develop our current trade relationships and ensure that Britain becomes a global free trade leader once we leave the EU.

Working groups are one means of engagement with our trading partners. Others include informal contact through our network of Posts, discussions with embassies in London, ministerial discussions and visits, the Prime Minister’s Trade Envoys, and HM Trade Commissioners.

In addition to the ongoing engagement in the Trade Agreement Continuity Programme, we have established Working Groups with the USA, Australia, New Zealand, China, India, Japan and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), comprising Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE.

We intend to publish a Government Response, to the four public consultations on potential future free trade agreement negotiations with the US, Australia, New Zealand and on the UK potentially seeking accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), before entering into any future trade agreement negotiations.

Department for Transport radio media spend for the last four years is £1,257,362. Equivalent radio media spend data for 2018/19 is not available without incurring disproportionate costs.

Most of the above spend has been on the THINK! road safety campaigns, covering for example mobile phones, speed and the Highway Code in recent years.

The information requested could only be provided at a disproportionate cost.

The Government is strongly supportive of the radio sector and recognises the great value that it offers to communities across the UK. Radio plays an important role in our cross channel strategy, with the merits of its use being assessed in relation to this.

Government public information campaigns utilise a wide range of channels to maximise reach and engagement and to ensure our messaging reaches as many people as possible.

Given the size of the ask - five years of individual spend lines across a large number of radio stations – we have instead provided an aggregate total across all years and campaigns.

Staffing figure includes all staff during each year, both Paid & unpaid, and all leavers.

Full time staff are all those with an FTE of 1.0, Part time staff are all those with less than 1.0 FTE.

The average salaries are derived from the actual salaries held.

No additional full time staffing resource has been required to work on retained EU law legislation. At present, approximately ten DWP officials are working on the retained EU law belonging to DWP in much the same way as they would be reviewing and amending other DWP owned legislation. This work is in addition to their other duties.

Statistics on Carer’s Allowance are published at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/dwp-statistics-tabulation-tool

Guidance for users is available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dwp-tabulation-tool-guidance

Statistics on Incapacity Benefit and Severe Disablement Allowance claimants are published at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/dwp-statistics-tabulation-tool

Guidance for users is available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dwp-tabulation-tool-guidance