Business: Databases

(asked on 25th March 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to establish a database of businesses which have (1) retained as many workers as possible, (2) dismissed workers and are claiming taxpayer help, (3) volunteered to assist in the COVID-19 pandemic by developing new technology or services, and (4) been found to have profited illegally or unethically, during the COVID-19 pandemic.


Answered by
Lord Callanan Portrait
Lord Callanan
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
This question was answered on 7th April 2020

Officials in this department are engaging regularly with industry and the business community to discuss preparedness planning and to gather data, feedback and to ensure the best policy response is developed.

A wide range of UK and international businesses have offered to help provide services, including designing and building new devices, manufacturing components or transporting them to NHS hospitals.

The Government has received an overwhelming number of offers from the UK supply base in response to Covid-19. Suppliers are keen to offer a range of goods and services to help organisations and departments stay operational. The offers are coming through a number of different routes and the Crown Commercial Service is now coordinating these offers to create one central log.

We are aware that, in a small minority of cases, cyber criminals and fraudsters are attempting to exploit opportunities around the coronavirus outbreak and so the Government have issued appropriate guidance to follow to identify fraudulent activities and scams, through Action Fraud. We are also working with social media to combat disinformation.

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