Asked by: Viscount Waverley (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to expedite the negotiation and ratification of trade deals benefiting the food and agricultural sector.
Answered by Lord Offord of Garvel - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Government is securing improved market access for the food and agricultural sector, through Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) but also the targeted removal of individual market access barriers in key international markets.
The Department for Business and Trade are working hard to secure new, or improved, FTAs with a range of important trade partners around the world. Work also continues to ratify the agreements we have signed, including the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), which should come into force later this year.
Asked by: Conor McGinn (Independent - St Helens North)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps she is taking to help increase business investment in (a) St Helens North constituency and (b) the North West.
Answered by Alan Mak - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade) (jointly with the Cabinet Office)
The Department for Business and Trade works with partners to promote investment opportunities across the North West to overseas investors and provide support for businesses wishing to be based within the region.
The Government is investing £80 million in the Liverpool City Region Freeport and £320 million in Investment Zones in the Liverpool City Region and Greater Manchester creating new jobs and attracting new businesses. Both the Investment Zone and Freeport have key locations in St Helens.
The Government also supports a range of programmes dedicated to helping businesses to grow. In March this year, we launched the second-generation Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund, with £660 million committed to support debt and equity finance for businesses across the North of England. Since its launch in 2012, the Start Up Loans programme has provided over £121 million of loans to new entrepreneurs across the North West region, as of 13 September 2023.
Asked by: Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Labour (Co-op) - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, how many chapters of a prospective free trade agreement with the Gulf Cooperation Council have been concluded.
Answered by Greg Hands - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Six rounds of negotiations have been successfully concluded as part of negotiations on a free trade agreement with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The Department for Business and Trade regularly engages with the GCC at both Chief Negotiator and ministerial level and is making good progress on agreeing chapters including in areas such as Customs, Technical Barriers to Trade and Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs). The department cannot comment any further as negotiations are ongoing.
Asked by: Jerome Mayhew (Conservative - Broadland)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
What steps his Department is taking to reduce delays in judicial processes.
Answered by Gareth Bacon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
We remain committed to tackling the outstanding caseloads across our courts and tribunals and have introduced a range of measures to achieve this aim.
While the listing of cases is an independent judicial function, we have consistently invested in judicial recruitment to ensure we have the capacity to deliver effective judicial processes. Since 2018, we have recruited around 1,000 judges and tribunal members annually, across all jurisdictions.
Criminal courts
Over 90% of all criminal cases are heard at the magistrates’ courts, where we heard 100,000 cases a month on average across 2023. While the outstanding caseload in the magistrates’ courts has slightly increased in recent months due to an increase in the number of cases coming to court, the caseload remains well below its pandemic peak and stood at 370,700 at the end of December 2023, and cases continue to be progressed quickly.
To aid our efforts in the magistrates’ courts, we invested £1 million in a programme of work to support the recruitment of more magistrates. We aim to recruit 2,000 new and diverse magistrates this year, and similar numbers for each of the next couple of years.
At the Crown Court, we remain committed to reducing the outstanding caseload. We delivered 107,700 sitting days in the most recent financial year (FY23/24) and judges have worked tirelessly to complete more cases. The latest data shows cases progressed through the Crown Court more quickly throughout 2023, with the median time from receipt to completion reducing from 167 days in the first quarter of 2023, to 125 days in the last quarter.
We are also investing more in our criminal courts. In August 2023, we announced we are investing £220 million for essential modernisation and repair work of our court buildings, up to March 2025.
Family Court
In March 2024 the Family Justice Board agreed a new set of priorities for the family justice system, with a clear focus on closing the longest running cases and increasing the proportion of public law cases concluding within the 26-week statutory timeline.
We announced in the Spring Budget an additional £55 million to improve productivity, support earlier resolution of family disputes and reduce the number of cases coming to court. This includes creating a digital advice tool for separating couples, piloting early legal advice and supporting the expansion of the private law Pathfinder model. The Department for Education are investing an extra £10 million to deliver new initiatives to address the longest delays in public law.
We have provided the flexibility for judges to sit virtually across regional boundaries, so that judges can be deployed where they are needed most, to reduce the caseload and waiting times.
We are also investing up to £23.6 million in the family mediation voucher scheme, which we intend will allow for its continuation up to March 2025. As of May 2024, over 28,600 families have successfully used the scheme to attempt to resolve their private law disputes outside of court.
Civil courts
With regards to civil cases, we are taking action to ensure those that do need to go to trial are dealt with quickly. We have a significant volume of judicial recruitment underway for District and Deputy District Judges, are digitising court processes and holding more remote hearings, and are increasing the use of mediation.
The requirement for small claims in the county court to attend a mediation session with the Small Claims Mediation Service will start this spring and is expected to help parties resolve their dispute swiftly and consensually without the need for a judicial hearing.
The HMCTS Reform Program has introduced technology that delivers simplified and transformed digital ways of working for civil court users and judges such as the online money claims process and the damages claims service, offering accessible and responsive services.
Tribunals
With regards to the tribunals, we continue to work with the Department for Business and Trade on further measures to address caseloads in the Employment Tribunal, where the deployment of legal officers, recruitment of additional judges and a new electronic case management system have helped the Tribunal to manage its caseload which remains below its pandemic peak.
We have rolled out the HMCTS digital reform programme in the Immigration and Asylum and Social Entitlement chambers so that anyone challenging an immigration or welfare benefits decision can lodge their appeal, track progress and receive the results all online.
HMCTS continues to invest in improving tribunal productivity through the recruitment of additional Judges, deployment of Legal Officers to actively manage cases, the development of modern case management systems and the use of remote hearing technology.
Asked by: Dave Doogan (Scottish National Party - Angus)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, with reference to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy's press release entitled UK backs new small nuclear technology with £210 million, published on 9 November 2021, what the cost to the public purse is of Government support to Rolls Royce SMR since 2021; and if she will make an estimate of the level of future funding they are forecast to receive by 2035.
Answered by Andrew Bowie - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Under the Low Cost Nuclear programme, the Government has given a grant of up to £210 million to Rolls-Royce SMR Ltd to support development of the Rolls Royce Small Modular Reactor (SMR) design to complete the Generic Design Assessment Step Two. The Rolls Royce SMR is potentially capable of deployment in the UK in the early 2030s. Grant payments are disbursed in arrears subject to Rolls-Royce SMR providing supporting evidence to the grant administrator, UK Research and Innovation. There have been no commitments made for future funding after the Low Cost Nuclear programme.
Separately, Rolls Royce SMR is one of six vendors in the Great British Nuclear SMR Technology Selection Process which have been invited to submit tenders for technology partner contracts. The total funding made available to successful bidders will be subject to tender evaluation and approval of the full business case.
Asked by: Dave Doogan (Scottish National Party - Angus)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, with reference to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy's press release entitled UK backs new small nuclear technology with £210 million, published on 9 November 2021, what estimate she has made of the projected return on investment of the Government's support to Rolls-Royce SMR.
Answered by Andrew Bowie - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Under the Low Cost Nuclear programme, the Government has given a grant of up to £210 million to Rolls-Royce SMR Ltd to support development of the Rolls Royce Small Modular Reactor (SMR) design, potentially capable of deployment in the UK in the early 2030s. The value for money of the Low Cost Nuclear programme was assessed against Green Book principles as part of normal approvals processes ahead of the grant award.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what the cost to her Department was of (a) events, (b) activities, (c) merchandise and (d) other costs relating to Pride Month 2023.
Answered by Alan Mak - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade) (jointly with the Cabinet Office)
The costs incurred in the Department for Business and Trade for expenditure related to Pride Month 2023 was £750.
Asked by: Lord Patten (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the number of occasions on which scaffolding around domestic and commercial buildings was erected illegally in England in the most recent year for which figures are available, and whether this figure is decreasing or increasing.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Lainston - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Department for Business and Trade does not hold this data.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask His Majesty's Government, following the publication of figures by the Office for National Statistics which show UK services exports grew 63 per cent in real terms between 2010 and 2023, while goods exports grew only seven per cent, what steps they are taking to boost the export of goods.
Answered by Lord Offord of Garvel - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Department for Business and Trade is backing British businesses to export by knocking down trade barriers and signing new trade deals.
In 2022, the Government committed to resolving a ‘hit list’ of priority barriers worth more than £20 billion over five years. Since the start of 2022, we have resolved barriers all over the world estimated to be worth over £15 billion (over a five-year period) to UK businesses.
Businesses can access the department’s wealth of export support options on great.gov.uk, including trade advisers, Export Champions, the Export Academy, our International Markets network and UK Export Finance.
Asked by: Bill Wiggin (Conservative - North Herefordshire)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what his policy is on open finance.
Answered by Bim Afolami - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
The financial services sector is currently at the forefront of Smart Data, through a combination of Open Banking and the HM Treasury-funded Centre for Finance, Innovation and Technology (CFIT), which recently published recommendations for driving Open Finance forward in the UK.
HM Treasury has worked closely with the Department for Business and Trade as it developed its Smart Data roadmap, which sets out the government’s ambition for future Smart Data scheme development across seven different sectors, including finance, and is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-smart-data-roadmap-action-the-government-is-taking-in-2024-to-2025.
As set out in the roadmap, HM Treasury will carefully consider CFIT’s recommendations for Open Finance, alongside wider industry engagement, as it develops its strategy for Open Finance.
In April 2024, HM Treasury also announced the launch of an industry-led taskforce, which will identify and prioritise Open Finance use cases and data-sets that could be unlocked to improve SME access to credit.