Asked by: Jo Stevens (Labour - Cardiff Central)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to reduce drug use in HMP Parc.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
HMPPS is committed to reducing the supply and demand of drugs in prisons, delivering a high-quality treatment and recovery system, and reducing the harms drugs cause, including working closely with the privately managed HMP/YOI Parc. The following steps are being taken to help reduce drug use in prisons in Wales:
Restricting the supply of drugs:
Increasing investments in prison security, including introducing airport-style gate security to identify items such as drugs before they are conveyed into prisons as well as X-ray body scanners to find internally concealed items and x-ray baggage.
Increasing the number of drug trace detection machines, helping prevent the smuggling of illegal drugs, including through the mail.
Increasing the number and availability of specialist staff, drugs dogs and security equipment to help identify illicit substances at the first possible opportunity available across all sites.
Mandatory Drug tests in line with national guidance.
A Crime in Prisons initiative to support the prosecution of those involved in the trafficking of illicit substances.
Preventing and pursuing incidents of staff corruption.
Reducing the demand for drugs:
Increasing opportunity for purposeful activities in prison to reduce boredom and in turn the temptation to engage in illicit substances through education and employment.
Providing opportunities for prisoners to rehabilitate and resettle positively on release through meaningful employment, appropriate housing, mental health support.
Building recovery and reducing harm from drugs:
Providing opportunities for individuals to engage in Psychosocial Interventions to reduce substance misuse.
Providing all suitable individuals with appropriate clinical interventions for substance misuse. In Wales, this includes Buvidal which is a long-acting buprenorphine to treat dependence on opioids.
Providing Naloxone upon release, alongside associated training, to help prevent accidental overdose incidents.
Providing harm reduction advice about safer substance use and preventing blood borne viruses.
Providing individuals in all Welsh prisons with the opportunity to live on an incentivised substance-free living wing designed to support people to lead a substance-free life.
Exploring options for opening a drug recovery wing in HMP Berwyn to support those misusing opiates to abstain from drugs. Two drug recovery units have already been established at HMP/YOI Parc.
Providing 24/7 support to prisoners via peer mentors and staff.
Providing continuity of care through the gate care via collaborative working with agencies such as Dyfodol, NHS and Alcoholics Anonymous/Narcotics Anonymous.
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Neston)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to the Answer of 16 December 2022 to Question 106432 on Zero Hours Contracts, which stakeholders considered the regulations to be an important deterrent and an effective and proportionate means of realising the policy objective.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
As part of the Exclusivity Terms in Zero Hours Contracts (Redress) Regulations post implementation review we contacted a range of business representatives, worker representatives, employment agencies and legal representatives. We also contacted organisations in sectors where zero hours contracts are most common, including the health and social care sector. The publication of the review can be found here.
Asked by: John Spellar (Labour - Warley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of firms providing agency labour to the NHS on (a) the amount of profit generated by those agencies, (b) trends in the level of health staff leaving NHS employment and joining those agencies and (c) dependence of the NHS on agency labour.
Answered by Will Quince
The Department does not collect data on the amount of profit generated by agencies supplying staff to the National Health Service nor the number of health staff leaving NHS employment to work for agencies. Data on agency staff is held by the employing agency and is not shared with NHS England. NHS England holds data for agency shifts in the NHS, including hours worked and cost.
The deployment of a temporary workforce is an important element of efficiently running the NHS, allowing the NHS to meet demand fluctuations without the need to increase capacity above that which would be required on a sustained basis. Staff can be drawn from internal staff banks or external agencies.
Our policy is to reduce the use of agency staff and to prioritise the use of in-house staff banks over agency use. The introduction of the Agency Rules in 2016 helped to reduce agency spend by around £1.2 billion, from a peak of £3.6 billion in 2015/16 to £2.4 billion at the end of 2020/21. Total agency spend as a percentage of total wage bill decreased from 7.9% in 2015/16 to 3.7% in 2020/21. Reducing the use of agency staff must be balanced with providing safe care to patients. Trusts are able to use temporary staffing to respond to situations where they do not have sufficient staff numbers. NHS England has re-established measures in September 2022 to control agency expenditure, including a system agency expenditure limit.
Asked by: Wendy Chamberlain (Liberal Democrat - North East Fife)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what requirements are placed on Sponsoring Agencies under the Seasonal Workers Scheme to ensure that work will be available for the duration of the visa.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Seasonal Worker scheme is an ‘operator led’ immigration route, with four scheme operators selected to manage the placement of workers on UK farms and to ensure their welfare in the UK.
The Seasonal Worker scheme operators are responsible for managing all aspects of the recruitment and placement of workers on UK farms and ensuring their welfare in the UK. It is therefore important that they do not recruit more workers than they can effectively support.
Scheme operators are expected to maximise the employment of all workers in the UK on a Seasonal Work visa. Operators rotate their work placements and are required to move workers between farms where the worker requests this. Allowing workers to move between operators would not be appropriate as it removes key welfare safeguards in the scheme. The current approach also ensures that each sector can fully benefit from the numbers of workers specifically allocated to them.
Asked by: Sam Tarry (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many and what proportion civil service staff are employed (a) on zero hours contracts, (b) on fixed-term contracts, and (c) via employment agencies broken down by Government Department.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
The number of civil servants employed on zero hour contracts is not held centrally by the Cabinet Office. Zero hours contracts are not the normal practice within the Civil Service. Departments may use them in very limited circumstances to help meet exceptional or fluctuating demands on the business.
The number of civil servants by department on a fixed-term contract of up to 12 months, including those on casual contracts, is published quarterly by Office for National Statistics (ONS) as part of their quarterly public sector employment statistics and is available at:
An extract of the relevant data published by ONS is presented at Table 1 below. Information on civil servants on contracts of more than 12 and less than 24 months are not held centrally as these employees are counted as permanent in the statistics, in line with official ONS public sector headcount methodology.
Civil servants are employed by departments and their agencies and not by employment agencies. However, information on the numbers of employment agency staff working at departments are published by individual departments each month for transparency purposes on their gov.uk departmental webpages as part of their Monthly Workforce Management Information.
Table 1: Civil servants on temporary/casual contracts [1] as at June 2022
Department | Headcount | Full-Time equivalent |
Attorney General’s departments | 200 | 190 |
Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy | 70 | 70 |
Cabinet Office | 10 | 10 |
Other Cabinet Office agencies | 40 | 40 |
Charity Commission | 20 | 20 |
Competition and Markets Authority | 20 | 20 |
Defence | 20 | 20 |
Digital, Culture, Media and Sport | 50 | 50 |
Education | 210 | 200 |
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | 210 | 200 |
Estyn | 0 | 0 |
Export Credits Guarantee Department | 10 | .. |
Food Standards Agency | 30 | 30 |
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office | 60 | 60 |
Health and Social Care | 1,820 | 1,680 |
HM Land Registry | 10 | 10 |
HM Revenue and Customs | 560 | 550 |
HM Treasury | 30 | 30 |
Chancellor’s other departments | 0 | 0 |
Home Office | 1,220 | 880 |
International Trade | 0 | 0 |
Justice | 1,240 | 1,190 |
Levelling Up, Housing and Communities | 50 | 40 |
The National Archives | 20 | 20 |
National Crime Agency | 0 | 0 |
Northern Ireland Office | 0 | 0 |
Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills | 20 | 20 |
Office of Gas and Electricity Markets | 150 | 150 |
Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation | 20 | 20 |
Office of Rail and Road | .. | .. |
Office of the Secretary of State for Scotland | 0 | 0 |
Office of the Secretary of State for Wales | .. | .. |
Ofwat | 10 | 10 |
Transport | 580 | 550 |
UK Statistics Authority | 120 | 110 |
UK Supreme Court | 10 | 10 |
Work and Pensions | 3,520 | 3,450 |
Scottish Government | 1,940 | 1,450 |
Welsh Government | 30 | 30 |
TOTAL | 12,280 | 11,080 |
Temporary or casual employees are those with a fixed term contract of 12 months or less, or employed on a casual basis
Numbers are rounded to the nearest ten, and numbers less than five are represented by “..”. Data not available are represented by “-”.
Department totals include Executive Agencies, Ministerial and Non-Ministerial Departments
Source: Public Sector Employment Statistics, Office for National Statistics
Asked by: Sam Tarry (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what proportion of civil service staff working are paid a rate equivalent to the real living wage, broken down by Government Department.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
In the majority of Government departments, at least 98% of staff earn a rate equivalent or greater than the 2021/22 Voluntary Living Wage (£11.05 if based in London, or £9.90 if based outside of London), as at 31 March 2022. In all departments the proportion is over 90%.
Table 1: Percentage of civil servants earning at or above the Voluntary Living Wage in March 2022 by Department
Departments (including agencies) | % at or above the VLW |
Attorney General’s Departments | 98.8% |
Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy | 99.6% |
Cabinet Office | 99.7% |
Digital, Culture, Media and Sport | 100.0% |
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | 99.9% |
Education | ≥99.9%¹ |
Transport | 92.5% |
Health and Social Care | 99.5% |
International Trade | ≥99.9%¹ |
Work and Pensions | 100.0% |
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office | 99.5% |
HM Revenue and Customs | 100.0% |
HM Treasury | 99.5% |
Home Office | 98.6% |
Levelling Up, Housing and Communities | 99.4% |
Defence | 96.3% |
Justice | 98.5% |
Other² | 99.1% |
Scottish Government | 100.0% |
Welsh Government | 100.0% |
¹ Exact figure suppressed due to low numbers
² Other includes staff in Government organisations not listed separately (CC, CMA, COD, ESTYN, FSA, HMLR, NCA, NIO, OFGEM, OFQUAL, OFSTED, OFWAT, ORR, SO, TNA, UKEF, UKSA, UKSC, WO)
Figures are based on the centrally held numbers and salaries of civil servants collected in the Annual Civil Service Employment Survey as at March 2022, and may differ from those provided by individual departments. Civil servants located outside the UK or with an unreported location (6,995) or without a reported hourly rate (an additional 150) have been excluded. Percentages are calculated on a headcount basis and rounded to the nearest percentage point, due to the rounding a very small number of employees in departments listed as 100% may earn below the Voluntary Living Wage.
Asked by: Kenny MacAskill (Alba Party - East Lothian)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 25 November 2022 to Question 89909 on Wind Power: Migrant Workers, which Department is responsible for (a) the enforcement of and (b) assessing the impact on employment law of the Offshore Wind Workers Immigration Rules Concession 2017.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and its agencies are responsible for the enforcement of employment law.
BEIS are responsible for evaluating the impact of employment law on all sections of society including migrant workers. The Home Office is responsible for evaluating the impact of immigration concessions.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps HMRC is taking collect PAYE tax from agencies who use registered contractors.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
Under section 44 of the Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003, most contractors supplying services via agencies must be treated as employees for income tax and National Insurance contributions (NICs) purposes by the agencies that pay them.
These agencies are required to make deductions of income tax and employee NICs, where these are due, from the workers’ pay through Pay As You Earn in the same way and at the same level as with direct employees. The agencies will also be liable to pay employer NICs, where these are due, in respect of payments to the workers.
HMRC has a risk-based approach towards compliance activities and will investigate evidence of non-compliance or avoidance. Where HMRC finds that an agency has failed to account for tax and NICs, it will seek to recover unpaid amounts due.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to protect supply teacher salaries and pensions.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Schools are free to recruit supply teachers, and most schools use supply agencies. The Department has a commercial framework which schools can use to recruit supply teachers, and 118 supply agencies have registered.
All agencies on the framework must be transparent about the fees they charge to schools and waive some additional fees.
In addition, supply teachers have a number of statutory rights, including entitlement to equal treatment as someone doing the same role and employed directly after 12 weeks, statutory entitlement to holiday pay, employment rights (such as the national minimum wages and sick pay), and access to workplace pensions.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester, Gorton)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to tackle racial disproportionality in the criminal justice system.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Everyone has a right to be confident that the justice system is there to protect them. We are committed to identifying and addressing these disparities wherever we find them.
Our commitment to tackling race and ethnic disparity is clear, as set out in the Government’s Inclusive Britain strategy, published in March 2022. This strategy was in response to the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities and identifies clear actions for criminal justice agencies to undertake. These actions include work to reduce the numbers of people from ethnic minority backgrounds entering the criminal justice system. For example by expanding the use of diversionary initiatives, such as Out of Court Disposals to divert towards treatment or drug education courses to address the root causes of their offending behaviour. We are also working to improve outcomes for those already in the system, by providing funding for grassroots, ethnic-minority led and specialist voluntary sector organisations to provide rehabilitative services in order to reduce reoffending rates and improve education and employment opportunities. Finally, we are improving judicial diversity through providing additional support to potentially eligible candidates, as part of the Judicial Diversity Forum action plan.