Department for Business and Trade

The rationale for appointing without competition was made public at the time of announcement, following consultation with the Commissioner. A fair and open competition was undertaken with a strong applicant field. However, it needed to be strengthened further by the appointment of Nita Clarke, who is bringing vital skills in employee engagement, partnership and employee voices in the workplace drawn from a distinguished career including as Vice President for Employee Relations at the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development.

Changes in staff numbers at the Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”) since 1 April 2017 have been affected by the expansion of its responsibilities in respect of competition enforcement and merger control following the UK’s departure from the EU; the introduction of new statutory functions and responsibilities, including under the UK Internal Market Act 2020, leading to the creation of the Office for the Internal Market and the Subsidy Advice Unit; and the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, which established the digital markets competition regime. These factors, together with the implementation of civil service pay awards, have also affected staff costs over this period.

The UK is well prepared to respond to economic coercion and has a strong and flexible toolkit to defend its interests. We can act through diplomatic engagement, international dispute mechanisms, and cooperation with allies, including the G7. We also retain the ability to use trade and non‑trade measures, consistent with international rules, to address unfair trading practices and protect UK businesses. Alongside this, we are strengthening economic resilience by supporting businesses to diversify markets and supply chains, and by continuing to reform and enhance our trade defence and remedies framework, including through seeking views on new powers to respond to economic pressure.

There is no specific target for returns from individual investments, which vary widely. Hence the British Business Bank has made no estimate of the expected return on its investment in Kraken Technologies. The Bank invests on a portfolio basis. In aggregate, its investments are expected to generate a financial return greater than the Government’s risk‑adjusted cost of capital after covering running costs.

In the year ended 31 March 2025, the Bank reported a profit of £144 million and a five‑year average adjusted return on capital employed of 4.2% against a target of 0.9%.

The Government has published 29 Impact Assessments representing a comprehensive package of analysis on the impact of the Employment Rights Act: Employment Rights Act 2025: impact assessments - GOV.UK. This includes an assessment of regional impacts. An impact assessment on the 2026 National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage rates will be published shortly, including an assessment of regional impacts.

The breakdown of Estimate line ‘A DBT – Department for Business and Trade (DEL)’ for RDEL outturn of £1,497,088,000 for 2024-25 is:

¹Difference between this figure and figure in SOPS due to rounding.

The KPI is intended to incentivise the supplier to address issues of workforce inequality.

In line with Government procurement policy on social value, and because we are required to include a related KPI, this KPI was selected from an approved list in the Social Value Model linked to the policy.

The government believes the current daylight-saving arrangements represent the optimal use of the available daylight across the UK. Since the government does not intend to make changes to the existing system, we have not conducted an assessment of the potential impact of Single or Double British Summer Time on pubs during major sporting tournaments.

The Department has issued a range of guidance, available on Gov.UK, for employers, workers, and trade unions, on handling industrial disputes. Acas provides joint employer-worker guidance on industrial action. Neither the Department, or Acas, have issued specific employer guidance on trade union representatives’ access to the employers’ building on strike days.

Trade union representatives may have a right of access if a recognition agreement provides it, but responsibility for managing access to buildings during industrial action rests with individual employers, who are best placed to assess local circumstances and ensure arrangements align with operational needs, agreements, and legal obligations.

The Department for Business and Trade has not made an assessment on creating a national mail order fraud database. Led by the Home Office, the Government will be setting out its approach to tackling all types of fraud in its upcoming Fraud Strategy.

Report Fraud is the new national reporting service for fraud and for cyber crime operated by City of London Police. They also take information reports on attempted frauds. Reports submitted to Report Fraud are considered by the service’s National Crime Analysis Service and evaluated to assess the information available which could assist an investigation.

The Department for Business and Trade aims to respond to correspondence within 15 working days, but in some instances it can take longer. A response to the correspondence of 5 January has now been sent to Tom Gordon MP. The department apologises for not responding to the original correspondence of 7 October.

The Industrial Strategy set out our public finance offer to crowd private investment into clean energy industries, including our hydrogen economy. This includes: £1bn Clean Energy supply chain fund; £5.8bn for the National Wealth Fund to invest this Parliament in clean industries; and a £4bn British Business Bank Growth Capital scale and start up financing package. The proposed British Industrial Competitiveness Scheme will reduce electricity costs for manufacturing supply chains in priority clean energy sectors such as hydrogen, making the UK an even more competitive place to invest.

My officials work with the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero to showcase investment opportunities and our world-class hydrogen sector capability.

Influencer marketing is a credible promotional channel, which is considered for government advertising campaigns and can be an effective way to reach audiences that the Government and traditional marketing channels find hard to reach.

The activity aimed to raise awareness of the new National Minimum and Living Wage rates to ensure audiences such as young people, part-time female workers, ethnic minorities and disabled groups are paid correctly.

Six influencers were used as part of the Department for Business and Trade’s 2025 National Minimum and Living Wage campaign. They were:

• Bella Roberts
• Krishnan Kara
• Noah Brierley
• Rotimi Merriman-Johnson (Mr MoneyJar)
• Beth Fuller
• Jasmin Shum

The Government Property Agency (GPA) is responsible for collecting and providing all greenhouse gas emissions data for the estate occupied by the department.

The Department for Business and Trade did not incur any third-party costs in 2024–25 for measuring, reporting, or validating greenhouse gas emissions across its estate. The department does not separately record the staff time spent analysing or processing this data.

I refer the hon. Member to the answer I’ve given him on 29 January 2026 for question UIN 107051. Given that the information the hon. Member seeks has been published in that answer, I have no plans to place a copy of the Freedom of Information disclosure he mentions in the Library.

Pubs are central to local life, which is why we’ve delivered permanent business‑rates cuts for hospitality, retail and leisure businesses and are providing £4.3bn to shield ratepayers from bill increases following the revaluation. On top of this support, the Chancellor announced a 15% reduction in pubs’ new business‑rates bills from April, and their bills will be frozen for two years. Pubs will pay 8% less in business rates in 2029 than they do right now.

We are also pressing ahead with further licensing and planning reforms to help pubs, whilst providing £10 million over the next three years that could support over 1000 pubs diversify.

For tied pubs, the Government is conducting a statutory review into the operation of the Pubs Code and the Performance of the Pubs Code Adjudicator.

My department did not incur any additional costs as a result of Net Zero or sustainability requirements applied to procurement contracts over £10,000 in 2024-25.

The Government recognises the importance of the chemicals sector. The Industrial Strategy identifies chemicals as a vital foundational sector that underpins the UK’s high-growth industries, while also being essential to many supply chains.

Government is committed to tackling competitiveness issues facing the sector. These challenges are not unique to any one company and are impacting chemical and wider energy intensive businesses across Europe.

We are backing the chemicals sector through the Industrial Strategy with targeted support to bring down energy costs and recently through a targeted support package at INEOS Grangemouth to protect vital chemical production and jobs.

As announced on 17 December 2025, the Government intends to implement recommendations made by the Civil Justice Council to mitigate the effects of the PACCAR judgment, alongside proportionate regulation of litigation funding to improve transparency and fairness for all.

The review of opt-out collective actions is focused on finding the right balance between preserving an important route to redress for those harmed by anti-competitive behaviour and ensuring that the burden on business is proportionate. Work on litigation funding is distinct from the review, but will complement it and is expected to support the smooth operating of the regime.

Our modern Industrial Strategy focuses on eight sectors with the greatest potential to raise national levels of investment and productivity, spread prosperity to all parts of the country, make us all more secure, and seize the opportunities of net zero. The Strategy sets out our plans to deliver more opportunities for people at all stages of life, including young people, to learn and earn in our high-growth sectors. Additionally, we are investing £820 million for the Youth Guarantee meaning young people aged 16-24 are set to benefit from further support into employment and learning, and also announced a £725 million investment to deliver more apprenticeships for young people and help match skills training with local job opportunities.

These investments were made by the British Business Bank. The Bank’s investments in aggregate are expected to generate a financial return that exceeds the Government’s cost of borrowing. In the year ended March 2025, the Bank reported a profit of £144 million and a five-year average adjusted return on capital employed of 4.2%, against a target of 0.9%.

There is no target or expectation for returns from individual investments, which can vary widely. For its commercial equity products, the Bank’s performance will be benchmarked against the median fund performance in the Venture Capital market.

These investments were made by the British Business Bank. The Bank’s investments in aggregate are expected to generate a financial return that exceeds the Government’s cost of borrowing. In the year ended March 2025, the Bank reported a profit of £144 million and a five-year average adjusted return on capital employed of 4.2%, against a target of 0.9%.

There is no target or expectation for returns from individual investments, which can vary widely. For its commercial equity products, the Bank’s performance will be benchmarked against the median fund performance in the Venture Capital market.

The Department for Business and Trade is supporting the creation of jobs and opportunities across the UK, including in Staffordshire and Newcastle-under-Lyme, by championing free trade agreements, supporting small and medium sized enterprises to export, securing foreign investment, developing the UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy and investing in growth sectors like life sciences, advanced manufacturing and digital technologies.

Ofcom, as the independent regulator of postal services, has powers to investigate and take enforcement action should Royal Mail fail to achieve its obligations without good justification.

Ofcom fined Royal Mail £21 million for failing to meet its quality of service targets in 2024-25 and instructed Royal Mail to urgently publish and implement a credible plan that delivers major and continuous improvement.

I met the CEOs of Royal Mail and its parent company in November and raised concerns about Royal Mail’s performance. They reported continued targeted action to improve reliability. I will continue to raise concerns with Royal Mail if quality of service does not improve.

We have committed to reduce the administrative burden of regulation on businesses by £5.6bn by the end of this Parliament.

As set out in the Regulation Action plan progress update in October 2025, Taxes, duties, levies and charges administered by HMRC are not included within the baseline and target. Mirroring the approach taken in the successful 2005-10 Administrative Burden Reduction Programme, HMRC will take a complimentary approach to reduce the administrative burden of taxation. Building Safety provisions relating to the safety of tenants, residents and building occupants, are also exempt, to enable the Government’s response to the Grenfell Tragedy.

The Postcode Address File is owned by Royal Mail. Royal Mail’s terms of access to the Postcode Address File are regulated by Ofcom, the independent regulator for postal services. Ofcom requires Royal Mail to provide access to the Postcode Address File on reasonable terms. Royal Mail provides free access to small charities and microbusinesses in their first year.

We routinely engage businesses to get their views to assess the impact of regulation on businesses, including through our business questionnaire ‘Unlocking business: reform driven by you’ and our regular Business Perceptions Survey.

Our Regulation Action Plan introduced a series of regulatory reforms designed to make the UK the best place to grow and scale and a business. Building on this, we are shifting the way we support our scale-ups to grow, as set out in the package of growth measures announced by the Secretary of State on 20^th January.

The Department for Business and Trade has not made a full assessment of the costs to business of the policies previously intended to form part of the Audit Reform and Corporate Governance Bill. Most of those costs would have come from the expansion of the Public Interest Entity audit regime to private companies with 1000 or more employees and £1 billion or more in turnover.

The breakdown of Estimate line ‘A DBT – Department for Business and Trade (DEL)’ for CDEL outturn of £492,483,000 for 2024-25 is:

¹Difference between this figure and figure in Estimate due to rounding.

The Department for Business and Trade hosted an Industrial Strategy Business reception at the offices of FGS Global on 23 June 2025. The Department had worked with several businesses to find a suitable central London business location to host the reception.

The Department does not hold a centralised list of every Departmental reception event. This event is the only reception at a consultant lobbying firm that the department has a record of taking place since June 2024.

The British Business Bank’s strategic mandate was published on 21 October 2025 and sets out the Bank’s mission, four objectives and two key performance indicators.

The Department receives quarterly performance updates on the Bank’s activities, including investment decisions, and monthly financial reports. The Secretary of State as sole shareholder is represented on the Board by a director from UK Government Investments, who reports to him on relevant matters. The Minister for Small Business and Economic Transformation meets the Bank’s CEO, Louis Taylor, each month. This reporting framework provides assurance that the Bank is investing in line with its strategic priorities.

The Department sets the overall strategic direction for the British Business Bank, which is operationally independent and carries out its own due diligence. The Department does not seek to assess the merits of individual investments within the Bank’s portfolio.

The British Business Bank’s investment in Kraken Technologies is aligned with its strategic mandate published on 21 October 2025. This sets the Bank four objectives, the first of which is to “support our most promising businesses in the Industrial Strategy priority sectors to scale and stay here.”

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Of the 30 direct ministerial appointees, 6 have declared political activity.

Due diligence is conducted and individuals are required to complete a formal declaration of interests, in line with Cabinet Office guidance. These appointees deliver vital expertise to government and there is no bar to political activity for these roles.

The Independent Panel Member for this public appointment was Dr Alison Walker-Fraser. Alison is a business consultant and Chair of Trustees at Anaphylaxis UK. She is an experienced IPM for non-executive recruitment campaigns.

The Government is committed to improving women’s health and supporting employees through the Employment Rights Act (ERA). Officials have engaged with women’s health organisations, including endometriosis groups, informing voluntary Employer Action Plans on menopause from April 2026. We’re helping people with health conditions stay and thrive at work through programmes such as Keep Britain Working and greater access to flexible working. Statutory Sick Pay may also apply which, from April, becomes payable from day one of sickness absence. Beyond the ERA, endometriosis and adenomyosis may be considered disabilities, and if so, employers must offer reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act 2010.

The Department for Business and Trade has not made a specific assessment of this issue. Competition issues in the veterinary services market are currently being examined by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) as part of its market investigation into veterinary services for household pets. The CMA’s initial analysis of a potential cap on prescription fees can be found in its provisional decision report. It is expected to publish its final decision by March.

The Department has not sought to make such an estimate, as this is a question that the British Business Bank considers alongside other matters when carrying out due diligence on its investments. The Bank is operationally independent.

The overall ratio of private capital crowded in by the British Business Bank is reported annually in its Impact Report. In 2024/25 the Bank crowded in £3bn of private capital from £1.2bn public finance representing a ratio of 2.5:1 for every pound of public capital invested.

Paid advertising on X was suspended in April 2023 following a SAFE Framework assessment. X is currently used only for organic (non-paid) content to communicate policies and public services.

The Department for Business and Trade has spent £84.00 with X since July 2024 on X Premium, the platform’s premium subscription service.

The Department aims to respond to correspondence within 15 working days. I apologise for the delay in responding and can confirm a response was issued on 20 January 2026.

We understand following further detail provided that this question refers to compliance related to Monarch Airlines Engineering Ltd and the role of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).

As a regulator, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has oversight and audit functions in respect to the organisations that it regulates. The CAA is not a shareholder in any organisation that is regulates.

The CAA has established a range of reporting channels including mandatory and voluntary incident reporting and dedicated whistleblowing routes. These mechanisms are specifically designed to ensure that individuals are enabled to raise and report any safety related concerns appropriately.

My department is committed to supporting Net Zero goals and advancing Clean Energy initiatives. In 2024, the UK signed a Government-to-Government Arrangement with the Dominican Republic to help deliver infrastructure projects that promote mutual economic growth. This project provided recommendations to prioritise renewable energy projects aligned with national targets and opportunities for UK supply chain involvement.

The department’s modern Industrial Strategy will make the UK the best country to invest in and grow. We are targeting government investment towards our world-class eight-growth driving sectors, from life sciences to digital technologies and advanced manufacturing so British workers can upskill and fill vacancies.

From 2027, the British Industrial Competitiveness Scheme (BICS) will reduce electricity costs by up to £35–40/MWh for manufacturing frontier industries in the Industrial Strategy and foundational industries in their supply chains, by exempting them from the indirect costs of the Renewables Obligation, Feed-in Tariffs and Capacity Market.

DBT provides targeted capital through several key programmes:

• DRIVE35: A £4 billion fund (expanded to 2035) for zero-emission vehicle manufacturing and R&D.
• Automotive Transformation Fund (ATF): Supports large-scale industrialisation of the electrified automotive supply chain.
• Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI): Up to £2.3 billion in R&D funding to 2035 through the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI) programme to support the UK’s world-leading aerospace sector develop ultra-efficient and zero-carbon aircraft.
• Connected and Automated Mobility (CAM): Up to £150 million to deploy self-driving services and logistics.

The British Business Bank first informed officials of its investment into Kraken Technologies on 7 January 2026. This was part of a regular report to the Department on completed transactions. Ministers were notified shortly afterwards.

Discussions prior to 20 January focused on the Secretary of State’s visit to Kraken Technologies, which took place on 19 January. This was his last meeting with Octopus Group companies.

The Minister for Small Business and Economic Transformation met Octopus Group founder Chris Hulatt on 23 October 2025 and founder of Octopus Energy Group Greg Jackson on the 8^th January 2026.