Department for Business and Trade

I am delighted that many Indian students come to study in UK institutions and have done so for decades, enhancing our educational, diplomatic, political and business relationships, which is why India is one of the priority countries in our International Education Strategy 2026. Amongst other things, DBT’s International Education team has organised four education trade missions to India since 2020. One of the outcomes of this activity has been the signing of the UK-India MoU on the Mutual Recognition of Qualifications (MRQs) in 2022, which is seeing a step change in UK-India university partnerships. As part of the International Education Strategy, we engage with the alumni network, led by the British Council, as a further means to promote trade and investment opportunities.

I am delighted that many Indian students come to study in UK institutions and have done so for decades, enhancing our educational, diplomatic, political and business relationships, which is why India is one of the priority countries in our International Education Strategy 2026. Amongst other things, DBT’s International Education team has organised four education trade missions to India since 2020. One of the outcomes of this activity has been the signing of the UK-India MoU on the Mutual Recognition of Qualifications (MRQs) in 2022, which is seeing a step change in UK-India university partnerships. As part of the International Education Strategy, we engage with the alumni network, led by the British Council, as a further means to promote trade and investment opportunities.

The Department for Business and Trade hosted the first official-level EU Files Forum with key UK Business Representative Organisations on 5 June 2025. The Forum meets on a quarterly basis to facilitate a dialogue between government and the UK business community on evolving EU legislation.

Since June, the Forum has met on the following dates:

• 10 September 2025

• 4 December 2025

• 5 March 2026

The Government recognises that register accuracy must be assessed, and this needs to be through a range of measures. The following have been taken to date:

• Monitoring compliant companies - to show how up to date the register is based on filed confirmation statements.
• Verified identities – tracking the proportion of Director and Persons of Significant Control (PSC) appointments that have been verified since the start of the IDV transition year from 18 November 2025.
• Corrections/ Removals – tracking the number of companies where actions have been taken under ECCTA to correct or remove them from the register

Additional measures are in development to provide further insights.

Flexible working can lead to happier, healthier and more productive employees. This is good for workers and good for businesses.

Businesses can reject requests for remote working on business grounds, set out in legislation, including high costs or limited ability to meet customer demand.

Changes through the Employment Rights Act will encourage conversations between employers and employees about where flexibility might be possible.

In 2025, we published our modern Industrial Strategy which will support creating good jobs and higher incomes across the country, including £1.2 billion of additional investment in skills per year by 2028-29.

This is an impossible question to answer as the whole point of the UK Trade Envoy Programme is that it complements the work of UKEF and DBT’s direct export services in supporting SMEs. Trade Envoys provide high-level advocacy and market access, UKEF delivers financial backing, and DBT offers practical export guidance. Together, these initiatives form a comprehensive package to help SMEs succeed internationally.

UK Trade Envoy markets are identified in discussion with HM Trade Commissioners and the trade and investment opportunities available to UK business. Trade Envoys operate within wider trading policies in support of the Government’s objectives, working closely with Ministers and officials, including the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.

From April 2026, we are introducing permanently lower business‑rates multipliers for retail, hospitality and leisure properties, worth nearly £900 million a year and benefiting over 750,000 premises. In recognition of the impact of the revaluation on bills, the government has introduced £4.3 billion transitional support package, to protect ratepayers from large overnight increases.

We have more than doubled the Employment Allowance to £10,500, meaning around 865,000 employers will pay no NICs at all, and more than half of all employers will either gain or will see no change. The government and Ofgem are taking decisive action to inform and protect non-domestic energy consumers as well as improving access to redress when issues occur. Later this year, we will bring forward a new High Streets Strategy, to help reinvigorate our communities. These measures will provide meaningful, long-term support to rural retailers at the heart of their communities.

UK Trade Envoys primarily support UK exports in their respective market, but they also help identify tariff and non-tariff barriers that impede trade.

The Government sets the overall access criteria for the Post Office network, but day‑to‑day operational matters – including the deployment and management of mobile post office services – are the responsibility of the Post Office. Where mobile units are temporarily unavailable due to repair or maintenance, the Post Office works to restore services as quickly as possible and to minimise disruption for the communities affected.

The Government sets the overall access criteria for the Post Office network, but day‑to‑day operational matters – including the deployment and management of mobile post office services – are the responsibility of the Post Office. Where mobile units are temporarily unavailable due to repair or maintenance, the Post Office works to restore services as quickly as possible and to minimise disruption for the communities affected.

The British Business Bank takes investment decisions independently and the Department does not seek to assess the merits of any individual transaction. The Bank is measured on the achievement of its objectives over the long term. Its two key performance indicators are the returns it achieves for taxpayers and the additional GVA (gross value-added) generated by its activities.

Wayve is a world-leading British success story and the Secretary of State welcomed the success of the company's fundraise as evidence of this.

Employees of companies subject to insolvency proceedings are already able to claim arrears of wages, up to a statutory limit, from the National Insurance Fund through the Insolvency Service. In situations where minimum wage provisions have not been met, this can include an uplift payment.

Knowingly breaching minimum wage provisions is evidence of misconduct, and the Secretary of State may, where public interest criteria are met, seek to disqualify a culpable director. Where a director is disqualified, they may also be required to pay compensation for the benefit of creditors who have been directly harmed by their actions.

The British Business Bank notified the Department on the morning of 20 February 2026 that it had concluded commercial negotiations with Wayve and would be participating in its equity funding round. Ministers and officials were not aware before this date that an investment in Wayve was being contemplated.

Discussions with officials between 20 and 25 February focused on communications arrangements for the announcement of Wayve's successful fundraise and the British Business Bank's investment.

The Economic Prosperity Deal has reduced tariffs for UK exporters in critical sectors such as the car industry - this includes a preferential rate of 10% on 100,000 UK cars exported to the US each year.

The UK exports around 100,000 cars a year, so this quota will ensure most cars entering the US will do so at a preferential rate.

We are also providing targeted export support through our exports programme and engaging in wider trade policy dialogues with the US.

The government is taking significant steps to support retail and hospitality businesses on high streets. From April 2026, we are introducing permanently lower business‑rates multipliers for retail, hospitality and leisure properties, worth nearly £900 million a year and benefiting over 750,000 premises. In recognition of the impact of the revaluation on bills, the government has introduced £4.3 billion transitional support package, to protect ratepayers from large overnight increases.

We have also announced further targeted support for pubs, and from April eligible pubs will receive a 15% cut to their new business‑rates bills, followed by a two‑year real‑terms freeze. We are also more than doubling the Hospitality Support Fund, with £10 million funding over three years. Later this year, we will bring forward a new High Streets Strategy, to help reinvigorate our communities.

The Department for Business and Trade works closely with other UK Government Departments, including the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, and many countries across the Africa continent, to consider a wide range of issues to make sure that two way trade and investment can grow through a stable business environment.

I am delighted to say that we are deepening our trading relationship with India through the UK India Free Trade Agreement, which is estimated to boost UK GDP by £4.8bn, increase wages by £2.2bn, and grow bilateral trade by £25.5bn each year in the long run.

Every region and nation in the UK will benefit from the agreement, including a £190m boost for Scotland supported by market access for whisky, advanced manufacturing and financial services access.

We are now anticipating the deal entering into force in Spring, ahead of the planned schedule of Summer, provided final issues are resolved with India.

Apart from the 2025 National Minimum and Living Wage campaign, no other social media influencers have been commissioned by the Department or its contractors to undertake paid advertising for other campaigns or programmes since July 2024.

Influencer marketing is regarded as 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 Department will look to draw on influencer marketing in future campaigns where this helps achieve campaign objectives.

The government is not able to make predictions on total future numbers of businesses starting, closing or contracting. Our plan is to make the UK the best place to start and grow a business, with a culture that supports entrepreneurship in every community and high street.

Our Small Business Plan, launched in July 2025, contains over 200 targeted actions, which will make a real difference to the day-to-day trading operations of small and medium sized businesses and give them the right support to grow and thrive.

The British Business Bank has invested £25 million in Wayve as part of a $1.2 billion Series D funding round, at a post-money valuation of $8.6 billion. Additional capital secured in parallel brings the total value of the raise to $1.5 billion.

The Bank has an objective to “support our most promising businesses in the Industrial Strategy priority sectors to scale and stay here.” Crowding-in private capital was not the primary aim of this investment. Neither the Bank nor the Department has sought to assess the influence, if any, of the Bank’s investment in Wayve on the decisions of private co‑investors.

For financial year 2024-25 the annual cost of the Competition and Markets Authority’s Sustainability Taskforce was £342,983.19. This includes £342,306.01 in staff costs and £677.18 in other programme expenditure covering travel and subsistence.

The Advanced Manufacturing Sector Plan sets out how government is supporting industry to develop a highly skilled workforce for the future. Measures include the £182 million Engineering Skills Package which will fund Technical Excellence Colleges including four in Advanced Manufacturing, £47 million to fund engineering skills for adults and £2 million to increase the number of engineering T Levels.

Through the Battery Innovation Programme, the Department directly supports skills centres in the Northeast, Midlands and the South West to develop a pipeline of skilled technicians for the UK’s battery electric vehicle supply chain.

I met senior officials from Ofcom on 17 December and again on 11 March.

I am clear delivery companies must do more to meet the rightful expectations of customers.

Ofcom has written to delivery operators to remind them of their obligations and is gathering evidence of compliance with applicable Consumer Protection Conditions.

Under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, sellers are responsible for the delivery of goods bought online until they are in the consumer’s physical possession and is responsible if anything goes wrong with the consumer’s parcel, including goods delivered damaged or lost in transit, to liaise with the courier to find out what went wrong.

We are committed to reducing operating costs for all UK businesses, including those in Eastleigh and across Hampshire.

We are reducing the annual administrative burden of regulation by £5.6bn by 2029, enabling UK businesses to unlock growth and boost innovation.

Introducing e-invoicing will also increase efficiency and streamline tax administration.

Tackling late payments will give the UK the strongest legal framework in the G7, intending to legislate as soon as parliamentary time allows. We will publish our response to the late payment consultation setting out the measures we will take forward.

In addition, we are protecting full apprenticeship funding and extending it up to under 25s reducing administrative barriers further.

Effective monitoring and evaluation is integral to assessing manufacturing policy. Current investment incentives are tracked through operational metrics and economic indicators including business investment, productivity, exports, GVA, labour market outcomes and growth of large UK firms.

Recent impact reports show that major programmes are delivering strong returns; for example, the Advanced Propulsion Centre’s R&D programme generated £2.20 of additional private investment for every £1 of public funding. Together, these assessments help ensure that incentives support increased manufacturing capability and long term national output.

Delivery progress against new Industrial Strategy commitments, including for manufacturing, is captured in regular Quarterly Updates.

We are committed to delivering the measures outlined in the Small Business Plan including removing barriers to entrepreneurs, through the most significant package of legislative reforms in 25 years to tackle late payments.

My department also supports entrepreneurs with funding and mentoring through the British Business Bank’s Start-up Loans and our newly launched Business Growth Service.

We will continue to support entrepreneurs at every stage such as those in Doncaster through our Growth Hubs, I believe my honourable friend’s local Hub is Business Doncaster.

Each government department is responsible for providing Parliament with proportionate analysis of any regulatory provisions that it introduces, including the impact of those provisions on SMEs.

The Better Regulation Framework requires departments to produce a dedicated small and micro business assessment and medium-sized business regulatory exemption assessment for all domestic measures that require collective agreement by Cabinet and have an annualised net direct cost to business greater than £10 million.

This approach helps to ensure proportionate and transparent regulation, giving SMEs confidence that the UK is the best place to start and scale a business.

This Government is dedicated to improving rights for working parents. In April, we are making Unpaid Parental Leave and Paternity Leave day-one rights, as well as introducing Bereaved Partners Paternity Leave.

In 2027, we will further improve protections for pregnant women and those returning from Maternity Leave. These reforms will benefit millions of employees across the country.

We also know that more can be done to support working parents. The ongoing Parental Leave and Pay Review is looking at all parental leave entitlements and will conclude next year, informing our next steps.

Through the Employment Rights Act, we are making Paternity Leave a ‘day one’ right from 6 April this year. This will bring an extra 32,000 fathers and partners into scope of the entitlement.

The Government also launched the Parental Leave and Pay Review on 1 July 2025, which will consider all existing and upcoming parental leave entitlements, including Paternity Leave and Pay. The Review will conclude in early 2027 with a set of findings in which the Government will outline next steps for taking any reforms forward to implementation.

Officials are in the process of reviewing the responses to the consultation, and the government will publish a formal response in due course.

My Honourable friend is a real champion of local breweries, especially Moot Brewery in Halling, which she visits regularly and knows produces excellent beer. The government fully recognises the importance of independent breweries and pubs, and we are committed to ensuring the beer and pub sector remains diverse, competitive and rooted in local communities. We have reviewed the beer market to assess any barriers facing small breweries, and I will announce the outcome in due course.

The Review launched on 1 July 2025 and started with a period of discovery to understand the current system and gather evidence and views from stakeholders. We received almost 1,500 responses to the Call for Evidence. These are currently being analysed, and the findings will inform the Review. We are continuing to engage with stakeholders (including business groups, parent groups, and academics) throughout 2026 to inform the Review.

The Review will conclude in early 2027 with a set of findings in which the Government will outline next steps for taking any reforms forward to implementation.

The Government’s Parental Leave and Pay Review will conclude in early 2027 with a set of findings which outline next steps for implementing any reforms.

In addition to considering, all current and upcoming parental leave and pay entitlements, the Review is considering the needs of other working families who do not qualify for existing leave and pay entitlements, such as kinship carers.

The Government is also supporting kinship carers through other mechanisms and has recently launched a kinship pilot to support up to 5,000 kinship families by paying eligible carers an allowance equivalent to the Fostering National Minimum Allowance.

The Government’s Parental Leave and Pay Review will conclude in early 2027 with a set of findings which outline next steps for implementing any reforms.

In addition to considering, all current and upcoming parental leave and pay entitlements, the Review is considering the needs of other working families who do not qualify for existing leave and pay entitlements, such as kinship carers.

The Government is also supporting kinship carers through other mechanisms and has recently launched a kinship pilot to support up to 5,000 kinship families by paying eligible carers an allowance equivalent to the Fostering National Minimum Allowance.

The Government’s Parental Leave and Pay Review will conclude in early 2027 with a set of findings which outline next steps for implementing any reforms.

In addition to considering, all current and upcoming parental leave and pay entitlements, the Review is considering the needs of other working families who do not qualify for existing leave and pay entitlements, such as kinship carers.

The Government is also supporting kinship carers through other mechanisms and has recently launched a kinship pilot to support up to 5,000 kinship families by paying eligible carers an allowance equivalent to the Fostering National Minimum Allowance.

A review of the harmonised standard for ethnicity data collection is underway by the Government Statistical Service Harmonisation team.

A public consultation between October 2025 and February 2026 sought views from a wide range of users, including Government Departments and public bodies, to understand user needs for ethnic group data. This was supplemented by a programme of engagement activity, including with representatives of all government departments.

ONS have committed to providing an initial response to the public consultation in April, and a full report on the consultation in late summer 2026 will include more detailed information on the departments that responded to the consultation.

We are improving our relationship with the EU and will align with the EU where it is in our national interest. This will help reduce barriers to trade, and the bureaucracy and onerous paperwork for UK businesses, particularly SMEs. Alongside this, DBT publishes explainer documents on key EU regulations and market specific guides on business.gov.uk, through which SME’s can access Unlock Europe, a new programme from UK Business Academy, designed to help businesses build stronger relationships with European customers and increase exporting potential to the EU.

The Office for Responsible Business Conduct promotes the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct and provides a non-judicial grievance mechanism for complaints of non-observance by UK businesses. The government also launched a review, through the Trade Strategy, of the UK’s approach to responsible business conduct, focusing on tackling human rights and labour abuses and environmental harms in global supply chains, including those in the fashion industry.

While concerns have been raised about unfair practices, there are currently no plans to introduce a Fashion Watchdog. However, other measures are being considered as part of the responsible business conduct review. We will update the House once the review is complete.

The Government is undertaking the fourth statutory review into the effectiveness of the GCA, and covers the period from 31 March 2022 – 1 April 2025. The review sought input on the GCA’s effectiveness in enforcing the Code, its role alongside the Agricultural Supply Chain Adjudicator and potential unfair practices outside its current remit. The Government is currently analysing responses and other publicly available evidence covering the review period. The review report will be published as soon as practicable.

The Government is undertaking the fourth statutory review into the effectiveness of the GCA, and covers the period from 31 March 2022 - 1 April 2025. The review sought input on the GCA's effectiveness in enforcing the Code, its role alongside the Agricultural Supply Chain Adjudicator and potential unfair practices outside its current remit. The Government is currently analysing responses and other publicly available evidence covering the review period. The review report will be published as soon as practicable.

The Office for Responsible Business Conduct promotes the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct and provides a non-judicial grievance mechanism for complaints of non-observance by UK businesses. The government also launched a review, through the Trade Strategy, of the UK's approach to responsible business conduct, which is focussed on tackling human rights, labour abuses and environmental harms in global supply chains, including those in the fashion industry. We will update the House once the review is complete.

We have already announced measures to tackle late payments through additional reporting requirements for large firms and launched a new Fair Payment Code which aims to boost cash flow for small businesses, crucial for their survival, by tackling late payments and lengthy payment terms that can lead to financial strain and failure.

Statistics on foreign owned businesses are published separately by each of the devolved nations. Figures are rounded to the nearest 5 and cover registered businesses only.

Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency:

Northern Ireland Business: Activity, Size, Location, and Ownership 2025 | Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency

• around 5 Chinese owned businesses in Northern Ireland in 2025

Scottish Government:

Businesses in Scotland: 2025 - gov.scot

• around 15 Chinese owned businesses in Scotland in 2025

Welsh Government:

Ad-hoc statistical requests: 3 to 14 November 2025 | GOV.WALES

• around 10 Chinese owned businesses in Wales in 2024

There are no statistics published for Chinese owned business in England.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) publishes statistics for the UK which show that in 2022 there were 349 Chinese-owned businesses in the UK.

Inward foreign affiliates statistics, UK, 2018 to 2022 - Office for National Statistics

The ONS statistics are compiled from a different source and are not comparable to the statistics published by the devolved nations.