Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the average length of time for decisions to be made on export licencing on the competitiveness of British exporters.
Answered by Nusrat Ghani
HM Government is committed to maintaining a robust and transparent export control regime. The Export Control Joint Unit (ECJU) is extremely mindful of the commercial pressures that businesses face – and of the need to process licence applications with minimum delay.
HM Government publishes data on export licensing decisions on a quarterly basis in the Official Statistics on GOV.UK. This covers licensing decisions back from 2008 onwards and includes data on the average length of time for decisions to be made. This data is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/strategic-export-controls-licensing-statistics-quarterly-reports.
We keep the licensing process under continuous review, including the targets we set for processing times for applications.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what the average length of time for decisions on export licencing has been in each of the last five years.
Answered by Nusrat Ghani
HM Government is committed to maintaining a robust and transparent export control regime. The Export Control Joint Unit (ECJU) is extremely mindful of the commercial pressures that businesses face – and of the need to process licence applications with minimum delay.
HM Government publishes data on export licensing decisions on a quarterly basis in the Official Statistics on GOV.UK. This covers licensing decisions back from 2008 onwards and includes data on the average length of time for decisions to be made. This data is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/strategic-export-controls-licensing-statistics-quarterly-reports.
We keep the licensing process under continuous review, including the targets we set for processing times for applications.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, how many officials in her Department work on processing export licence applications as of 6 December 2023.
Answered by Nusrat Ghani
As at 6 December 2023, the processing of export licence applications was completed by 54 officials within the Department for Business and Trade. This comprised 28 in the Licensing Unit, 19 in the Technical Assessment Unit and 7 in the Enforcement Team.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, how many international trade advisors are employed by her Department; and in which regions of the UK they are located.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
In England, DBT has 154 International Trade Advisers (ITAs) and at the time of writing a further 10 are currently undergoing the on-boarding process. ITAs are located across our three Super Region teams; Southern England, Midlands and the North. There are currently no DBT ITAs in the Nations, but we are engaging on how to introduce new resource that complements existing services offered by the Devolved Administrations and their agencies.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits a statutory duty on insolvency practitioners to pay outstanding (a) wages and (b) notice pay as the first duty when a company ceases to trade as a result of insolvency.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Shadow Minister without Portfolio
Raising the priority of payment for employee claims would inevitably reduce the sums that may be paid to other unsecured creditors, including small businesses.
Former employees of insolvent employers can claim redundancy payments and other contractual debts from the National Insurance Fund, subject to statutory limits. Those claims will be paid whether or not there are sufficient funds in the insolvent company and will be paid much quicker than if they were elevated higher than other creditors in law.
As part of their statutory duties, Insolvency Practitioners must provide the necessary information to the government administered Redundancy Payments Service to facilitate the processing of employee claims as quickly as possible.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of (a) introducing measures to hold company directors to account for businesses going into administration, (b) giving employees more security by way of secured creditor status in respect of redundancy payments and arrears of pay, (c) putting in place a statutory duty on insolvency practitioners to pay out outstanding wages and notice pay as the first duty when a company ceases to trade as a result of an insolvency.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Shadow Minister without Portfolio
Measures to hold directors to account already exist. When a company enters administration, the administrator has a legal duty to report to the Insolvency Service on the directors’ conduct. The Insolvency Service may seek the directors’ disqualification where there is evidence of their misconduct, and it is in the public interest. Potential criminal offences are referred to the appropriate authority.
To ensure fairness, the law requires that available funds in an insolvency are distributed in a certain order and Government has no current plans to change this.
As part of their statutory duties, Insolvency Practitioners must provide necessary information to the Redundancy Payments Service to facilitate the processing of employee claims when their employer enters insolvency.
The Government recently announced a strengthening of the Insolvency Practitioner regulatory framework aimed at increasing transparency and bolstering confidence in regulation.