Asked by: Emily Thornberry (Labour - Islington South and Finsbury)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to his Department’s publication of spending over £500 with an electronic purchasing card, at which Nicholson’s establishment was £577.50 spent on catering on 21 March 2022; what was the purpose of that event; and who were the attendees.
Answered by Dean Russell
The Department spent £577.50 on catering from The Feathers, Broadway SW1H 0BH for an internal all-day Directorate meeting for 125 people.
Asked by: Emily Thornberry (Labour - Islington South and Finsbury)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to his Department’s publication of spending over £500 with an electronic purchasing card, for the accommodation of which individuals was £9,121.42 paid to Airbnb Payments on 20 September 2021; and what were the locations of that accommodation.
Answered by Dean Russell
The Department spent £9,121.42 on an Airbnb private house rental for two weeks covering COP26 in Glasgow. This cost covered the accommodation for 4 members of the UK delegation and was needed due to lack of available hotel accommodation in Glasgow and surrounding areas over this period. Due to high demand the price of any available accommodation was higher than usual, and this rental was the most cost-effective option for the delegation.
Asked by: Emily Thornberry (Labour - Islington South and Finsbury)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to his Department’s publication of spending over £500 with an electronic purchasing card, for what purpose was £849.60 paid to Kahoot! ASA on 12 May 2021.
Answered by Dean Russell
£849.60 was paid to Kahoot! ASA for material for the Government Science and Engineering Profession stalls at Civil Service Live events across the country. This material was used to deliver practical demonstrations of information conveyed by the team at the events.
Asked by: Emily Thornberry (Labour - Islington South and Finsbury)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to his Department’s publication of spending over £500 with an electronic purchasing card, what the (a) purpose of, (b) location of and (c) guest list was for the event for which Spiers Salads was paid £5,594.13 on 23 December 2020.
Answered by Dean Russell
The payment to Spiers Salads was for the supply of food for one week for the BEIS Response Team in 1 Victoria Street during lockdown. Payment was made by GPC card as all our usual suppliers had shut at short notice when London entered tier 4 restrictions.
Asked by: Emily Thornberry (Labour - Islington South and Finsbury)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to his Department’s publication of spending over £500 with an electronic purchasing card, (a) for the accommodation of which individuals was (i) £1,989 paid to B.O.G. Hotel in Colombia on 13 and 23 March 2022, (ii) £661.38 paid to Antigua Yacht Club Marina on 13 May 2022, and (iii) £931.24 paid to Renaissance Hotel in Chicago on 25 May 2022, and (b) in each case, what was the purpose of their visit.
Answered by Dean Russell
The majority of BEIS hotels are booked through the Department’s corporate travel provider. In each of these cases, the bookings were organised by the hosting organisation with hotels chosen based on security, location, and available preferential rates. (i) Government officials travelled to Colombia to take part in international discussions on climate change; (ii) Government officials travelled to Antigua to attend a UN-led Green Climate Fund meeting; (iii) one Government official attended the Ernst and Young Innovation Realised event.
Asked by: Emily Thornberry (Labour - Islington South and Finsbury)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to his Department’s publication of spending over £500 with an electronic purchasing card, for what products was Park Retail Ltd. paid £398,716.16 from March 2021 to March 2022; which individuals were the end recipients of these products; and who was responsible for paying any tax due on these products as benefits in kind.
Answered by Dean Russell
Park Retail Ltd supply non-cash award vouchers to the Department. These vouchers support BEIS’s performance management reward structure and recipients are BEIS staff at all pay grades. Tax on vouchers given to BEIS employees is paid by BEIS.
Asked by: Emily Thornberry (Labour - Islington South and Finsbury)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, which Department is responsible for overseeing the review of those items of retained EU law listed in the REUL interactive dashboard.
Answered by Dean Russell
The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill was introduced to Parliament on 22 September 2022.
Machinery of Government changes are a matter for my Rt. Hon. Friend the Prime Minister.
Asked by: Emily Thornberry (Labour - Islington South and Finsbury)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, which Department is responsible for the proposed Brexit Freedoms Bill, and what plans he has to introduce the Bill to Parliament.
Answered by Dean Russell
The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill was introduced to Parliament on 22 September 2022.
Machinery of Government changes are a matter for my Rt. Hon. Friend the Prime Minister.
Asked by: Emily Thornberry (Labour - Islington South and Finsbury)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, on how many occasions the provision of mandatory training for his Departmental staff regarding their obligations under the Equality Act 2010 has been cited by his Department as a defence against Section 109 proceedings since the commencement of that Act.
Answered by Dean Russell
BEIS does not hold this information centrally. Conducting a search of all Section 109 proceedings for the citing of mandatory training as a defence would incur disproportionate costs.
Asked by: Emily Thornberry (Labour - Islington South and Finsbury)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, with reference to his Department’s publication of data for spending over £500 using an electronic purchasing card published on 30 June 2022, when he intends to replace the spending data for May 2020 currently published under the title April 2020 with the correct data for the latter month.
Answered by Dean Russell
The correct data for BEIS Government Payment Card spend over £500 in April 2020 has been published on gov.uk and can be found at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1102711/gpc_spending_over_500_april_2020.csv.
The data shows two transactions for the month totalling £2130.36.