Asked by: James Wild (Conservative - North West Norfolk)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, with reference to section 2 of her Department's policy paper entitled New approach to ensure regulators and regulation support growth, updated on 31 March 2025, when the administrative costs of regulation baselining exercise will conclude.
Answered by Justin Madders - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The government has committed to cut the administrative costs of regulation to business by 25% by the end of this Parliament. To do this, we must determine the cumulative administrative costs of regulation which has not been done for 15 years. At that time, the exercise took approximately 18 months, which was consistent with efforts of other countries that have undertaken similar exercises.
We are working in partnership with businesses to understand their real-life experiences of regulatory compliance to establish a robust regulatory baseline. We will publish an update on this baseline exercise and our expected timelines in due course.
Asked by: James Wild (Conservative - North West Norfolk)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, with reference to section 2 of the policy paper entitled New approach to ensure regulators and regulation support growth, updated on 31 March 2025, how many people are employed by the British Hallmarking Council.
Answered by Justin Madders - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Asked by: James Wild (Conservative - North West Norfolk)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, with reference to section 2 of the policy paper entitled New approach to ensure regulators and regulation support growth, updated on 31 March 2025, what the annual operating cost is of the British Hallmarking Council .
Answered by Justin Madders - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Asked by: James Wild (Conservative - North West Norfolk)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, with reference to section 2 of her Department's policy paper entitled New approach to ensure regulators and regulation support growth, updated on 31 March 2025, what the estimated saving is from merging the Office of the Regulator of Community Interest Companies and Companies House.
Answered by Justin Madders - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Office of the Regulator of Community Interest Companies (“CICs”) (“the Regulator”) plays a crucial role in maintaining the CIC model as an effective form of social enterprise. By exploiting the considerable overlap between the Regulator and Companies House, and the close working relationship that already exists between the two, the Government intends to fully integrate the Regulator’s functions into Companies House as part of wider plans to streamline the UK’s regulatory environment. Both organisations are funded by fees, and there are no expected direct savings.
Asked by: James Wild (Conservative - North West Norfolk)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps he is taking to increase private investment as a proportion of GDP.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Investment is at the heart of the government’s growth mission, increasing the number of good, well-skilled jobs and improving productivity across the country. The Department for Business and Trade works with all investor-facing business units to deliver support for the highest-value, highest-impact FDI projects into the UK. DBT officials work on a daily basis with businesses of all sizes to ensure a close partnership between government and business, and to showcase the multitude of investment opportunities the UK has to offer.
The Industrial Strategy Green Paper (published 14 October) sets out a credible, 10-year plan to deliver the certainty and stability businesses need to invest in UK.
The government also hosted an international investment summit in October 2024 where nearly 38,000 jobs across the country were announced alongside a record-breaking £63 billion of investment.
Asked by: James Wild (Conservative - North West Norfolk)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps his Department is taking to encourage foreign direct investment.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Investment is at the heart of the government’s growth mission, increasing the number of good, well-skilled jobs and improving productivity across the country. The Department for Business and Trade works with all investor-facing business units to deliver support for the highest-value, highest-impact FDI projects into the UK. DBT officials work on a daily basis with businesses of all sizes to ensure a close partnership between government and business, and to showcase the multitude of investment opportunities the UK has to offer.
The Industrial Strategy Green Paper (published 14 October) sets out a credible, 10-year plan to deliver the certainty and stability businesses need to invest in UK.
The government also hosted an international investment summit in October 2024 where nearly 38,000 jobs across the country were announced alongside a record-breaking £63 billion of investment.
Asked by: James Wild (Conservative - North West Norfolk)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, how many businesses have been supported by the British Business Bank since 2014.
Answered by Gareth Thomas - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The British Business Bank’s recently published Impact Report shows that in 2023 alone the Bank funded 23,100 businesses. Data on the number of businesses supported by the Bank since its inception in 2014 is intended to be published in 2025.
Asked by: James Wild (Conservative - North West Norfolk)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, when the independent appeals process for the Horizon Shortfall Scheme will start accepting applications.
Answered by Gareth Thomas - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
In September, the Government announced that it would establish an HSS appeals process to provide individuals with a chance to have their claims reassessed through a DBT-run process. We are working with representative groups and the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board to make sure that that the process is fit for purpose and that claims can be assessed and resolved quickly. We will announce further details as soon as we can.
Asked by: James Wild (Conservative - North West Norfolk)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps he is taking to reduce the cost of regulation for businesses.
Answered by Justin Madders - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
It is essential that we identify areas where the costs of regulations may be unnecessarily high and burdensome for businesses. Best practice analysis of regulatory interventions and reforms, as well as monitoring and evaluating the success of interventions will help us understand these issues further. The Department for Business and Trade is in the process of developing an ambitious regulatory reform agenda to ensure that any future regulation or regulatory reform will work for businesses and consumers, and aids economic growth. Our proposals will be set out in due course.
Asked by: James Wild (Conservative - North West Norfolk)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, if he will make an estimate of the total annual cost of regulation to UK businesses.
Answered by Justin Madders - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
In 2023, the previous government repealed the Business Impact Target (BIT) through the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act. The BIT was the principal mechanism through which government made an estimate of the total annual cost of regulation to UK businesses. In place of that, the reformed Better Regulation Framework encourages an earlier and more thorough assessment of impacts of individual regulatory proposals. This government will use the framework to ensure that new regulations achieve their objectives, with the minimum cost to business and support economic growth. We will set out further proposals for regulatory reform in due course.