Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, how many trading standards inspections of high street shops took place in South Holland and the Deepings constituency in each of the last three years.
Answered by Kate Dearden - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The department does not hold this information.
Local authorities across England, Scotland and Wales operate independently from central government. Local authorities are responsible for determining their enforcement activity across a wide range of enforcement responsibilities in accordance with the needs of the local electorate and local resourcing priorities.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, how many and what proportion of civil servants in his Department are (a) on temporary contract and (b) consultants.
Answered by Kate Dearden - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Information on the number of civil servants employed on temporary contracts is published quarterly by the Office for National Statistics as part of the quarterly Public Sector Employment statistics. Information can be accessed for September 2025 at the following web address:
Consultants are not civil servants and therefore, the response is nil.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, how many full time equivalent staff in his Department have been employed for the purpose of making social media content in each of the past three years.
Answered by Kate Dearden - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Due to the difficulty of disaggregating the number of staff who are employed to produce social media content from staff who are employed to work on broader digital communications, it is not possible to report exact figures in response to this question.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, how much the Insolvency Service has spent on translation and interpretation services in each of the last five years.
Answered by Blair McDougall - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
In the last 5 years the Insolvency Service has committed the following expenditure to translation and interpretation services:
Financial year | Spend (£) |
20/21 | 1,665 |
21/22 | 2,940 |
22/23 | 9,439 |
23/24 | 6,811 |
24/25 | 9,731 |
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, how much the Competition and Markets Authority has spent on translation and interpretation services in each of the last five years.
Answered by Kate Dearden - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The total spend by the CMA on translation and interpretation services for the past five financial years is as follows:
Financial Year | Net Total Spend by Invoice Payment Date per Financial Year (£s) |
2020/21 | 10,860.58 |
2021/22 | 8,677.07 |
2022/23 | 10,085.18 |
2023/24 | 19,012.28 |
2024/25 | 13,218.41 |
Total | 61,853.52 |
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, how much Companies House has spent on translation and interpretation services in each of the last five years.
Answered by Blair McDougall - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Since the 2020/2021 financial year, Companies House spent the following amounts on external translation and interpretation services:
2025/26 | 2024/25 | 2023/24 | 2022/23 | 2021/22 | 2020/21 |
£18,896 | £8,925 | £0 | £0 | £0 | £13,924 |
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, if he will list the titles of all the events organised by Civil Service networks in his Department since 2017.
Answered by Kate Dearden - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The information requested is not held centrally and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, how many (a) single sex and (b) gender neutral bathroom facilities his Department provides in its premises.
Answered by Kate Dearden - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Within the Department’s head office, the Old Admiralty Building, London, the Government Property Agency provides 32 male toilets, 39 female toilets and 7 non-gendered universal toilets (individual self-contained lockable toilet rooms which contain a toilet, washbasin and hand-drying facilities). This is in addition to 21 wheelchair accessible toilets.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what recent steps he has taken with local councils to tackle the illegal use of fireworks in Lincolnshire.
Answered by Kate Dearden - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Enforcement powers exist for local authorities to take action when fireworks are unsafe, sold illegally or misused. Local authorities and the police also have powers to tackle anti-social behaviour caused by the misuse of fireworks. It is for local areas to decide how best to deploy these powers.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps his Department plans to take to ensure that critical services continue to run in the event of a major internet outage.
Answered by Kate Dearden - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Government has a robust set of policies in place to ensure there are well-defined and tested incident management processes in place, and to ensure continuity of essential functions in the event of system or service failure.
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology will publish the Government Cyber Action Plan this Winter, which will set out a clear approach for the Government and the Wider Public Sector to manage cyber security and resilience incidents.