Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Bromborough)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, what proportion of organisations that hold contracts with his Department pay the National Living Wage.
Answered by George Hollingbery
Rates of pay for people working for third party contractors are determined by their respective employers and is not held centrally. All outsourced providers are required to pay as a minimum, either the National Minimum Wage or the National Living Wage.
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Bromborough)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, how much his Department has paid to hon. Members under section 4 of the Ministerial and other Pensions and Salaries Act 1991 since 13 July 2016.
Answered by George Hollingbery
Any such payments are published in the Department’s audited annual report and accounts, and these accounts can be found on gov.uk.
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Bromborough)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, what estimate he has made of the number of days of sick leave taken by staff in his Department for mental health reasons in each year since his Department's inception.
Answered by George Hollingbery
The number of working days sick leave taken for mental health reasons by employees working for the Department for International Trade (DIT) and UK Export Finance (UKEF) in each year since its inception is shown in the table below. The data includes any absence recorded as either Depression or Anxiety/Stress and includes staff working in the UK and overseas.
| Total |
Core DIT |
|
July 2016 – June 2017 | 582 |
UKEF |
|
July 2016 – June 2017 | 136 |
The data above is taken from entries that are self-reported in the department’s HR systems by employees.
The data is restricted to June 2017 in order to permit comparison with wider civil service data which is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/civil-service-sickness-absence.
The department recognises and takes seriously the wellbeing of its employees and has now put in place mental health first aiders who can provide a range of support to both employees and managers.
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Bromborough)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, if he will publish a list of the mobile phone applications developed by his Department and its agencies in the last three years; and what the cost to the public purse was of developing of each of those applications.
Answered by George Hollingbery
The Department for International Trade (DIT) has not developed any mobile phone applications for the delivery of services since the department was founded in July 2016.
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Bromborough)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, how many members of the House of Lords hold (a) paid and (b) unpaid roles within (i) his Department and (ii) his Department's agencies.
Answered by George Hollingbery
The Department for International Trade has one member of the Ministerial Team who is a member of the House of Lords who is unpaid.
There are also 10 PM Trade Envoys who are members of the House of Lords, this is an unpaid, voluntary role.
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Bromborough)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, how many male staff of his Department have taken shared parental leave; and what the average length of that leave was.
Answered by Greg Hands
The number of male employees in the Department for International Trade (including those working overseas and UK Export Finance) who have taken Shared Parental Leave since the department was created in July 2016 was 4 people. The average length of the leave taken was 82 days.
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Bromborough)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, ow many non-disclosure agreements his Department has signed with employees in each year for which figures are available.
Answered by Greg Hands
The Department for International Trade (DIT) was set up in July 2016. There have been no non-disclosure agreements signed with employees working for DIT or UK Export Finance since this date.
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Bromborough)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, with which countries he and his officials have held discussions with about future trading options after the UK leaves the EU.
Answered by Greg Hands
We are working with a wide range of countries to explore the best ways to develop our current trade and investment relationships and ensure that Britain becomes a global leader in free trade once we leave the EU. The Government has established working groups and high-level dialogues with a range of key trade partners to explore the mechanisms for liberalising trade. These range from mutual recognition agreements and the sort of outcome-based equivalence approach, recently advanced by the governor of the Bank of England, to being key members of multilateral agreements. We will consider multi-country alliances of the like-minded, right down to bilateral arrangements, using all the advantages available from our diplomatic network, to the system of Prime Ministerial Trade Envoys.
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Bromborough)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, which non-EU countries his Department has identified as best for future trade deals in the automotive sector.
Answered by Greg Hands
We are working with a number of other countries to explore the best ways to develop our current trade and investment relationships and ensure that Britain becomes a global leader in free trade once we leave the EU. Automotive is an important sector for the UK and a trade success story with exports worth £40bn – 13.3% of the UK’s total manufacturing exports. It is crucially important to understand the priorities for the sector, as we develop a future UK trade policy and the Department for International Trade officials maintain a dialogue with the industry, working closely with officials in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Department for Exiting the European Union and other government departments.