Speeches made during Parliamentary debates are recorded in Hansard. For ease of browsing we have grouped debates into individual, departmental and legislative categories.
e-Petitions are administered by Parliament and allow members of the public to express support for a particular issue.
If an e-petition reaches 10,000 signatures the Government will issue a written response.
If an e-petition reaches 100,000 signatures the petition becomes eligible for a Parliamentary debate (usually Monday 4.30pm in Westminster Hall).
Tom’s Law - Give police the power to suspend driving licences
Gov Responded - 11 Feb 2021 Debated on - 10 Jan 2022 View Stewart Hosie's petition debate contributionsWe want Police Officers to be able to provide a suspension notice from the moment an offender is caught drink, drug or dangerous driving until they appear in court. It would then be for the Judge to decide whether a ban continues or they are able to continue to drive again.
To allow non-prescribed storage of Salbutamol Inhalers in Commercial Kitchens
Gov Responded - 25 Aug 2021 Debated on - 29 Nov 2021 View Stewart Hosie's petition debate contributionsIn 2014 the Human Medicines Act was amended so that schools could keep emergency stocks of salbutamol inhalers without prescription. Asthma is increasing in the UK and we believe that adult sufferers of Asthma working in high-risk commercial kitchens should have similar life-saving support.
Introduce Mandatory Ethnicity Pay Gap Reporting
Gov Responded - 30 Jul 2020 Debated on - 20 Sep 2021 View Stewart Hosie's petition debate contributionsMuch like the existing mandatory requirement for employers with 250 or more employees must publish their gender pay gap. We call upon the government to introduce the ethnicity pay gap reporting. To shine a light on race / ethnicity based inequality in the workplace so that they can be addressed.
Grant an urgent Amnesty to Undocumented Migrants living in the UK
Gov Responded - 18 Mar 2021 Debated on - 19 Jul 2021 View Stewart Hosie's petition debate contributionsUndocumented Migrants are suffering in silence, with no access to adequate Financial support, or any help. The Government should grant an urgent Amnesty of 5years to those with no criminal record so that they could live their lives as normal human beings and pay tax to help the UK economy.
These initiatives were driven by Stewart Hosie, and are more likely to reflect personal policy preferences.
MPs who are act as Ministers or Shadow Ministers are generally restricted from performing Commons initiatives other than Urgent Questions.
Stewart Hosie has not been granted any Urgent Questions
Stewart Hosie has not been granted any Adjournment Debates
Stewart Hosie has not introduced any legislation before Parliament
Mortgages (switching) Bill 2023-24
Sponsor - Martin Docherty-Hughes (SNP)
Arms (Exports and Remote Warfare) Bill 2019-21
Sponsor - Alyn Smith (SNP)
Banking (Consumer and Small Business Protection) Bill 2017-19
Sponsor - Charlie Elphicke (Ind)
European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2019
Sponsor - Yvette Cooper (Lab)
European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 4) Bill 2017-19
Sponsor - Yvette Cooper (Lab)
Armed Forces Representative Body Bill 2017-19
Sponsor - Martin Docherty-Hughes (SNP)
The Government is strongly supportive of the radio sector and recognises the great value that it offers to communities across the UK. Radio plays an important role in our cross channel strategy, with the merits of its use being assessed in relation to this.
Government public information campaigns utilise a wide range of channels to maximise reach and engagement and to ensure our messaging reaches as many people as possible.
The Cabinet Office has spent a total of £58,547,372 on radio advertisement in the last 5 years, covering large scale cross-Government campaigns such as UK Transition, Covid-19 and Help for Households.
Mr Fullbrook is not employed by the Government under a secondment agreement, therefore I can confirm that no such agreement exists.
Mr Fullbrook is employed directly by the Government under the Model Contract for Special Advisers, which sets out the terms of employment for special advisers, including provision for severance payments. Together with the Code of Conduct for Special Advisers and the Civil Service Code, this constitutes a special adviser’s contract of employment with the Crown.
As required by legislation, Special Adviser costs and salaries are routinely published on GOV.UK by the Cabinet Office. The next annual publication is due in 2023.
All special adviser salaries are set within the pay ranges specified in this report.
Mr Fullbrook is not employed by the Government under a secondment agreement, therefore I can confirm that no such agreement exists.
Mr Fullbrook is employed directly by the Government under the Model Contract for Special Advisers, which sets out the terms of employment for special advisers, including provision for severance payments. Together with the Code of Conduct for Special Advisers and the Civil Service Code, this constitutes a special adviser’s contract of employment with the Crown.
As required by legislation, Special Adviser costs and salaries are routinely published on GOV.UK by the Cabinet Office. The next annual publication is due in 2023.
All special adviser salaries are set within the pay ranges specified in this report.
Mr Fullbrook is not employed by the Government under a secondment agreement, therefore I can confirm that no such agreement exists.
Mr Fullbrook is employed directly by the Government under the Model Contract for Special Advisers, which sets out the terms of employment for special advisers, including provision for severance payments. Together with the Code of Conduct for Special Advisers and the Civil Service Code, this constitutes a special adviser’s contract of employment with the Crown.
As required by legislation, Special Adviser costs and salaries are routinely published on GOV.UK by the Cabinet Office. The next annual publication is due in 2023.
All special adviser salaries are set within the pay ranges specified in this report.
It is the responsibility of Government Departments to consult on policy or legislative change.
The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) was created following the Machinery of Government change announced on 7 February 2023. Previous to the Machinery of Government change, the Department for International Trade spent £2,056,432 in the last 5 years. Since the change, the Department for Business and Trade has spent £214,654.
The Government is strongly supportive of the radio sector and recognises the great value that it offers to communities across the UK. Radio plays an important role in our cross-channel strategy, with the merits of its use being assessed in relation to this.
Evaluating the effectiveness of Government communications is paramount to its success. Therefore, no matter the form of communication, we constantly and regularly evaluate our campaigns to ensure effectiveness and value for money.
Spend by DESNZ (including spend as BEIS) on broadcast radio in the last five years totalled £3,717,221, as provided by the contracted media buying agency, MGOMD. This excludes spend from cross-channel partnerships.
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology was established in February 2023. Since its creation the Department has spent nothing on radio adverts.
Proportionate analysis for the impact assessment for the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill was undertaken using existing analytical resources within government. This process was led by the Brexit Opportunities Unit, supported by analysts across Whitehall. The cost to the public purse was therefore absorbed within existing departmental resource limits.
The Civil Servants working on the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill were drawn from existing resources within the government in the Brexit Opportunities Unit. The cost to the public purse was therefore absorbed within existing departmental resource limits.
As of 19 December 2022, the Brexit Opportunities Unit had 18 civil servants working on the Bill.
The total number of civil servants will expand or reduce to accommodate the requirements of the Retained EU Law Bill work programme.
On 1 April 2023, the Government will increase the National Living Wage (NLW) for workers aged 23 years and over by 9.7% to £10.42. This keeps the Government on track to achieve its manifesto commitment for the NLW to equal two-thirds of median earnings by 2024. The age threshold is also set to lower to 21+ in 2024. The UK is the first country in the world to set such an ambition. This policy will support the Government’s ambition of ending low pay in the UK.
The Department is supporting the Government’s review into retained EU Law, which provides an authoritative assessment of where retained EU law is concentrated on the statute book and assists the consideration of future legislative requirements.
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy currently has approximately 53 FTE officials working on Retained EU Law (as of 9 September 2022).
The Government runs a number of campaigns across all media channels. The channels selected for government paid marketing campaigns are driven by the target audience. We do not have a breakdown of spend per radio station.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has spent £234,820.52 on radio advertising from 2018 - 2023. This includes the following: £197,039.52 spent in 2018 on the GDPR campaign and £37,781 spent in 2020 on the Broadband Upgrade Fund campaign.
This also includes spending on digital and tech campaigns from 2018 - 2023 when the Department was previously the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and responsible for these sectors.
The Government is focused on making the UK the safest place in the world to be online. To that aim, the Government introduced the Online Safety Bill in March this year and it is continuing its passage through Parliament.
We are firmly committed to international cooperation to promote a safer online environment.
The Department regularly uses local and national radio as part of the behaviour change and public information campaigns used to deliver manifesto commitments and policy objectives, with the aim of reaching a variety of target audiences across England.
Examples of this include helping the Department to recruit school and college teachers, promoting free childcare to parents and increasing the uptake of skills bootcamps to help adults to gain the skills in demand by businesses.
Radio is a powerful channel to reach a variety of audiences including young people, pupils, parents and businesses. However, the Department’s financial records do not record the breakdown of campaign spend between radio, television, digital or other media channels and so records of spend on individual radio stations are not held.
As set out in previous written parliamentary question responses and freedom of information (FOI) requests, over the previous five years, the Department has spent the following, in total, on campaigns including different types of marketing activity, some of which was radio advertising:
To note: * denotes that this information has already been released in a written parliamentary question response or FOI response.
The Government is strongly supportive of the radio sector and recognises the great value that it offers to communities across the UK. Radio plays an important role in our cross channel strategy, with the merits of its use being assessed in relation to this.
Government public information campaigns utilise a wide range of channels to maximise reach and engagement and to ensure our messaging reaches as many people as possible, including radio. The Government runs a number of campaigns across all media channels. The channels selected for government paid marketing campaigns are driven by the target audience.
Evaluating the effectiveness of Government communications is paramount to its success. Therefore, no matter the form of communication, we constantly and regularly evaluate our campaigns to ensure effectiveness and value for money.
Total spend on radio advertising from the department over the past five years is £284,110.16.
Coordinating work related to the proposed Retained EU Law (Reform and Revocation) Bill is spread across several teams in Defra, with cumulative staff time spent on this work amounting to approximately three FTE officials. In addition, Defra policy officials and legal officials are supporting this work as part of their normal business activities.
Our people are drawn from a wide range of backgrounds and have a corresponding range of experience of international trade negotiations, trade remedies and trade defence working on EU trade negotiations such as Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) and multilateral agreements in the WTO.
To build the trade policy and negotiating experience in the Department for International Trade (DIT), over the 24 months to end-March 2020, around 350 places will have been taken by people in DIT on Expert Level training in technical areas of trade policy and around a further 350 places taken on Expert Level Free Trade Agreement negotiations training.
The Department has a strong core of trade policy officials which has grown significantly since July 2016 (from 45 to approximately 575 currently) and is continuing to grow. Trade Policy Group is also supported by around 70 lawyers and 90 analysts.
The number of negotiators and the training they require is dependent on how many trade agreements are ongoing at any given time, the specific chapters in that negotiation and the complexity of that chapter. Negotiating teams will differ in sizes, with expertise relevant to the specific chapters of sectors.
We are working with countries across the world to develop our current trade relationships and ensure that Britain becomes a global free trade leader once we leave the EU.
Working groups are one means of engagement with our trading partners. Others include informal contact through our network of Posts, discussions with embassies in London, ministerial discussions and visits, the Prime Minister’s Trade Envoys, and HM Trade Commissioners.
In addition to the ongoing engagement in the Trade Agreement Continuity Programme, we have established Working Groups with the USA, Australia, New Zealand, China, India, Japan and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), comprising Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE.
Department for Transport radio media spend for the last four years is £1,257,362. Equivalent radio media spend data for 2018/19 is not available without incurring disproportionate costs.
FY | Client Cost |
2019/20 | £ 89,020.00 |
2020/21 | £ 383,164.00 |
2021/22 | £ 495,495.00 |
2022/23 | £ 289,683.00 |
| £ 1,257,362.00 |
Most of the above spend has been on the THINK! road safety campaigns, covering for example mobile phones, speed and the Highway Code in recent years.
The Government is strongly supportive of the radio sector and recognises the great value that it offers to communities across the UK. Radio plays an important role in our cross channel strategy, with the merits of its use being assessed in relation to this.
Government public information campaigns utilise a wide range of channels to maximise reach and engagement and to ensure our messaging reaches as many people as possible.
Given the size of the ask - five years of individual spend lines across a large number of radio stations – we have instead provided an aggregate total across all years and campaigns.
Fiscal year | Spend |
2018-2019 | £ 669,000 |
2019-2020 | £ 466,000 |
2020-2021 | £2,700,000 |
2021-2022 | £2,500,000 |
2022-2023 | £1,700,000 |
All staff in UK | 2018-19 | 2019-20 | 2020-21 | |||
Headcount | Average Salary | Headcount | Average Salary | Headcount | Average Salary | |
Full time | 54,526 | £25,025 | 50,558 | £26,051 | 62,467 | £28,537 |
A/AA | 211 | £18,245 | 201 | £19,080 | 146 | £20,410 |
B/AO | 18,520 | £18,328 | 16,480 | £18,532 | 17,518 | £21,330 |
C/EO | 25,113 | £25,278 | 23,484 | £26,110 | 33,962 | £28,266 |
D/HEO | 5,905 | £30,045 | 5,499 | £31,028 | 5,630 | £33,576 |
E/SEO | 2,302 | £33,662 | 2,287 | £35,290 | 2,457 | £37,894 |
F/G7 | 1,604 | £47,105 | 1,687 | £48,954 | 1,791 | £52,760 |
G/G6 | 649 | £58,652 | 703 | £61,384 | 727 | £66,323 |
SCS | 222 | £80,599 | 217 | £81,203 | 236 | £89,722 |
Part time | 35,784 | £32,771 | 35,921 | £33,844 | 34,897 | £36,970 |
A/AA | 244 | £26,871 | 240 | £28,100 | 170 | £30,440 |
B/AO | 16,359 | £27,581 | 15,980 | £28,214 | 14,216 | £30,968 |
C/EO | 16,181 | £35,464 | 16,574 | £36,469 | 17,396 | £39,032 |
D/HEO | 1,980 | £39,156 | 2,014 | £40,812 | 2,003 | £44,113 |
E/SEO | 567 | £44,484 | 613 | £46,301 | 607 | £51,364 |
F/G7 | 319 | £64,208 | 342 | £66,089 | 351 | £71,790 |
G/G6 | 106 | £82,589 | 131 | £83,253 | 124 | £89,786 |
SCS | 28 | £83,883 | 27 | £106,740 | 30 | £108,552 |
Total | 90,310 | £27,479 | 86,479 | £28,651 | 97,364 | £30,912 |
Scotland Staff | 2018-19 | 2019-20 | 2020-21 | |||
Headcount | Average Salary | Headcount | Average Salary | Headcount | Average Salary | |
Full time | 5,874 | £22,299 | 5,292 | £23,098 | 5,730 | £25,703 |
A/AA | 10 | £18,592 | 9 | £19,435 | 8 | £20,147 |
B/AO | 2,594 | £17,935 | 2,297 | £18,332 | 2,212 | £20,859 |
C/EO | 2,631 | £24,473 | 2,404 | £25,378 | 2,953 | £27,489 |
D/HEO | 469 | £28,911 | 426 | £29,655 | 410 | £32,641 |
E/SEO | 105 | £29,454 | 97 | £34,232 | 91 | £36,521 |
F/G7 | 46 | £43,301 | 40 | £47,130 | 41 | £49,725 |
G/G6 | 13 | £59,237 | 14 | £47,667 | 10 | £61,966 |
SCS | 6 | £78,900 | 5 | £87,429 | 5 | £87,279 |
Part time | 3,881 | £31,038 | 3,887 | £31,857 | 3,654 | £35,132 |
A/AA | 13 | £25,326 | 13 | £24,757 | 10 | £27,150 |
B/AO | 2,017 | £26,535 | 1,989 | £27,231 | 1,799 | £30,116 |
C/EO | 1,666 | £35,144 | 1,701 | £35,744 | 1,675 | £39,027 |
D/HEO | 149 | £39,041 | 143 | £42,450 | 133 | £46,753 |
E/SEO | 25 | £45,948 | 30 | £47,495 | 29 | £51,937 |
F/G7 | 8 | £68,956 | 9 | £65,451 | 6 | £75,359 |
G/G6 | 3 | £63,353 | 2 | £85,743 | 2 | £87,887 |
Total | 9,755 | £25,064 | 9,179 | £26,070 | 9,384 | £28,594 |
Staffing figure includes all staff during each year, both Paid & unpaid, and all leavers.
Full time staff are all those with an FTE of 1.0, Part time staff are all those with less than 1.0 FTE.
The average salaries are derived from the actual salaries held.
No additional full time staffing resource has been required to work on retained EU law legislation. At present, approximately ten DWP officials are working on the retained EU law belonging to DWP in much the same way as they would be reviewing and amending other DWP owned legislation. This work is in addition to their other duties.
The Department spent £6,755,238 on radio adverts in the last five years. The following table shows the amount of digital and broadcast radio costs in the last five years.
| 2018/19 | 2019/20 | 2020/21 | 2021/22 | 2022/23 |
Broadcast | £248,447.00 | £876,545.00 | £1,124,992.00 | £1,603,870.00 | £1,083,520.00 |
Digital | £104,170.00 | £193,561.00 | £297,731.00 | £682,033.00 | £540,369.00 |
TOTAL | £352,617.00 | £1,070,106.00 | £1,422,723.00 | £2,285,903.00 | £1,623,889.00 |
From 1 October 2021 these costs also include spend for public health campaigns delivered by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, previously Public Health England (PHE). Prior to 1 October 2021, PHE was responsible for delivery of some health marketing campaigns. The Department does not hold data for PHE.
Currently there are two full-time officials working solely on the proposed Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill. They are supported by policy advice from a further 32 officials in the Department.
The FCDO has not funded radio campaigns to run in the UK in the last 5 years. Information on any radio campaigns conducted by our overseas network is not readily available and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
HM Treasury has not incurred expenditure on radio adverts in the last five years. HM Treasury’s expenditure on advertising, marketing and communications is published in the Department’s transparency reporting returns- HM Treasury exceptions to cross government moratoria on spending - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Analysis of DEL underspends since 2010 are provided below for total central government (departments and devolved administrations) and for the Scottish government only. Note that these underspends represent the funding that departments return to the Exchequer after accounting for carry forward under Budget Exchange rules (as departmental Budget Exchange carry forward is processed at Supplementary Estimates based on forecasts), whereas the figures for the Scottish Government are before carry forward as this is processed for the devolved administrations using outturn information. The figures are not therefore directly comparable.
Data for this analysis are taken from recent editions of the Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses (PESA) command paper using tables in chapter three.
*RDEL | CDEL | ||||
| Total Government Underspend as % final provision | Scottish Government underspend as % final provision | Total Government Underspend as % final provision | Scottish Government underspend as % final provision | |
2010-11 | -1.1% | -0.4% | -2.4% | -0.1% | |
2011-12 | -1.7% | -0.5% | -3.8% | -1.1% | |
2012-13 | -1.6% | -0.6% | -4.4% | -1.0% | |
2013-14 | -0.7% | -0.6% | -2.5% | -1.1% | |
2014-15 | -0.6% | -0.6% | -5.5% | -10.1% | |
2015-16 | -0.3% | -0.3% | -3.2% | -2.5% | |
2016-17 | -0.8% | -0.5% | -3.8% | -2.8% | |
2017-18 | -0.8% | -2.1% | -4.6% | -0.2% | |
2018-19 | -0.9% | -2.1% | -4.3% | -3.5% | |
2019-20 | 0.3% | -1.3% | -3.2% | -2.4% | |
2020-21 | -5.1% | -0.9% | -6.4% | -4.1% | |
2021-22 | -2.9% | -1.9% | -5.6% | -7.5% | |
*For 2010-11 and 2011-12 figures presented are RDEL. From 2012-13 onwards | |||||
presented as RDEL excluding depreciation. |
We can confirm that HM Treasury does not hold information within the scope of your request.
HMT holds a large body of Retained EU Law (REUL), primarily in relation to Financial Services. A number of officials from across HMT work on REUL legislation. This work is carried out as part of officials’ normal business activities, and we do not record the amount of staff time spent specifically on this work.
We do not hold the detailed breakdown of cost on advertising for each radio station due to the way the media inventory is bought from suppliers via our media agency.
The operating costs for British overseas military bases, without personnel costs are detailed below:
Financial Year | 2020-21 million | 2019-20 million | 2018-19 million |
Total | 171.710 | 169.431 | 157.920 |
A full breakdown of spend on research contracts by region is not centrally held and could only be provided at disproportionate cost. However, I am able to provide details of payments for financial year 2021-22 to suppliers for research contracted out to industry and academia by the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory. It should be noted that the regional analysis is based on office or billing address only and some of the work will have been subcontracted by the supplier.
Payments £ (to the nearest thousand) | |
Northern Ireland | 290,000 |
Scotland | 5,744,000 |
North East England | 972,000 |
North West England | 5,549,000 |
Yorkshire and the Humber | 2,959,000 |
East Midlands | 4,455,000 |
West Midlands | 8,188,000 |
East of England | 41,501,000 |
London | 14,516,000 |
South East | 164,209,000 |
South West | 38,520,000 |
Wales | 6,721,000 |
Total | 293,624,000 |
Rest of World | 9,857,000 |
Total 303,481,000 |
Details of departmental spending are published on gov.uk and government contracts on Contracts Finder. Spend cannot be broken down by individual radio stations in the time provided.
In the financial year 2018-19, Ministers made five official representations abroad in their ministerial capacity. These representations were to Iceland, the United States of America, New Zealand, Uruguay and Chile. The cost of these was £17,807.66.
In the financial year 2019-20, Ministers made one official representation abroad in their ministerial capacity. This representation was to Hungary. The cost of this was £240.68.
In the financial year 2021-22, Ministers made three official representations abroad in their ministerial capacity. These representations were to India, Finland and Norway. The cost of these was £2,383.93.
Further details on the purpose and details of these visits are available in the Ministerial transparency returns, which are published on https://www.gov.uk/search/transparency-and-freedom-of-information-releases?organisations%5B%5D=office-of-the-secretary-of-state-for-scotland&parent=office-of-the-secretary-of-state-for-scotland.
The Spending Review Settlement agreed with HM Treasury voted the Scotland Office and Office of the Advocate General a Resource DEL provision (excluding depreciation) of £13.4m for 2022-23 and £13.7m for 2023-24. This calculation was based on a staffing structure across both offices of 137 in 2022-23 and 135 in 2023-24.
The Secretary of State for Scotland visited Uruguay and Chile on an official trade representation in September 2018.
Across the financial years 2018-19, 2019–20 and 2021–2022, Ministers from the Scotland Office visited Iceland, the United States of America, New Zealand, India, Finland and Norway to promote trade with Scotland.
Further details on the purpose and details of these visits are available in the Ministerial transparency returns, which are published on:
The running costs of the Office of the Secretary of State for Scotland and Advocate-General for Scotland in each year between 2015–2022, broken down by (a) staff costs, (b) maintenance, (c) travel costs and (d) other expenditure are shown below:
Financial Year | Staff Costs | Maintenance (Accommodation Costs) | Travel Costs | Other Expenditure |
| £000 | £000 | £000 | £000 |
2015-16 | £5,926 | £1,585 | £587 | £633 |
2016-17 | £6,821 | £1,293 | £628 | £1,051 |
2017-18 | £6,204 | £1,620 | £546 | £950 |
2018-19 | £6,838 | £1,360 | £643 | £773 |
2019-20 | £7,611 | £1,591 | £752 | £1,452 |
2020-21 | £7,806 | £3,405 | £119 | £832 |
2021-22 | £8,479 | £1,865 | £297 | £564 |
Officials in my Department support the UK Government's legislative programme across all legislation, including on the development of legislation reforming retained EU law, but there is not a specific FTE allocation of time against individual bills.
I discuss the benefits of boosting the competitiveness of the UK economy whilst maintaining high standards, including by reforming retained EU law, with my Cabinet colleagues on a regular basis.