Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will publish the (a) independent business reviews and (b) related diligence reports provided to his Department by PriceWaterhouseCoopers between 31 December 2020 and 30 September 2021 under the terms of contract reference CCCC20B72, specifying the (i) subject of each review or report and (ii) the date of its submission to his Department.

Unfortunately, we are unable to publish the work produced by PriceWaterhouseCoopers. Government departments including the Treasury routinely engage private sector consultancy firms as part of our policy development work, including to help us to deepen our understanding and expertise about different sectors and of the economy as a whole. Disclosure of this information would prejudice the ability to have free and frank exchanges of views on policymaking and would prejudice the effective conduct of public affairs and is therefore not appropriate.

The work in question may also contain commercially sensitive information about sectors or companies and disclosing this would be likely to prejudice commercial interests.