Written questions by Holden.

What assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of (a) lowering the required member percentage from 10% to 2% for the statutory trade union recognition ballot process, (b) removing the likely majority support at the application stage and (c) removing the 40% support threshold at the recognition ballot stage on the number of recognised trade unions.

The Government has published a final stage impact assessment on strengthening workers’ rights to access, recognition and representation. This is available at: Impact assessment: Strengthening workers’ rights to trade union access, recognition and representation

What information (a) his Department, (b) the Certification Officer and (c) the Central Arbitration Committee hold on (i) successful and (ii) unsuccessful trade union recognition ballots in each of the last ten years.

Information from the Central Arbitration Committee in relation to the outcome of statutory trade union recognition ballots is provided below for each of the last 10 years: SuccessfulUnsuccessful201544201651201754201876201962202020202184202251202335202445

How much funding her Department has provided to help support small and medium-sized enterprises to export in each of the last 15 years; and how much funding his Department has made available for this purpose in the 2024-25 financial year.

Given changes within the department and across government over the last 15 years further information on export specific funding cannot be provided without breaching the disproportionate cost limit.The cost of support for SMEs to export over the previous 7 years is 2018/19 at £47.1m, 2019/20 £45.9m, 2020/21 £45.0m, 2021/22 £45.6m, 2022/23 £49.3m, 2023/24 £44.2m and 2024/25 £31.8m. This includes funding for grant programmes that have now concluded such as the Tradeshow Access Programme, UK Tradeshow Programme, Overseas Business Network initiative, and Internationalisation Fund.

If he will make an assessment of the potential impact of the Employment Rights Bill on the ability of employers to contact a (a) full-time and (b) part-time employee outside of their (i) normal and (ii) condensed working hours.

The right to switch off is not part of the Employment Rights Bill. It will be delivered through a statutory Code of Practice which will be the subject of a full public consultation in due course. The consultation will give interested parties the opportunity to comment on the specifics of the code and its approach to tackling work or work-related contact outside normal working hours. The responses will inform the final content of the Code.

What recent guidance his Department has provided on when Departments should publish a regulatory impact assessment when bringing forward a Bill to Parliament.

The general requirement for departments to make available the final impact assessment of a government bill introduced to Parliament is set out in the Guide to Making Legislation, published by the Cabinet Office, and affirmed in the Better Regulation Framework Guidance, published by the Department for Business and Trade.