Written questions by Tice.

How many staff in her Department are responsible for (a) processing and (b) responding to Freedom of Information Act requests; and if she will make an estimate of the annual cost to the public purse of this work.

Answering requests under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 is part of the day-to-day work of all the department’s officials. The costs of officials’ time are not held in such a way that time spent on processing and responding to Freedom of Information requests can be estimated.

Food and Rural Affairs, how many staff in his Department are responsible for (a) processing and (b) responding to Freedom of Information Act requests; and if he will make an estimate of the annual cost to the public purse of this work.

Each team within the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) that holds information relevant to a request is responsible for providing responses in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIRs). These teams receive guidance on the application of the legislation from Defra’s Information Rights Team, which is responsible for processing such requests. The Information Rights Team consists of six staff members. Defra does not maintain a cost accounting system to track staff time spent responding to information requests; therefore, no annual cost figure is available.

How many staff in his Department are responsible for (a) processing and (b) responding to Freedom of Information Act requests; and if he will make an estimate of the annual cost to the public purse of this work.

The Department has a central team with a headcount of 13.8 full-time equivalent (FTE) staff who are responsible for managing Freedom of Information (FOI) requests and related appeals work. FOIs can be requested for any part of the Department's work. As such, various members of staff in the Department may at some point be involved with responding to an FOI request.Most of these staff will carry out such work as part of their overall responsibilities. As such it is not feasible to determine, for the purposes of answering this question, precisely how many staff are responsible for processing and responding to FOI requests across the entire Department, or to provide estimates of the resulting costs.Information on FOI volume and performance by department is published by the Cabinet Office, and is available at the following link:https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/government-foi-statistics

How many staff in her Department are responsible for (a) processing and (b) responding to Freedom of Information Act requests; and if she will make an estimate of the annual cost to the public purse of this work.

The Home Office has a central team consisting of 13.7 FTEs managing FOI requests and related appeals work. The annual salaries paid to this group of staff were approximately £663K in the year ending September 2024.To determine precisely how many staff are responsible for processing and responding to FOI requests across the entire department and to provide an estimate of the resulting costs, is not feasible for the purposes of answering this question, in particular because the majority of these staff will carry out such work as part of their overall responsibilities.However, if we consider that the Home Office dealt with 6115 resolvable FOI requests in the year ending September 2024 (the most recent data available) and that each resolvable request cost a maximum of £600 to process (the current FOI cost limit), then we can conclude that the cost of processing FOI requests over that twelve month period was a maximum of £3,669,000.

What plans he has for the future of Torbay Hospital.

My rt. Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, set out a credible and deliverable plan for the new hospital schemes in the New Hospital Programme (NHP) on 20 January 2025, following the conclusion of the review of the NHP. The Plan for Implementation is available at the following link:https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/new-hospital-programme-review-outcome/new-hospital-programme-plan-for-implementationAs confirmed in this publication, the scheme for Torbay Hospital is now part of Wave 2 of the NHP. Pre-construction activity, namely business case development and critical enabling works, is expected to continue from 2030, and construction of the main hospital build to commence between 2032 and 2034.

If she will take steps to (a) support the private education sector and (b) encourage its expansion (i) domestically and (ii) internationally.

The department encourages private schools to be high quality and is seeking to further improve regulation of the sector through measures outlined in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. Amongst other things, the Bill seeks to ensure that all pupils receive both a safe and suitable education and to strengthen and improve the regulatory regime for private schools.Capacity to expand domestically, within individual school settings, is a matter for private schools themselves. Where they do wish to expand, the department seeks to effectively consider the required material change application. Measures in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will make these requirements clearer.The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) provides support for UK private schools that wish to expand internationally. They do this in a number of ways by:Arranging outward missions with delegations of UK schools, an example of which is one that went to Vietnam and resulted in the signing of agreements with six UK schools to open campuses in that country, one alone which was for seven campuses.Involving them with inward delegations from overseas and other events.DBT has a dedicated schools specialist embedded within its International Education team who works closely with UK private schools.Supporting UK school expansion overseas is a major strand of the education sector wide International Education Strategy (IES). This strategy is currently being reviewed and will be refreshed, taking into account DBT’s discussions with the whole education sector, including those with UK private schools and their membership organisations.The department works positively with DBT to help them engage with private schools where appropriate.

How many former armed forces personnel have been subject to enforcement proceedings by the Child Maintenance Service since 2021.

The information requested is not available, as the Child Maintenance Service do not maintain a historical record of employers for each paying parent.

What the costs to the Child Maintenance Service are of the (a) supervision and (b) processing of (i) Direct Pay and (ii) Collect and Pay arrangements.

The cost of running the Child Maintenance Service is not separated between a) supervision and (b) processing of (i) Direct Pay and (ii) Collect and Pay arrangements, therefore, the information requested is not held.

How many paying parents party to a child maintenance agreement are assessed to have an income of less than £12,570 per year; how many paying parents are in receipt of universal credit; and how many paying parents are estimated to be earning less than the receiving parent.

At the end of September 2024, there were 289,000 Paying Parents using the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) with a recorded income of less than £12,570 per year. This is 43% of all Paying Parents for whom we held income information. Information on the number of Paying Parents claiming Universal Credit is published quarterly on StatXplore, as part of the ‘CMS Paying Parents’ dataset. Information on Universal Credit claims is generally not available for the latest published quarter, therefore the most recent information available relates to the end of June 2024 (rather than September 2024, as for most other information in this dataset). At this time, 199,000 Paying Parents claimed Universal Credit. This is 29% of all 675,000 Paying Parents who were using CMS at this time. The income of the Receiving Parent does not factor into the CMS maintenance calculation, and so this information is not collected by CMS. Therefore, the information requested in the third part of your question is not readily available (and to produce it would incur disproportionate cost). However, you may be interested in the latest Separated Families Statistics, which contain some information, derived from survey data, of the position of ‘non-resident parent’ and ‘parent with care’ households within the Great Britain income distribution. See in particular section 6 of the release document. These statistics include all separated families and are not specific to CMS users.

What private sector companies the Child Maintenance Service has contracted to implement enforcement proceedings; what the value of each contract is; whether funds paid by parents are paid to such companies; and what accountability mechanisms are in place.

DWP holds a number of contracts to support Child Maintenance Service enforcement proceedings. Qualco UK Ltd – Managed Enforcement Agency Services – contract award forecast value £686,750. Shakespeare Martineau LLP - Orders for Sale Litigation Services – contract award forecast value £566,171. A further contract is in place for Arrest Warrant Services for the Child Maintenance Service, details of which are due to be published by 5 February 2025. Harper MacLeod LLP – Scottish Legal Services – contract award forecast value £4,982,547. Contract held by Office for Advocate General and accessed by DWP for services. The suppliers collect funds on behalf of the Child Maintenance Service with the exception of contract for Scottish Legal Services which is in place to enable CMS to recover debt under Scottish Law. All contracts are based on government contracting and industry good practice to support the delivery of services for DWP. This includes meeting standards and regularly reviewed performance alongside compliance against relevant legislation.

How many separated families applied to the Child Maintenance Service for advice on creating a family-based arrangement from 2021 to 2024; and how many parents who approached the Service did not proceed with a (a) Direct Pay and (b)Collect and Pay agreement in each of those years.

The information requested is not available. However, the Get Help Arranging Child Maintenance (GHACM) service opened on 18 November 2021 and provides individuals with information about options available for paying or getting support for a child, this includes how to make a private arrangement or how to apply to the Child Maintenance Service, if they choose to do so. There were 34,796 users who accessed GHACM and elected to pursue a private family-based arrangement. This accounted for 11% of GHACM users between 18 November 2021 and 31 December 2024.

If she will increase police funding in Boston and Skegness constituency.

In December 2024 the Government published the 2025-26 provisional police funding settlement, which proposed funding of up to £19.5 billion for the policing system in England and Wales. This is an overall increase of up to £1 billion when compared to 2024-25 and equates to a 3% real terms increase in funding.In 2025-26, Lincolnshire Police will receive up to £173.2 million, an increase of up to £9.0 million compared to 2024-25.

What steps his Department is taking to ensure that people who received grants for heat source pumps under (a) the Green Homes Grant and (b) similar schemes are supported when systems prove unfit for purpose and the installation company goes into liquidation.

The Green Homes Grant Voucher Scheme required that consumers seek advice from a suitably qualified TrustMark registered installer before they applied for a voucher. It also required that installations meet Publicly Available Standard (PAS) 2035. If a homeowner believes that any installation work carried out in their home under a Government scheme is faulty, they should first contact the installer. Where the installer has failed to adequately resolve the issue or have ceased trading, they may refer to TrustMark’s website which contains further guidance on steps consumers can take if things go wrong and the dispute resolution process: (https://www.trustmark.org.uk/homeowner/support/complaints-process).

Innovation and Technology, what steps he is taking to help improve mobile phone signal coverage in rural areas of Boston and Skegness constituency; and what plans he has to ensure that (a) residents and (b) businesses in those areas receive reliable mobile connectivity.

I have raised my concerns about the reporting of mobile connectivity with Ofcom, but according to Ofcom’s Connected Nations report (published on 5 December 2024) 99% of the Boston and Skegness constituency has 4G geographic coverage from all four mobile operators, and that 5G is available from at least one operator outside 99% of all premises.The Government wants all areas of the UK, including Boston and Skegness constituency, to benefit from good quality mobile coverage. Our ambition is for all populated areas to have higher-quality standalone 5G by 2030.We work closely with the mobile industry and are committed to ensuring we have the right policy and regulatory framework to support investment and competition in the market

What the annual subsidy is for renewable energy projects; and what the average increase in consumer energy bills was in each of the last five years.

This data is published by the Office for Budgetary Responsibility and Ofgem. Renewables provide energy security by reducing our exposure to gas price volatility, as well as providing significant savings for those households and businesses directly benefitting from small-scale renewable measures, such as solar panels.

How much his Department has spent on measures to achieve net zero targets in the last five years.

In the last five years, the Department has not provided ringfenced capital for the National Health Service’s Net Zero targets.Direct investment in the decarbonisation of NHS buildings and operations is primarily supported by external grant funding. For example, NHS trusts have secured over £1.2 billion for heat-decarbonisation projects under the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero’s Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme since 2020.The Department works with NHS England to ensure that NHS national programmes and day-to-day capital budgets support decarbonisation objectives where appropriate.We have also previously provided capital to improve trusts’ energy efficiency, with associated benefits for carbon reduction. For instance, in 2023/24 we worked with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to invest £40 million in NHS light emitting diode lighting and solar projects through the NHS National Energy Efficiency Fund. The substantial savings from such investments can be directed into frontline services.

How much his Department has spent on measures to achieve net zero targets in the last five years.

The Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) published its analysis of the cost of reaching net zero by 2050 in chapter 3 of the July 2021 edition of its UK Fiscal Risk Report. As the OBR has noted, “the costs of failing to get climate change under control would be much larger than those of bringing emissions down to net zero.” Spending Review 2021 set out £26 billion of public capital investment in net zero over four years across Government.

If he will make an estimate of the annual cost of regulatory compliance for businesses in each of the last five years; and if she will make a comparative estimate of the cost of regulatory compliance (a) in the UK and (b) across the G7.

The Business Impact Target, which was repealed by the previous government through the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act, was the principal mechanism through which government made an estimate of the total annual cost of regulation to business. In its place, the reformed Better Regulation Framework encourages an earlier and more thorough assessment of impacts of individual regulatory proposals. This government will use the framework to ensure that new regulations achieve their objectives, with the lowest possible cost to businesses and households.

How many and what proportion of migrants that have been granted (a) asylum and (b) leave to remain in the last five years are receiving Universal Credit; and what estimate she has made of the projected expenditure for these claimants over the next five years.

The Department is exploring the feasibility of developing suitable Official Statistics related to the immigration status of non-UK/ Irish Universal Credit customers. The Department will ensure that this work is done in line with the Code of Practice for Statistics. The Department has not made a projection of Universal Credit spend on the migrant groups requested. The Department’s published forecast of Universal Credit expenditure at Autumn Budget 2024 can be found here.

What the total expenditure was on achieving net zero targets in each year since 2015 by sector; and what the corresponding estimated total reduction in global emissions was in the same period.

The Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) published its analysis of the cost of reaching net zero by 2050 in chapter 3 of the July 2021 edition of its UK Fiscal Risk Report. As the OBR has noted, “the costs of failing to get climate change under control would be much larger than those of bringing emissions down to net zero.