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1582272

registered interest
date	31/01/2023
answering body	Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
answering dept id	201
answering dept short name	Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
answering dept sort name	Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
hansard heading	Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy: Conditions of Employment
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if they will take steps to (a) publish an equality impact assessment and (b) consult with trade unions when proposing new HR policies for their Department; and if they will make a statement.
tabling member constituency	Glasgow South West
tabling member printed	Chris Stephens
uin	136649
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 07/02/2023 answer text <p>The BEIS HR Directorate carries out equality impact assessments in line with the Public Sector Equality Duty when developing new internal departmental HR policies. BEIS does not routinely publish the equality impact assessments for new internal departmental HR policies, however, they are shared with the departmental trade unions, staff networks, and employees more broadly, upon request.</p><p> </p><p>The BEIS HR Directorate consults with the departmental trade unions when proposing new internal HR policies for the Department.</p> answering member constituency Thirsk and Malton answering member printed Kevin Hollinrake question first answered 07/02/2023 15:37:46 answering member 4474 label Biography information for Kevin Hollinrake
tabling member	4463 label Biography information for Chris Stephens

1581905

registered interest
date	30/01/2023
answering body	Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
answering dept id	201
answering dept short name	Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
answering dept sort name	Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
hansard heading	Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy: Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps their Department takes to comply with section 181 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992; and if they will make a statement.
tabling member constituency	Glasgow South West
tabling member printed	Chris Stephens
uin	135305
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 07/02/2023 answer text <p>The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) provides specific Human Resources data/information to Departmental Trades Union Side (DTUS), on request, in line with our obligations under section 181 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992. Furthermore, BEIS publishes a range of information about the operation of the Department, which is available on GOV.UK and so is publicly accessible.</p><p> </p><p>In addition, BEIS meets regularly with the DTUS, presenting and sharing a range of management information as part of normal engagement on a spectrum of issues. Information and data are supplied where it is appropriate and in line with privacy statements. This helps inform decision making through formal negotiation and meaningful consultation and engagement. BEIS always seeks to work constructively with trade unions to reach fair and reasonable settlements.</p> answering member constituency Thirsk and Malton answering member printed Kevin Hollinrake question first answered 07/02/2023 15:07:55 answering member 4474 label Biography information for Kevin Hollinrake
tabling member	4463 label Biography information for Chris Stephens

1581279

registered interest
date	26/01/2023
answering body	Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
answering dept id	201
answering dept short name	Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
answering dept sort name	Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
hansard heading	Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy: Equality
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he is taking to ensure his Department complies with section 2.1.6 of the Civil Service Management Code; and whether that monitoring data gathered is shared with union representatives.
tabling member constituency	Glasgow South West
tabling member printed	Chris Stephens
uin	133727
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 02/02/2023 answer text <p>We have made good progress in recent years in diversifying the Civil Service. The percentage of civil servants from an ethnic minority background is at 15.0% and the percentage of those who declare themselves disabled is at 14.0%. Staff who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or other (LGBO) is 6.1% and the proportion of female civil servants stands at 54.5%. These rates are all at their highest recorded levels. However, we know there is still progress to be made in ensuring we are representative of the citizens we serve across all our grades.</p><p>The new Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy 2022-2025 recognises our success and builds on this good work to encourage a broader range of people into the Civil Service to give depth to our understanding of contemporary society in the United Kingdom. It provides the necessary framing for diversity and inclusion activity in the Civil Service as part of our wider workforce strategy, and through that, how the Civil Service delivers for its people, the Government and our citizens. A link to the Civil Service statistics can be found here: <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/civil-service-statistics" target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/civil-service-statistics</a>.</p><p>BEIS routinely collects a wide variety of data relating to its employees; much of this is published and is publicly available on GOV.UK.</p><p>BEIS Human Resources teams use this data to review the impact of our policies and procedures in line with the Civil Service Code, and other our statutory obligations, and make recommendations for improvements, as necessary. Data is shared with Departmental Trades Union Side (DTUS) as necessary and on request.</p> answering member constituency Thirsk and Malton answering member printed Kevin Hollinrake question first answered 02/02/2023 16:51:59 answering member 4474 label Biography information for Kevin Hollinrake
tabling member	4463 label Biography information for Chris Stephens

1580704

registered interest
date	25/01/2023
answering body	Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
answering dept id	201
answering dept short name	Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
answering dept sort name	Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
hansard heading	Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy: Holiday Leave
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether his Department has notified staff to (a) tell or (b) remind them that they can sell annual leave in the last four months.
tabling member constituency	Glasgow South West
tabling member printed	Chris Stephens
uin	132460
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 02/02/2023 answer text <p>There is no central policy on buying/selling leave; instead, departments may consider introducing this benefit under their own delegated authority.</p><p> </p><p>The Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) recently launched a buy/selling of leave policy for the 2022 annual leave year. The policy was introduced to allow BEIS employees to exercise greater flexibility within their total reward package.</p><p> </p><p>All eligible BEIS staff were informed that they were able to access the benefit portal during a three-week window, to register their request to buy or sell up to 5 days (full time equivalent) annual leave. The three-week window ran from 3<sup>rd</sup> January 2023 to 23<sup>rd</sup> January 2023.</p><p> </p><p>BEIS issued communications via our Intranet platform on the 22<sup>nd</sup> November, the 16<sup>th</sup> December and a final reminder on the 5<sup>th</sup> January 2023.</p> answering member constituency Thirsk and Malton answering member printed Kevin Hollinrake question first answered 02/02/2023 16:48:12 answering member 4474 label Biography information for Kevin Hollinrake
tabling member	4463 label Biography information for Chris Stephens

1579627

registered interest
date	23/01/2023
answering body	Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
answering dept id	201
answering dept short name	Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
answering dept sort name	Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
hansard heading	Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy: Minimum Wage
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many and what proportion of employees in their Department are paid at the rate of the National Minimum Wage.
tabling member constituency	Glasgow South West
tabling member printed	Chris Stephens
uin	129889
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 31/01/2023 answer text <p>This Government is committed to paying people a decent living wage, which is being addressed through the statutory National Living Wage(NLW). In April 2022, the Government increased the National Living Wage to £9.50 per hour. This will rise to £10.42 an hour from 1 April 2023, an increase of 9.7%.</p><p> </p><p>By 2024, the Government has committed that the National Living Wage will reach 66% of median UK earnings.</p><p> </p><p>The National Living Wage is the statutory minimum wage for workers aged 23 and over. Different minimum wage rates apply to 21-22 year olds, 18-20 year olds, 16-17 year olds and apprentices aged under 19 or in the first year of an apprenticeship.</p><p> </p><p>All employees of The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) are paid above the National Living Wage rate.</p> answering member constituency Thirsk and Malton answering member printed Kevin Hollinrake question first answered 31/01/2023 13:54:12 answering member 4474 label Biography information for Kevin Hollinrake
tabling member	4463 label Biography information for Chris Stephens

1569005

registered interest
date	20/01/2023
answering body	Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
answering dept id	201
answering dept short name	Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
answering dept sort name	Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
hansard heading	Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy: Equality
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he is taking to ensure his Department complies with section 2.1.6 of the Civil Service Management Code; and whether that monitoring data gathered is shared with union representatives.
tabling member constituency	Glasgow South West
tabling member printed	Chris Stephens
uin	128651
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 30/01/2023 answer text <p>The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy routinely collects a wide variety of data relating to its employees; much of this is published and is publicly available on GOV.UK. Human Resource teams use this data to review the impact of our policies and procedures in line with the Civil Service Code, and other our statutory obligations, and make recommendations for improvements, as necessary.</p> answering member constituency Thirsk and Malton answering member printed Kevin Hollinrake question first answered 30/01/2023 15:05:18 answering member 4474 label Biography information for Kevin Hollinrake
tabling member	4463 label Biography information for Chris Stephens

1284181

registered interest
date	04/02/2021
answering body	Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
answering dept id	201
answering dept short name	Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
answering dept sort name	Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
hansard heading	Parental Leave
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he has taken to (a) identify the main challenges that new parents face during parental leave and (b) make an assessment of the effect of the covid-19 pandemic on parental leave.
tabling member constituency	Glasgow South West
tabling member printed	Chris Stephens
uin	149262
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 12/02/2021 answer text <p>In 2019 we consulted on high-level options for reforming parental leave and pay. We are also conducting a formal evaluation of the Shared Parental Leave and Pay scheme, including large-scale, representative surveys of employers and parents. Together, these will give us a fuller picture of how well the current system of parental leave and pay is working for parents and employers.</p><p> </p><p>We are currently processing and analysing the data from the research and analysing the information that we have collected through the consultation. We intend to publish our findings later this year.</p><p> </p><p>The Government has also remained in close contact with stakeholders and charities supporting parents throughout the pandemic.</p><p> </p><p>We have taken steps to support new parents by passing emergency legislation which ensures that parents who are furloughed during the period that is used to determine entitlement to Maternity, Adoption and other family-related statutory pay do not lose out. This legislation ensures that entitlement to pay and the rate of pay that parents receive is based on their normal earnings, not their furlough pay.</p><p><strong> </strong></p> answering member constituency Sutton and Cheam answering member printed Paul Scully question first answered 12/02/2021 12:50:33 answering member 4414 label Biography information for Paul Scully
tabling member	4463 label Biography information for Chris Stephens

1249906

registered interest
date	05/11/2020
answering body	Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
answering dept id	201
answering dept short name	Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
answering dept sort name	Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
hansard heading	Deparment for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy: Artificial Intelligence
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what (a) artificial intelligence and (b) machine learning projects are being (i) undertaken and (ii) considered for his Department.
tabling member constituency	Glasgow South West
tabling member printed	Chris Stephens
uin	112077
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 13/11/2020 answer text <p>There are a number of projects currently being undertaken or considered by the Department, in some cases the progression will be dependent on availability of budget from next financial year.</p><p> </p><p>BEIS are exploring AI and machine learning techniques internally to enable more efficient working. Projects are being:</p><p> </p><p>(i) undertaken:</p><ul><li>a proof of concept for the use of virtual assistants to help staff find information regarding corporate policies, whereby the assistant will improve by learning from the enquires responses</li><li>planning a proof of concept using Machine Learning for automatic labelling, setting up retention periods for past and future documents that form the official record.</li></ul><p>(ii) considered:</p><ul><li>the use of AI handling of inbound enquiries into the department to create draft responses and to triage requests to the correct teams.</li></ul><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>BEIS Analysts use machine learning techniques, under the umbrella of artificial intelligence, where appropriate as part of analysis supporting policy development.</p><p> </p><p>Machine Learning projects are being</p><p> </p><p>(i) undertaken:</p><ul><li>identifying the location of industrial strengths</li><li>pilot for targeting communications about business support</li><li>Categorising internal documents by subject<br></li></ul><p>(ii) considered:</p><ul><li>project to understand the labour market through analysing job adverts</li><li>a pilot for organising internal processes</li><li>a pilot for predicting economic impacts using real time indicators</li><li>exploring automatic text generation</li><li>planning to repeat a machine learning exercise on HMRC data to identify high growth potential businesses, to build on the successful ‘DECA pilot’ of 2019. This would underpin further operations in 2021, depending on the outcome of the SR process</li></ul><p> </p><p>BEIS policy teams are exploring the use of Artificial Intelligence. AI projects are being:<br></p><p>(ii) considered:</p><ul><li>by the Better Regulation Executive who are looking to convert the stock of regulatory requirements placed on business into machine readable code and pilot hosting this as open source a metadata set on the ‘Open Regulation Platform’ (ORP), freely available on The National Archives .gov.uk platform. The project is currently in discovery phase to identify all data that government holds on regulatory obligations that could be relevant for this platform. This application is closely related to work that has already been undertaken as part of BEIS GovTech challenge to apply Artificial Intelligence (AI) to understand the cumulative impact of regulation</li></ul> answering member constituency Derby North answering member printed Amanda Solloway question first answered 13/11/2020 14:30:18 answering member 4372 label Biography information for Amanda Solloway
tabling member	4463 label Biography information for Chris Stephens

1170339

registered interest
date	13/01/2020
answering body	Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
answering dept id	201
answering dept short name	Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
answering dept sort name	Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
hansard heading	Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy: Trade Unions
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation has affected the right of recognised unions in her Department to bargaining information in relation to section 181 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992.
tabling member constituency	Glasgow South West
tabling member printed	Chris Stephens
uin	2570
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 21/01/2020 answer text <p>The introduction of General Data Protection Regulation has not affected the right of recognised Trade Unions to bargaining information in accordance with section 181 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992.</p> answering member constituency Stratford-on-Avon answering member printed Nadhim Zahawi question first answered 21/01/2020 16:19:59 answering member 4113 label Biography information for Nadhim Zahawi
tabling member	4463 label Biography information for Chris Stephens

1170340

registered interest
date	13/01/2020
answering body	Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
answering dept id	201
answering dept short name	Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
answering dept sort name	Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
hansard heading	Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy: Pay
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether her Department is compliant with the requirement in section 3.1.8 of the Civil Service Management Code that time off with pay for safety representatives will not be set against facility time allowed under existing arrangements.
tabling member constituency	Glasgow South West
tabling member printed	Chris Stephens
uin	2571
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 20/01/2020 answer text <p>The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is compliant with section 3.1.8 of the Civil Service Management Code - that Health and Safety representatives are entitled to reasonable paid time off to undertake relevant training. Time off for non-industrial staff is not set against the facility time allowed under existing arrangements unless the period of time also discharges a liability under Section 168 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992.</p> answering member constituency Stratford-on-Avon answering member printed Nadhim Zahawi question first answered 20/01/2020 11:39:58 answering member 4113 label Biography information for Nadhim Zahawi
tabling member	4463 label Biography information for Chris Stephens