Select Committee · Public Accounts Committee

Work of the Department for Business and Trade

Status: Closed Opened: 26 Mar 2025 Closed: 21 Aug 2025 12 recommendations 63 conclusions 2 reports

The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) was created in February 2023, bringing together relevant parts of the former Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and the former Department for International Trade (DIT). 2023-24 is the new Department’s first year of accounts. Notable values for investments and liabilities in the accounts include £6.4bn …

Reports

2 reports

Title	HC No.	Published	Items	Response
34th Report - Department for Business and Trade Annual Repo…	HC 818	25 Jun 2025	47	Responded
33rd Report - Supporting the UK’s priority industry sectors	HC 1070	25 Jun 2025	28	Responded

Recommendations & Conclusions

1 item

11 Recommendation 34th Report - Department for Business a… Accepted in Part

Lack of follow-up letters to unapplied Horizon Shortfall Scheme claimants raises settlement delay concerns.

We were concerned about the potential for further delay of settlements if letters which had not yet received a reply were not being followed up. We therefore asked the Department whether any chasing up of letters had occurred where no response had been received.19 The Department explained that it did …

Government response. The government agrees with the committee's concern regarding follow-up letters for HSS. While not explicitly confirming the consultation with the Advisory Board, it commits to finalizing letters for remaining HSS claimants by September 2025 and will write to unregistered HCRS …

HM Treasury

Oral evidence sessions

1 session

Date	Witnesses
7 Apr 2025	Carl Creswell · Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, David Bickerton · Department for Business and Trade, Gareth Davies · Department for Transport, Gareth Davies · Department for Business and Trade, Jaee Samant CBE · Department for Business and Trade, Sean Jones · HM Treasury, Tara Smith · Department for Business and Trade	View ↗

Correspondence

3 letters

Date	Direction	Title
8 May 2025	To cttee	Letter from the Permanent Secretary of the Department for Business and Trade re…
28 Apr 2025	To cttee	Letter from the Permanent Secretary of the Department for Business and Trade re…
24 Apr 2025	From cttee	Letter to the Permanent Secretary of the Department for Business and Trade rela…