Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wilson of Sedgefield, for introducing the regulations. I have a couple of questions. He said that there are 100 companies. Is the number going up or down each year? I imagine that the number of companies will probably reduce. It would be helpful to know if, for example, over the coming year, there will still be 100 companies performing this task. I would like to focus on the calculations that the Government have used to reach the rate. It seems to be quite a large increase when the original rates were in place for only one year from 2 July 2025. Even though my maths is not great, I have done a calculation on my calculator, and in each case, the increases are well over 10%. I would like to understand the basis on which that sizeable increase has been introduced, and I would like an undertaking from the department that this will not be replicated in future years. It seems very harsh on the affected companies that they will have to find this additional resource when clearly they have been paying a lower figure in the past year. I would like to understand why there has been a more than 10% increase in the hourly rate for both specialists and non-specialists and an undertaking that this will not happen in future years. I am slightly baffled by paragraph 5.4 of the Explanatory Memorandum, which states that: “The hourly rates have been calculated by taking these costs”, which it outlines in the paragraph, and dividing them by what seems to be an arbitrary number— “1,243 hours (for each staff member). The figure of 1,243 represents the average number of hours per annum spent on potentially cost recoverable activities and removes the hours spent on leave, bank holidays, staff management, etc”. Of course, there are probably the same number of bank holidays across the UK, but they are different in Scotland, England and other parts of the UK. I am having great difficulty understanding the basis on which that calculation has been made, and I would like to understand how that calculation was reached. With those few remarks, I look forward to the noble Lord’s reply.