Written Statements

Monday 8th July 2019 Written Statements

Monday 8 July 2019

ECOFIN

Monday 8th July 2019 Written Statements

[The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr Philip Hammond)]

A meeting of the Economic and Financial Affairs Council (ECOFIN) will be held in Brussels on 9 July 2019. The UK will be represented by Mark Bowman (Director General, International Finance, HM Treasury). The Council will discuss the following:

Early morning session

The Eurogroup President will brief the Council on the outcomes of the 8 July meeting of the Eurogroup, and the European Commission will provide an update on the current economic situation in the EU. Ministers will then discuss potential new sources of revenue for the upcoming multiannual financial framework: the EU’s long-term budget.

Own resources

The Finnish presidency will then give an update to the Council on the potential new sources of revenue for the upcoming multiannual financial framework, following a discussion during the early morning session.

Presidency work programme

The Finnish presidency will present its work programme on economic and financial matters for July to December 2019, followed by an exchange of views.

Appointment of the President of the European Central Bank

The Council will be invited to adopt a Council recommendation on the appointment of Christine Lagarde as the next President of the European Central Bank.

European semester

The Council will be invited to adopt the 2019 country-specific recommendations as part of the European semester process.

Any Other Business

The Dutch Finance Minister will brief Ministers on the topic of aviation taxation and carbon pricing.

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Contingent Liability: Case Telescoped Cannon and Ammunition Contract

Monday 8th July 2019 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Stuart Andrew)]

I am today laying before the House a departmental minute to advise that the Ministry of Defence (MOD) has received approval from Her Majesty’s Treasury to recognise a contingent liability associated with the design authority support for case telescoped cannon and ammunition (CTCA) contract extension.

The departmental minute describes the continued contingent liability that the MOD will incur as a result of signing an amendment to the CTCA contract. This amendment extends the exclusion to the contractor’s liability for indirect and consequential losses until March 2021. Due to the value of the contract it is not acceptable for the industry participants to incur such a risk, the value of which cannot be quantified.

For completeness, in addition to the clause outlined above, the contract contains a limitation of liability against contractor’s personnel at Government establishments and an overall limitation of liability linked to the value of the contract (£4.8 million). After completing a robust risk assessment these have been found not to create any further contingent liabilities.

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Children's Health and Wellbeing in Schools

Monday 8th July 2019 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)]

Today, the Department for Education has published details for its new healthy schools rating scheme. This is one of our key commitments under the Government’s childhood obesity plan, which sets a national ambition to halve childhood obesity rates by 2030 and significantly reduce the health inequalities that persist.

The healthy schools rating scheme celebrates the positive actions that schools are delivering in terms of healthy living, healthy eating and physical activity, and it will support schools in identifying further actions that they can take in this area.

This voluntary rating scheme will be available for both primary and secondary schools. Schools will engage in a self-assessment exercise and will receive their rating based on their responses to questions around food education, compliance with the mandatory school food standards, time spent on PE in school and the promotion of active travel for pupils’ journeys to and from school.

The first schools participating in the scheme will receive their reports and certificates in July 2019. We encourage all participating schools to use this scheme to reflect on their future actions, and to share their achievements with parents, pupils and the wider school community.

The scheme is part of a wider series of Government actions to support children’s health and wellbeing, which includes delivering free school meals for over a million disadvantaged children each year; doubling the PE and sport premium to £320 million a year; investing up to £26 million to kick-start sustainable school breakfast clubs; investing £9 million in our holiday activities and food programme in summer 2019; and updating the school food standards to reduce the amount of sugar in school meals.

We welcome any feedback on the scheme during its first year and will use this information to inform future scheme developments. Guidance for schools on the healthy schools rating scheme is now available on www.gov.uk.

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Higher Technical Education Reform

Monday 8th July 2019 Written Statements

[The Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills (Anne Milton)]

I am pleased to launch the consultation on higher technical education (levels 4-5) in England. Qualifications at this level sit between level 3 qualifications, such as A-levels and the new T-levels, and level 6 qualifications, such as bachelor’s degrees.

Our vision is for higher technical education to be a prestigious choice that delivers the skills employers need, encourages more students to continue studying after A-levels or T-levels and attracts workers of all ages looking to upskill and retrain.

The proposals in this consultation are the next step in our programme to reform technical education. They build on the introduction of T-Levels and our investment in apprenticeships as part of our modern industrial strategy to improve productivity and help people progress in their work and lives.

The Government’s review of higher technical education has found that there is growing employer demand for the skills provided by higher technical education. But it also found that uptake of higher technical qualifications is low by international standards, has fallen over time, and is low by comparison to other levels of education.

Some higher technical qualifications and courses are well-recognised and valued by employers and students. But overall there is low awareness and varying quality, with the range of terminology, qualifications and provider types creating a complex landscape that is hard for employers and students to navigate.

The starting point for our reforms is to raise the prestige of higher technical education and strengthen its value to employers by putting their needs and quality first. Improving quality now—to demonstrate the value of higher technical qualifications—will lead to increased uptake of higher technical education in the future.

To do this we are proposing a new system to make it clearer which higher technical qualifications provide the skills that employers want. This will be delivered through the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education signalling which qualifications deliver the knowledge, skills, and behaviours set out in employer-led national standards. This will help qualifications at this level command the confidence of students and employers alike.

Alongside this we propose working with the Office for Students to demonstrate the quality of providers, so there is more high-quality provision delivered across higher and further education, including through our flagship employer-led national colleges and institutes of technology.

Finally, we want to make higher technical education a positive and more popular choice by raising awareness and understanding of the new suite of institute-approved qualifications in colleges and universities, and among potential students and employers.

These reforms will take time to deliver. We want to work with everyone who wants to improve higher technical education. I strongly encourage everyone with an interest to contribute to the debate, so we can build the world-class technical education system our students deserve and our country needs.

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Flooding and Coastal Erosion: Call for Evidence

Monday 8th July 2019 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dr Thérèse Coffey)]

About one in six people in England live in properties which are at risk of flooding. In addition to the potential for loss of life and damage to property, flooding can affect health and well-being, disrupt essential services, cause loss of business and damage to cultural heritage and the environment. Fewer people are at risk from coastal erosion but the impacts can be dramatic, including complete loss of land and property.

The Government are already taking action on a range of fronts to tackle flooding and erosion, with three particular focuses.

We are investing £2.6 billion between 2015 and 2021 to better protect 300,000 homes.

We published the surface water management action plan, which included a commitment to review effectiveness and compliance with local requirements. It will also consider how responsibility for surface water and drainage assets is determined locally, including dispute resolution. I have appointed David Jenkins, chair of the Wessex Regional Flood and Coastal Committee, to undertake this independent review. He will provide an interim report by December. David will draw on his past experience as CEO of an lead local flood authority, solicitor and member of an ombudsman office.

After recent reviews, we established a national flood response centre for dealing with major floods and deployed additional resources to improve capacity and capability on flood forecasting and response. After experiencing the devastation of a flood, we want to ensure people can return to their homes as quickly as possible and suffer less damage in their properties. To support this, we want to incentivise people to make their properties more resilient to flooding. That is why I will shortly be announcing three areas where we will carry out pathfinder projects, supported by Government funding, to lead local innovation and increase uptake of resilience measures.

The Government established the Flood Re insurance scheme so that households in high flood risk areas could obtain affordable insurance. Flood Re reported recently that the number of household policies backed by the scheme rose to more than 164,000 by 31 March 2019. Today Flood Re has published its first review of the scheme which makes a number of recommendations to Government about how the scheme could be made more efficient and effective. I welcome its report and I will be considering the recommendations carefully.

Climate change and population growth mean that the risks from flooding and coastal erosion are increasing. That is why Government are looking to update the flood and coastal erosion policy framework to ensure that we can continue to manage these risks effectively into the future.

By the end of 2019, the Government will set out their policies to better prepare the country for flooding and coastal erosion in a Government policy statement on flooding and coastal erosion, a national infrastructure strategy and in the decisions made in a spending review. Informed by this Government policy, the Environment Agency will update its national strategy for flood and coastal erosion risk management.

The Government policy statement will take into account information from many sources including the UK climate projections 2018¹ and climate change risk assessment²; the first national infrastructure assessment³; and responses to recent consultations such as those on: the Environment Agency’s draft national flood and coastal erosion risk management strategy for England⁴; “Improving our management of water in the environment”⁵; local authority funding for flood and coast as part of the review of local authorities’ relative needs and resources⁶; and the infrastructure finance review consultation⁷.

The call for evidence which I have published today focuses on some specific issues on which the Government would like additional evidence. They are:

What we understand by the term “resilience”—asking how the term resilience is currently used, and whether the different aspects of resilience could usefully be brought together into one overall concept.

Describing outcomes, driving action and monitoring progress—seeking examples of cases where metrics have been used effectively to achieve an overarching outcome, and information on the advantages and disadvantages of using composite metrics to describe, drive and monitor flood and coast outcomes.

Adapting to coastal change—seeking information about what coast protection authorities have done to join up decisions about manging the coastline with wider plans and decisions for the area, and examples of whether councils have used, or tried to use powers to fund specific coastal erosion works or to create coastal change management areas.

Corporation tax relief for business contributions—asking how businesses have used the provision for businesses to receive corporation tax relief on their contributions to Government-funded flood and coast projects.

Local funding initiatives for flood risk management—seeking examples of local initiatives funded from sources other than the public sector and what could be done to help these types of initiatives succeed.

Developer contributions—asking about the barriers and enablers to the use of developer contributions to ensure developments are safe for their lifetime, and what arrangements are in place for maintaining flood assets in new developments.

Managing financial risks from flooding—asking about how organisations manage the financial risks associated with flooding, in the context of climate change.

I will arrange for copies of the call for evidence to be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

¹ https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/collaboration/ukcp

² https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk- climate-change-risk-assessment-2017

³ https://www.nic.org.uk/publications/national- infrastructure-assessment-2018/

⁴ https://consult.environment-agency.gov.uk/fcrm/ national-strategy-public/

⁵ https:/https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/'>www.gov.uk/government/consultations/ improving-our-management-of-water-in-the-environment

⁶ https://https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/'>www.gov.uk/government/consultations/review-of-local-authorities-relative-needs-and-resources

⁷ https://https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/'>www.gov.uk/government/consultations/ infrastructure-finance-review

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Persecuted Christians: Review of Support

Monday 8th July 2019 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Jeremy Hunt)]

I have today deposited in the Libraries of both Houses of Parliament the independent review of Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) support for persecuted Christians, conducted by the Anglican Bishop of Truro, the Right Reverend Philip Mounstephen.

The review is the conclusion of a project that began in December 2018, when I asked Bishop Mounstephen to carry out this important research with the full support of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

The UK has always been a leading champion of human rights. In recent years, the FCO has stepped up its work on freedom of religion or belief (FoRB). In response to new evidence and as a sign of the UK’s commitment, the Prime Minister appointed Lord (Tariq) Ahmad of Wimbledon in 2018 as the UK’s first special envoy for freedom of religion or belief.

In that role, Lord Ahmad has championed FoRB across Government, through the FCO’s diplomatic network, and in his travel overseas. The UK has raised the rights of religious minorities at the highest levels, including in Nigeria, Iraq and Pakistan. Lord Ahmad has also worked with British diplomatic missions—including at the United Nations in Geneva and New York—to defend FoRB. Furthermore, he has overseen the provision of significant funding through various projects and programmes, including over £250 million to support people who were driven from their homes by Daesh's persecution.

Today, about 245 million Christians worldwide are believed to face persecution for their faith. The evidence suggests the problem is getting worse. The number of countries where Christians face religiously motivated harassment rose from 128 in 2015 to 144 a year later, according to the Pew Research Centre.

The review builds on the Bishop’s interim report published in May 2019, which examined the scale and character of religious persecution. It includes further findings and recommendations about how the FCO might improve its response.

The review draws on information from: non-governmental organisations; Church leaders; reporting from the FCO’s diplomatic missions; interviews with FCO staff and analysts; FCO written sources (including reporting from the network, research papers and policy notes); interviews with retired members of the FCO and with those who have suffered directly from discrimination or persecution. I offer my particular thanks to those who bravely shared their harrowing experiences.

I welcome Bishop Mounstephen’s report and its recommendations. We are working across Government to agree a formal collective response.

The review will also be available on the gov.uk website, and further information is available on the review’s website at https://christianpersecutionreview.org.uk/ interim-report/.

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Inclusive Transport Strategy

Monday 8th July 2019 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

This month marks the one-year anniversary since the publication of the Inclusive Transport Strategy. As Transport Accessibility Minister I am very proud of all that has been achieved in the last 12 months and this Government remain fully committed to delivering against the commitments set out in the strategy.

While a relatively short period of time has passed since the publication of the strategy, we have already reached some significant milestones and continue to make steady progress in delivering the strategy’s commitments. Achievements include:

A commitment to extend the Access for All programme with an additional £300 million, delivering improvements at a further 73 stations between 2019 and 2024;

An invitation to motorway service stations to apply for a share of £2 million funding for fully accessible Changing Places facilities, supporting disabled people to travel easily and comfortably on the road network;

The introduction of the first ever impartial and independent Rail Ombudsman, making sure passengers are heard and that they get a fair deal when train companies fall short;

The extension of the Blue Badge eligibility criteria to include people with non-visible disabilities (mental, cognitive, learning, psychological, and neurological); and

The publication of the “Inclusive Transport Strategy: Monitoring and Evaluation framework”.

Nonetheless, I acknowledge that there is still more to do to ensure that all disabled people have the same access to transport as everyone else and can travel confidently, easily and without extra cost. The Government will continue to work with transport operators, charities and disabled people’s organisations to ensure we achieve our overall goal, which remains to create a transport system which offers equal access for disabled passengers by 2030, with assistance if physical infrastructure remains a barrier.

I have today written to the Chairs of the APPG for Disability, the Transport Select Committee, the Women and Equalities Select Committee and the Health and Social Care Select Committee, including further detail on the progress of the past year. Copies of this letter have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

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