Lord Polak

The department recognises the challenges that care leavers face as they make the transition from care to living independently and have put in place a range of support measures.

To help care leavers to engage in education, employment and training (EET), the department has increased the Care Leavers’ Apprenticeships Bursary from £1,000 to £3,000. Local authorities are required to support care leavers to engage in EET, including providing a £2,000 bursary if the young person is studying in higher education. Care leavers are also a priority group for the 16 to19 bursary if studying in further education (up to £1,200 per year).

In addition, the department has increased the leaving care allowance from £2,000 to £3,000 to enable care leavers to furnish their first home, and the Junior ISA scheme provides an initial £200 payment to open a savings account for all children who have been in care continuously for 12 months. Anyone can pay money into the accounts, and the funds can then be accessed by the young person when they leave care at age 18.

Improving outcomes for care leavers is a cross-government priority and there are a range of ways in which the government is supporting care leavers to reduce their financial vulnerability, including:

• Providing support to care leavers through the Household Support Fund, which local authorities can use to help vulnerable residents to help with cost-of-living increases.
• Promoting the support available through the Warm Home Discount Scheme, which provides support with energy costs over the winter.

Local authorities are required to publish their ‘local offer’ for care leavers, setting out care leavers’ legal entitlements, plus any further discretionary financial support that the local authority provides, such as Council Tax Exemptions, free leisure passes and rent deposit/guarantor schemes.

DFID supports teacher training in the Occupied Palestinian Territories through the UK’s ‘Connecting Classrooms through Global Learning Programme’, which is co-funded by DFID and the British Council. The programme focuses on core and transferable skills, and global citizenship.

The content is centrally designed by UK-based experts and delivered on the ground across the world by trainers who are validated and quality assured by the British Council. The British Council undertakes quality assurance visits to ensure the content delivered is appropriate and high quality. The British Council also monitors feedback from participants and has commissioned an independent evaluation of the effectiveness and quality of the training.

Our money to support education and health provision in the West Bank goes into a special, dedicated bank account and is only paid to individuals vetted through the Palestinian-European Socio-Economic Management Assistance Mechanism (PEGASE) to ensure they have no connections to any proscribed groups and are still in employment.

Employees of the Palestinian Ministry of Education’s Curriculum Development Centre are included on the PEGASE list, alongside teachers and other public sector education professionals.

Each payment is independently audited to ensure it has been transferred to the declared bank account of the intended recipient. This rigorous process means we are confident no UK aid is being diverted.

The UK does not fund textbooks in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Our education funding to the Palestinian Authority (PA) contributes to the salaries of carefully vetted teachers. Teachers in PA schools teach the Palestinian curriculum. Following allegations of incitement in the PA’s school textbooks, the UK secured agreement from our European partners to lead an independent review of the textbooks which is underway. We expect interim findings in Spring 2020 and full findings later in the year.

The Government has provided over £2 billion in funding for the Household Support Fund since October 2021.

The current Household Support Fund runs from April 2023 until the end of March 2024, and the Government continues to keep all its existing programmes under review in the usual way.

This terrorist attack serves as a reminder of the daily security challenges Israel faces. The Government condemns all violence against innocent civilians and, as the Government has stated previously, for there to be a lasting peace, Israel's security must be assured. We continue to monitor the situation closely, and we continue to have regular discussions with Israeli counterparts on all aspects of the conflict.

We condemn Iran's destabilising political, financial, and military support to proscribed groups, including Lebanese Hizballah. We have made clear to Iran that it must cease proliferating advanced weapons systems throughout the region. We will continue to work to disrupt Iran's destabilising activity in Lebanon and the wider region, including by holding Iran to account in multilateral fora and through sanctions; addressing Iranian weapons proliferation; and strengthening the Lebanese Armed Forces.

Our overseas business risk guidance on Xinjiang was last updated in August 2021. It makes clear the extensive evidence of human rights violations occurring in Xinjiang, including the use of forced labour, and urges UK companies to take appropriate steps to ensure their operations do not directly or indirectly contribute to these violations. We continue to keep the guidance under constant review.

We firmly believe a just and lasting resolution that ends the occupation and delivers peace for both Israelis and Palestinians is long overdue. That is why we support steps to increase understanding and dialogue between the parties that can help create the conditions for meaningful negotiations. We will continue to fund peacebuilding projects focused on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Development Tracker presents information on partners who have received funds from Her Majesty's Government (HMG) in multiple ways depending on how the funding is reported by both the Government department and the implementing partner.

From information reported by the FCDO and other government departments, partners who have received funding are listed as implementing partners on country pages [1] and on project pages [2]. Projects relating to specific partners can also be viewed using Development Tracker's search function [3].

When partners publish data reporting that the UK has been a funder, they will appear on the Partners tab of a Development Tracker project page. There may therefore be instances where the Norwegian Refugee Council or other partners who receive funds from HMG are not listed within the partners tab as they have not referred to HMG as a funding organisation.

[1] For example, on the South Sudan country page, the Norwegian Refugee Council is listed here https://devtracker.fcdo.gov.uk/countries/SS/

[2] For example, the Norwegian Refugee Council is listed here https://devtracker.fcdo.gov.uk/projects/GB-1-204019

[3] For example, search for Norwegian Refugee Council as shown here https://devtracker.fcdo.gov.uk/search?query=Norwegian%20Refugee%20Council&inclu deClosed=0

HM Revenue and Customs does not hold information on VAT revenue from specific products or services, including VAT on defibrillators. This is because businesses are not required to provide figures at a product level within their VAT returns, as this would impose an excessive administrative burden.

The government has not made a robust assessment of the cost to the taxpayer of removing VAT on all defibrillator purchases.

The Government provides support to aid the purchase of Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) through VAT refunds on purchases made by local authorities and VAT reliefs for purchases made through voluntary contributions, where the AED is donated to eligible charities or the NHS. Otherwise, they attract the standard rate of VAT.

The Department of Health and Social Care are examining whether there are ways to further expand public access to defibrillators.

The Government keeps all taxes under constant review.

IMF programmes in general are subject to strict policies of oversight and monitoring, underpinned by well-established mechanisms.

Under its Articles of Agreement, the IMF must establish adequate safeguards for the use of its resources. IMF lending requires safeguards covering key areas of governance and control to help mitigate the risks of misuse of Fund resources and misreporting of data. These safeguards may include limits on how much can be borrowed, conditions on the loans, measures to deal with misreporting or arrears, and safeguard assessments of central banks.

The UK uses its seat at the IMF’s Board to help shape these policies and ensure that they are applied across all the IMF’s lending arrangements.

We do not comment on intelligence matters.

In 2019/20 Police and Crime Commissioners received £70.3m from the Ministry of Justice to provide or commission support services for victims of crime, including victims of Domestic Abuse. PCCs also spend additional money from other sources on victims’ services.

It is not possible to provide the spend on specific sub-categories of Domestic Abuse services, as it cannot be disaggregated from overall spend for all PCCs.

In 2019/20 Police and Crime Commissioners received £70.3m from the Ministry of Justice to provide or commission support services for victims of crime, including victims of Domestic Abuse. PCCs also spend additional money from other sources on victims’ services.

It is not possible to provide the spend on specific sub-categories of Domestic Abuse services, as it cannot be disaggregated from overall spend for all PCCs.