Alun Cairns

Thanks to the joint efforts of Rotary International and the UK Government, we have made major strides in defeating the polio virus. The UK Government appreciates the tireless campaigning and generous fundraising achieved by Rotarians on behalf of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), which has vaccinated millions against polio in the world's poorest countries.

Alongside Rotary, the UK Government has also supported GPEI since 1995 as the second largest sovereign donor. Through our joint commitment and strong advocacy, more than 18 million people are able to walk today who would have otherwise been paralysed by the virus. This decades-long partnership between Rotary International and the UK Government has eliminated the wild polio virus from Africa. We will continue our advocacy together, from the global to the grassroots level, until the wild polio virus is eliminated worldwide.

Rotary in Great Britain and Ireland is supported by contributions from the public. These contributions are transformed into service projects and grants that support polio eradication. The UK Government does not fund Rotary directly, though we work closely together as joint donors and partners in ridding the world of the polio virus through the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.

The Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office provides support to UK charities making a difference through grants, and our flagship volunteer scheme. The Small Charities Challenge Fund provides grants to UK charities addressing Global Goals. The Volunteering for Development programme, delivered in partnership with Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO), supports volunteers to make an impact in the world's poorest communities.

Since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, we have worked hard to support British nationals aboard cruise ships. Over 350 British passengers and crew members aboard the Coral Princess returned to the UK on three separate charter flights - two flights on 6 April and one on the 9 April - organised by the cruise company, and British Airways. The FCO worked closely with the cruise company and partners across Whitehall, including the Department for Transport, Public Health England, the Department for Health and Social Care and Border Force to ensure British nationals were safely repatriated to the UK.

Upon their return, the cruise company organised private transport for those who did not have family members to collect them, and they were also advised to self-isolate for 14 days in line with advice from the Department of Health and Social Care and Public Health England.

Of the four remaining British passengers who were not fit to travel on the repatriation flights, one has was discharged from hospital on 15 April and will shortly be repatriated to the UK. Three remain in hospital in Miami and are receiving consular support from the British Consulate General.

The FCO does not hold a complete record of information requested as it is not obligatory for states to inform us of the deaths of British Nationals in their territory, nor do we record the details of British nationals overseas who do not require assistance.

The government has taken forward a series of regulatory measures to protect consumers, manage market integrity risks and support innovation. Since 2020 the FCA has been the anti-money laundering supervisor for cryptoasset firms. In January 2022 the government confirmed the intention to bring certain cryptoassets into the scope of the Financial Promotion Order to ensure that cryptoasset promotions are fair, clear, and not misleading.

Further, the government considers that some cryptoassets may already fall within the relevant UK legal frameworks. However, this also depends on the structure of the token and nature of the activities concerned.

At Fintech Week, the government set out the firm ambition to make Britain a global hub for cryptoasset technology and investment. We want to ensure firms can invest, innovate and scale up in this country. And we have announced a number of reforms which will see the regulation and aspects of tax treatment of cryptoassets evolve.

These include committing to consult on future regulation of a broader set of cryptoasset activities later this year; legislating to bring stablecoins into payments regulation; setting up a ministerial-chaired Cryptoasset Engagement Group, bringing together key figures in industry; working with the Royal Mint to create a Non-Fungible Token; and exploring ways of enhancing the competitiveness of the UK tax system to encourage further development of the cryptoasset market in the UK.

These commitments are in line with our objectives to create a regulatory environment in which firms can innovate, while crucially maintaining financial stability and regulatory standards so that people can use new technologies both reliably and safely.

The Government responded to the Kalifa Review of UK Fintech on 26 April 2021, setting out actions alongside regulators to ensure the UK remains at the global cutting edge of technology and innovation in financial services.

These actions include improved regulatory support for new and growing fintechs; initiatives to supercharge commercial support for UK fintechs seeking to expand internationally; and a new visa ‘scale up’ stream to attract global talent and boost the fintech workforce.

The Government’s full response is available at: https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2021-04-26/hcws938.

On 29 October the Government announced £5 million of seed funding for a new Centre for Finance, Innovation and Technology (CFIT) as part for Spending Review 2021. CFIT was a central recommendation of the Kalifa Review, and it will focus on creating the right conditions for firms to scale, encouraging the mainstream adoption of fintech solutions, and fostering collaboration between growing regional fintech hubs. In March 2022 the CFIT Steering Committee, chaired by Ron Kalifa began an intensive programme of work on proposals for CFIT’s priorities, objectives, and operational requirements.

The Government is committed to ensuring consumer credit regulation provides high-standards of consumer protection but also fit-for-purpose and proportionate. We recognise that the current regulatory framework for consumer credit is built around a dated model of regulation, established by the Consumer Credit Act 1974 (CCA). The government therefore continues to keep the case for changes to improve the effectiveness of consumer credit regulation under close review.

The government sets the Approved Mileage Allowance Payments (AMAPs) rates to minimise administrative burdens. AMAPs aim to reflect running costs including fuel, servicing and depreciation. Depreciation is estimated to constitute the most significant proportion of the AMAPs.

Employers are not required to use the AMAPs. Instead, they can agree to reimburse the actual cost incurred, where individuals can provide evidence of the expenditure, without an Income Tax or National Insurance charge arising.

Alternatively, they can choose to pay a different mileage rate that better reflects their employees’ circumstances. However, if the payment exceeds the amount due under AMAPs, and this results in a profit for the individual, they will be liable to pay Income Tax and National Insurance contributions on the difference.

The government keeps this policy under review.

The Shared Outcomes Fund is a UK government fund testing innovative ways of working across the public sector with an emphasis on thorough evaluation. Where funding is given for a Shared Outcomes Fund project in a devolved area, the Barnett formula will apply in the normal way.

HM Treasury’s Block Grant Transparency publication sets out the breakdown of changes in the devolved administrations’ block grants, including all Barnett consequentials related to the Shared Outcomes Fund, since the 2015 Spending Review. This is available on the gov.uk website here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/block-grant-transparency-december-2021

The Government is supporting all forces, including those in costal communities, by providing 20,000 extra police officers; with 8,771 already in place.

We are also providing targeted investment to help high-crime areas. The Safer Streets Fund funds crime prevention activity in a range of areas, including coastal ones.

The latest figures can be found on the Home Office’s ‘EU Settlement Scheme statistics’ web page available at:

EU Settlement Scheme statistics - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

The Home Office does not collate or publish the information requested.

Non-EEA nationals moving to the UK for more than six months have been required to pay the Immigration Health Surcharge since April 2015.

The Home Office does not collate or publish the information requested.

The UK's Armed Forces are drawn from all the regions and nations that make up the UK and they play an essential role in our Defence and security. All regular recruitment is carried out online and through a network of Armed Forces Careers Offices. Although recruits provide a postcode, this is not always an accurate reflection of their nationality or origin.

Each of the three Services benefit from historic military connections and recruiting links with specific regions and nations and recruit predominantly from those to ensure those links, culture and identities are strongly represented in the UK's Armed Forces.

The requested information for UK Reserve Service personnel is provided in the attached tables; figures are estimates.

Official statistics on the stationed locations of UK Regular Service personnel are published annually. The latest edition of the Ministry of Defence's (MOD) Annual Location Statistics, including data as at 1 April 2019 and going back to April 2012, can be found at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/location-of-uk-regular-service-and-civilian-personnel-annual-statistics-2019

To ensure safe and high-quality buildings, it is important that anyone involved in a project throughout a building's lifecycle is competent to do their job properly and in compliance with the Building Regulations. The Government is working with industry to develop the professional standards of competence of those working across the built environment and enforcing a stringent new regulatory regime for high-rise residential and other in scope buildings for the Building Safety Regulator.

The Party Wall Act provides a framework for preventing and resolving disputes in relation to party walls, boundary walls and excavations near buildings. The Act is separate from obtaining planning permission or building regulations approval. At present, there are no plans to amend the Act.

Levelling up all four nations of our United Kingdom remains at the centre of this Government’s mission – and in particular my Department as MHCLG becomes a UK-wide Department again. Our £4.8 billion Levelling Up Fund will invest in infrastructure that improves everyday life across England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. And only a fortnight ago I was delighted to visit Wales and hear from local leaders about their exciting ambitions for their local areas, and take in the sites including Treorchy High Street – the current reigning Great British High Streets Champion.

The most recently published information regarding combined waiting times for a grant of probate, on paper and digital cases, covers January 2021 to March 2021 and is published on gov.uk via Family Court Statistics Quarterly (Table 25):

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/family-court-statistics-quarterly-january-to-march-2021

Average time to grant issue for grants of Probate, England and Wales, quarterly Q3 2019 – Q1 2021^1,2,3,6

Source: HMCTS Core Case Data

Notes:

1) HMCTS Core Case Data came into effect at the end of March 2019, following a transition between data systems recording information regarding The Probate Service

2) The average timeliness figures are produced by calculating the time from application/document receipt (which may be from an earlier period) to the grant issued made in that period. Currently grants being issued on the same day as the application submission/document receipt are being calculated as 0 days. This is being reviewed as to whether it is an accurate reflection of workload and may be adjusted in future

3) Some averages presented here may be based on a small number of grants. Where this occurs, any conclusion drawn from these will be limited

4) Document receipt occurs after payment has been made and all accompanying paperwork has been received by HMCTS. As such, it does not reflect the entire case journey from when an application is submitted by the user to when a grant is received. Instead these figures reflect the timeliness from when HMCTS staff are able to start working on the case. The aspects not included in these timeliness measures include (but are not limited to); time taken to scan and upload documents to the management system (for paper items), and check that these items are of good enough quality to proceed. For the timeliness figures for stopped cases, the figures will further exclude time taken to resolve those issues mentioned in footnote 6 below

6) A probate application can be stopped for several reasons: a caveat can be entered when there’s a dispute about either who can apply for probate or issues with a will or proposed will, or if an error is identified and a request for further information is made

Despite the unprecedented challenges faced by the probate service during the Covid 19 pandemic the average waiting for a grant of probate following receipt of the documents required has been maintained at between four to six weeks.

More recent management information published by HMCTS (which does not go through the same level of quality assurance and analysis as the Family Court Statistics Quarterly) provides waiting time information up to June 2021 for grants of probate as well as letters of administration with/without a Will annexed and reseals. This shows that the waiting time on digital grant of probate applications, which are not stopped due to errors or missing documentation, is between two and three weeks for June 2021 where paper cases, not stopped, took around five weeks in June 2021.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/hmcts-management-information-june-2021

The table below shows the (a) shortest wait and (b) longest wait.

¹ The Tribunal lists all cases at approximately 12 - 14 weeks from the date of registration of the appeal into the Tribunal.

² Years are broken down into school years from 1 September to 31 August the following year.

³ This figure is the result of a Permission to Appeal being lodged. When this happens, timescales continue to tick and this until the appeal is resolved and this is reflected in the higher than usual waiting time.

The UK Government is providing continued UK-wide support and security to manage the ongoing impacts of Covid-19.

One in three jobs in Scotland has been supported by the UK Government’s unprecedented employment support package.

Scottish businesses have benefited from more than £3.4 billion of loans and support driven by UK Government schemes.

We have also provided a much needed boost to Scottish tourism and hospitality with our UK-wide VAT reduction.