Asked by: Ben Everitt (Conservative - Milton Keynes North)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, If he will take steps to support the adoption of autonomous pavement delivery robots.
Answered by Jesse Norman
We must balance the safety of pedestrians and vulnerable road users with the potential benefits of this novel technology. I am pleased to confirm that the Department will be funding research to further its understanding of the impacts of this new technology. The results will be published once the research has concluded.
Asked by: Ben Everitt (Conservative - Milton Keynes North)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether she is taking steps to assess the effectiveness of (a) age verification tools, (b) age estimation tools and (c) other emerging technologies; and if she will take steps to include provisions in the Online Safety Bill to require the use of parental controls to help protect children online.
Answered by Paul Scully
The Online Safety Bill concluded parliamentary passage on 19 September. The Bill introduces a duty on Ofcom to produce and publish a report on in scope providers’ use of age verification and age estimation technologies. This must be done within 18 months of the first date on which the duties relating to children’s safety and to regulated provider pornographic content are in force. This report must assess how effective the use of age verification and age estimation has been for the purpose of compliance with the duties set out in the Bill.
The Online Safety Bill is technology neutral in its approach; however, in-scope services must be able to demonstrate how they are complying with the duties set out in the Bill. This includes ensuring and demonstrating that any emerging technologies they use are effective in fulfilling their duties.
While the Bill does not mandate the use of parental controls, Ofcom will set out the steps that providers can take to comply with the child safety duties in codes of practice.
Asked by: Ben Everitt (Conservative - Milton Keynes North)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on the adequacy of Local Housing Allowance for local authorities to prevent homelessness.
Answered by Felicity Buchan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
In line with the practice of successive administrations, details of internal discussions are not normally disclosed.
Asked by: Ben Everitt (Conservative - Milton Keynes North)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what recent progress she has made towards the Government's target of spending £20 billion of funding from the public purse on R&D by 2024-25.
Answered by George Freeman
This Government has recommitted to increasing public expenditure on R&D to £20 billion per annum by 2024-25. This represents an increase of around a third from 2021-22.
Since its creation, DSIT has made strong progress towards optimising public R&D investment in line with Government’s strategic priorities. Our Science and Technology Framework was announced alongside a raft of new measures to support the UK’s world-leading position across the technologies of tomorrow. These include £100 million in initial start-up funding for the Foundation Model Taskforce to lead vital AI safety research and £121 million to improve commercial clinical trials as part of the £650 million ‘Life Sci for Growth’ package.
Asked by: Ben Everitt (Conservative - Milton Keynes North)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that accessible and adaptable homes are available for older and disabled people.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
Planning rules already mean that councils must consider the needs of older and disabled people when planning new homes. The National Model Design Code provides tools and guidance to local councils for producing design codes; it details how the ten characteristics in the National Design Guide can be translated into design standards in local design codes. My Hon Friend will want to know that the Government has set out its intention to mandate higher accessibility standards for all new homes by raising the minimum standard in Building Regulations in England in due course.
Asked by: Ben Everitt (Conservative - Milton Keynes North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent steps she has taken to support the horticulture industry in funding (a) tanks and reservoirs and (b) other water retention infrastructure to help (i) provide an alternative to mains water and (ii) water plants grown in peat-free alternatives requiring increased watering.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government supports the Horticulture Industry with its Water Management Grant, under the Farming Investment Fund which offers grants of between £35,000-£500,000 towards capital items to improve farm productivity through more efficient use of water for irrigation, and to secure water supplies for crop irrigation by constructing on-farm reservoirs and adopting best practice irrigation application. It is open to arable and horticultural businesses growing, or intending to grow, irrigated food crops, ornamentals or forestry nurseries. We have launched two rounds of the scheme at a budget of £10 million each; £7 million of applications have been approved to date.
We recognise that many businesses have changed to peat free operations already. For those who are finding the transition difficult we will be exploring what support might be made available as we move to phasing out the use of peat by 2030.
Asked by: Ben Everitt (Conservative - Milton Keynes North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 17 May 2023 to Question 184463 on Glass: Deposit Return Schemes, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential impact on the (a) plastic and (b) aluminium packaging industry of the (i) inclusion of glass in and (ii) exclusion of glass from the proposed deposit return scheme.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Businesses have been clear that adding glass to a deposit return scheme will add fundamental complexity for our pubs and restaurants, increase burdens on small businesses, whilst creating greater inconvenience for consumers. We recognise that some sectors are concerned about potential for material switching. However, there are many market forces acting in this space - predicting impacts is very hard. Importantly glass will be included in Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging where obligated producers will be responsible for the disposal costs of their packaging so there will be some balancing of incentives.
Asked by: Ben Everitt (Conservative - Milton Keynes North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she plans to take to increase glass recycling rates.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
In England and Northern Ireland glass drinks bottles will remain in scope of the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for packaging scheme as will all other types of glass packaging placed on the market in all nations. EPR will place recycling targets on producers in relation to glass packaging and require relevant obligated producers to cover the costs of collecting and managing glass packaging arising in household waste and discarded in street bins managed by local authorities.
In our 2022 response to the 2021 EPR consultation the Government set out recycling targets for 2025 and 2030, including glass. These included glass drinks containers in England and Northern Ireland.
Asked by: Ben Everitt (Conservative - Milton Keynes North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 17 May 2023 to Question 184463 on Glass: Deposit Return Schemes, whether she has considered the potential merits of setting a recycling target for (a) glass and (b) polyethylene terephthalate packaging of 90 per cent.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We are working on the recycling targets for each packaging material as part of work to finalise our plans for Extended Producer Responsibility. The individual recycling targets for each material will be set to achieve our environmental ambitions taking into account the specific issues and challenges associated with each material.
Asked by: Ben Everitt (Conservative - Milton Keynes North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans her Department has to tackle waste generated by the consumption of fast fashion.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government’s 2018 Resources & Waste Strategy for England identified textiles, which includes waste generated by the consumption of fast fashion, as a priority sector for action. Our ambitions to minimise textile waste will be outlined in the upcoming document Maximising Resources, Minimising Waste, which constitutes a new Waste Prevention Programme for England. We expect to publish this in summer 2023.