Asked by: Ben Everitt (Conservative - Milton Keynes North)
Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether she has made a recent assessment of the potential merits of the proposal by culture industry organisations for a Smart Fund to ensure creators and performers are paid for their work.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Government agrees that creators should be fairly remunerated, and it is encouraging to see proposals from the sector to support creators and fair remuneration. Department for Culture, Media and Sport Ministers and officials have been engaging with the Design and Artists Copyright Society (DACS) and other interested parties on their proposal for a Smart Fund and I wrote to them last month.
Introducing statutory levies can present significant challenges and we encourage the campaign to work with the tech industry to explore options for industry-led solutions.
Asked by: Ben Everitt (Conservative - Milton Keynes North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to create a national framework for a diabetes pathway to support people with learning difficulties.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England have no plans to create a national framework for a diabetes pathway to support people with learning difficulties.
Integrated care boards are responsible for planning and commissioning diabetes care locally, in line with local population need and diabetes care pathways, these will vary by local systems and so cannot be nationally prescribed.
Asked by: Ben Everitt (Conservative - Milton Keynes North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent steps he has taken to implement the British Sign Language Act 2022.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The British Sign Language Act 2022 gained Royal Assent in April 2022 and does three things:
On Friday 17 March, 17 successful candidates (in 16 posts, one is held by a tactile signer as a job share) were appointed to the new British Sign Language (BSL) Advisory Board, which will advise the Government on key issues impacting the Deaf community.
The Board’s remit will be:
Establishing the Board is a key step in implementation of the Act. Work continues across Government to ensure that the departments named in the schedule to the Act are aware of their reporting duty. They will report on their use of BSL in public communications at the end of the first reporting period on 28 June. The first meeting of the departments driving the Act took place in February.
Asked by: Ben Everitt (Conservative - Milton Keynes North)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of local authorities adopting the National Parking Platform.
Answered by Richard Holden - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
My department recognises the importance of the National Parking Platform which is why we have provided £800,000 to fund the pilot in Manchester. We are considering the governance and funding models to roll a national parking platform out nationwide. The department commissioned user research to identify the potential benefits and continues to work closely with the parking sector to promote local authority awareness.
Asked by: Ben Everitt (Conservative - Milton Keynes North)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether he plans to take steps to launch a communications campaign to increase awareness of the national parking platform in local authorities; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Richard Holden - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
My department recognises the importance of the National Parking Platform which is why we have provided £800,000 to fund the pilot in Manchester. We are considering the governance and funding models to roll a national parking platform out nationwide. The department commissioned user research to identify the potential benefits and continues to work closely with the parking sector to promote local authority awareness.
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 she has to create public access available to all through Environmental Land Management.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Protecting our environment is at the heart of the Government manifesto and we will always back British farmers and our rural communities. Environmental land manage-ment is the foundation of our new approach.
We want to support access to our countryside, farmland or woodland so the public can understand and become engaged with farming and the environment. It can also provide recreation opportunities and health benefits. Under Countryside Stewardship we already pay for a number of actions focusing on increasing public access:
• farmers hosting tours of their farms for school pupils and care farming visi-tors (ED1)
• providing access maps and signage, and preparing sites for access by providing toilet facilities, shelters, new footpaths, bridges and gates, with the objective of greater public accessibility of the countryside (AC1)
• accreditation for staff carrying out countryside educational access visits (AC2)
• a supplement to enable permissive access across woodland, where access is currently limited (WS4)
Through our Farming in Protected Landscapes programme we also pay for projects that provide opportunities for people to discover, enjoy and understand the landscape and its cultural heritage, including permissive access.
As we continue to expand and improve our schemes, building on the successful adoption of Countryside Stewardship, we are exploring how we can update and pay for actions covering permissive access; managing existing access pressures on land and water, and; expanding education access beyond groups of school pupils and care farming visitors.
Public access is also supported by our Landscape Recovery scheme. Projects are assessed for the benefits they will deliver for a wide range of objectives including social outcomes, and are required to complete a site access plan as part of the project development phase.
Asked by: Ben Everitt (Conservative - Milton Keynes North)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what recent steps his Department has taken to create a Wider Service Medal.
Answered by Andrew Murrison - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
There has been an ongoing debate among interested parties, including veterans and campaigners, about whether the current model for awarding medals to members of the Armed Forces fits the changing face of operations. This issue was recognised by Sir John Holmes in the Military Medals Review published in July 2012. However, whilst no such medal has so far been introduced, we continuously evaluate those medals that are awarded and whether they remain appropriate for the current operational environment.
Asked by: Ben Everitt (Conservative - Milton Keynes North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to recent reports on e-cigarette manufacturers overfilling e-cigarette devices, if he will bring forward changes to the Tobacco and Related Products Regulations 2016 to increase penalties on manufacturers found to be in breach of those regulations.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
There are no current plans to increase the penalties beyond those set out in regulation 51 of the Tobacco and Related Products Regulations 2016.
Asked by: Ben Everitt (Conservative - Milton Keynes North)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will keep the Energy Business Discount Scheme under regular review to ensure it provides (a) support for businesses and (b) medium to long-term certainty on support so that businesses are able to plan ahead.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
The new Energy Bills Discount Scheme (EBDS) will provide all eligible businesses and other non-domestic energy users across the UK with a discount on high energy bills until 31 March 2024, following the end of the current Energy Bill Relief Scheme. It will also provide businesses in sectors with particularly high levels of energy use and trade intensity with a higher level of support.
Through the current scheme, the Government provided an unprecedented package of support for non-domestic users through this winter. The Government has been clear that such levels of support, unprecedented in its nature and huge scale, were time-limited and intended as a bridge to allow businesses to adapt.
The new EBDS provides long term certainty for businesses and reflects how the scale of the challenge has changed since September last year. This will help those locked into contracts signed before recent substantial falls in the wholesale price manage their costs and provide others with reassurance against the risk of prices rising again.
In the longer-term, Energy Intensive Industries (EII) will continue to be supported by the Government’s EII exemption and compensation schemes. In April 2022 the Government extended the compensation scheme for a further 3 years and more than doubled its budget. On Thursday 23 February, the Business and Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch announced further measures (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-action-to-supercharge-competitiveness-in-key-british-industries-and-grow-economy) to bring the energy costs of the UK’s energy intensive industries in line with those charged across the world’s major economies. This is crucial to helping these businesses remain internationally competitive and will enhance the UK’s attractiveness as a destination for international investment as well as remove barriers to move us further towards greener technology as part of a sustainable net zero future.
We will continue to closely monitor energy prices in the coming months.
Asked by: Ben Everitt (Conservative - Milton Keynes North)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, when the Government plans to publish the final design and scope of the ECO+ scheme; and when that scheme will be implemented.
Answered by Graham Stuart
The Government is analysing responses to the ECO+ consultation and currently plans to publish a Government response in spring 2023. The Government plans to launch the scheme in late spring 2023, once legislation is made.