Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, with reference to the policy paper entitled UK Science and Technology Framework, published on 6 March 2023, whether references in that paper to engineering biology include (a) gene therapy, (b) vaccine development and (c) other life sciences technologies.
Answered by Andrew Griffith - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
DSIT’s definition of engineering biology is set out in the National Vision for Engineering Biology, published in December 2023. Engineering biology includes products or services whose development draws on the tools of synthetic biology. This would capture all gene therapies, and vaccine and life science technologies which are developed using these tools. Engineering biology also delivers applications in other sectors of the economy including agriculture and chemicals.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential impact of East West Rail on the journey time between Oxford and Cambridge.
Answered by Huw Merriman - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
Modelling conducted by the East West Rail Company and released as part of their Route Update Announcement in 2023 shows an estimated journey time of 89 minutes between Oxford and Cambridge by rail once East West Rail is completed, compared to a current journey time of 167 minutes by road during peak times.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to encourage innovation in (a) the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, (b) the DVLA, (c) HS2 Ltd. and (d) National Highways.
Answered by Anthony Browne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The UK Government has an overarching goal of making the UK a global hub for innovation, placing innovation at the centre of everything the nation does. We can see this within our Public Bodies:
The MCA is committed to supporting innovation in maritime. This includes:
- Taking an enabling approach to regulation of innovative future maritime technologies,
- Implementation of the UK Concierge Service and the My MCA technology platform supporting customers and the UK economy, and
- Empowering and supporting staff to explore innovative ways of working, including digital technology, to make best use of resources.
The DVLA builds its new software and services using the very latest methodologies and technologies. Examples include:
- It is a fast adopter of cutting edge features offered by public cloud infrastructure so it can deliver quicker, safer and serve greater numbers of customers than ever before.
- The DVLA’s in-house TechLab research emerging technologies, including how Artificial Intelligence (AI) can assist in building software to support motorists though their interactions with DVLA.
- The DVLA has used these innovations most recently in the development of its driver and vehicles account. When fully rolled out, the account will fundamentally change how the DVLA operates, allowing individuals to authenticate, register and return to DVLA services, view and manage their details, set notification preferences (including reminders) and seamlessly link to the services they need.
HS2 Ltd is at the forefront of innovation within the construction industry and has an obligation to incentivise innovation across the supply chain under the Development Agreement.
Innovation across the programme has made HS2 more efficient with hundreds of millions saved through an accelerator programme to fast-track technology and ideas into the supply chain. Since its launch in September 2020, the accelerator has supported 25 SMEs, raised £220 million in investment, funding and contracts, and helped to create 418 new STEM jobs. Two of the SMEs supported through the accelerator have recently been through an acquisition on the basis of their success.
D. National Highways
National Highways have an innovation and modernisation fund. The Department has provided £216m to NH for this fund during RIS2 (covering the period 2020-2025).
They will use it to research and develop emerging technologies which have the potential to revolutionise what it means to travel on our roads. They will also use this fund to produce new requirements and guidance for proven concepts, enabling the widespread adoption of innovations to modernise the road network. The fund is split across 5 themes:
- Design, construction, and maintenance
- Connected and autonomous vehicles
- Customer mobility
- Energy and environment
- Operations
The Department expect a similar approach to be continued in RIS3 (covering the period 2025-30) which is currently in development.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether his Department is taking steps to improve signalling on the Tyne and Wear Metro.
Answered by Huw Merriman - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
The Department is currently working with Nexus (operator of the Tyne and Wear Metro) across a range of proposals and live projects. We are awaiting a business case submission from Nexus to address any future signalling proposals. We look forward to receiving this and considering Nexus’s submission through the department's project governance process.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether her Department is taking steps to encourage (a) the Football Association and (b) other English national sport associations to organise games outside of London.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
Decisions relating to the staging of fixtures are a matter for national governing bodies of sports. However, we welcome the success that the FA, the ECB, the RFU, England Netball and other national governing bodies have enjoyed in hosting representative fixtures across the country.
The government continues to work with UK Sport and prospective event partners on the bidding, planning and delivery of major sporting events. As outlined in the DCMS and UK Sport guidance, the ‘Gold Framework’, revised in 2023, this includes ensuring that hosting and therefore the benefits felt by communities are spread across the country. We have demonstrated this in recent events, such as the UEFA Women’s European Championships 2022, spread across 10 cities, and the Rugby League World Cup matches in the same year across 18 towns and cities, including Newcastle, and mainly hosted in the north of the country. In our pipeline of events, the 2025 Women’s Rugby World Cup covers England, with the opening match in Sunderland. Our successful bid for the UEFA Men’s European Championships 2028 means that matches are set to take place across the UK and Ireland.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
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 plan for development of housing and commercial developments along the route of East West Rail.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
As announced at Spring Budget 2023, the Government is providing up to £15 million to local authorities to enable them to begin planning for growth and development enabled by East-West Rail.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what assessment his Department has made of the impact of the (a) quality of and (b) availability of the water supply on the viability of the Cambridge 2040 plan.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
At the Spring Budget 2024, the Government published a policy paper setting out its ambition to address water challenges in Greater Cambridge and measures to achieve this. Further information can be found here.
The Government also published a joint statement from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Environment Agency, and Greater Cambridge Shared Planning Service, signalling the intention to work together to support successful delivery of these measures.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of increasing the use of the capsule sponge test to detect oesophageal cancer.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England commissioned an evaluation to assess the impact of the capsule sponge test in secondary care, for patients on a routine reflux pathway. The evaluation report was completed in September 2023 and the national pilot will conclude in March 2024.
On 26 February 2024, NHS England published the results of the capsule sponge test pilot for secondary care routine reflux and Barrett’s surveillance cohort, which began in January 2021, and launched at 30 hospitals across England. The pilot tested over 8,500 patients with the capsule sponge test. Evaluation of a cohort of patients showed almost eight out of 10 patients, who completed a test, were discharged without the need for further testing, freeing up endoscopy capacity for higher risk patients and those referred for urgent tests for oesophageal cancer. Patients with positive results from the capsule sponge test who were referred on for an endoscopy had the highest prevalence of Barrett’s oesophagus, at 27.2%, compared to zero patients with negative results who completed an endoscopy.
NHS England has not committed to national uptake of capsule sponge, but will continue to support integrated care boards (ICBs) and local systems to deliver in their area. The evaluation report was published and shared with local National Health Service systems including Cancer Alliances, NHS providers, and ICBs to support with local service provision. The evaluation findings should be interpreted and used locally, based on need.
NHS England is continuing to explore other capsule sponge use cases, including in primary and community care settings jointly funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research and Cancer Research UK. Separately to this, the CYTOPRIME2 project is funded through the NHS Cancer Programme’s Innovation Open Call and is assessing the feasibility and safety of using capsule sponge in a primary care setting, and evaluating key outcome metrics.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps her Department is taking to promote the development of a domestic battery industry.
Answered by Nusrat Ghani - Minister of State (Minister for Europe)
We continue to work with industry via the Automotive Transformation Fund to support the creation of an internationally competitive electric vehicle supply chain in the UK, including gigafactories. With Government support, completion of AESC’s second Sunderland gigafactory and Tata-Agratas' £4bn gigafactory announcement will increase the UK’s committed battery capacity to over half of estimated 2030 demand.
We are also investing record sums in battery R&D through the Faraday Battery Challenge, to establish the UK as a battery science superpower, with £610m committed since 2017.
In November 2023, the Advanced Manufacturing Plan announced over £2bn of capital and R&D funding over five years to 2030, unlocking investment in zero emission vehicles, batteries and the wider supply chain. Alongside the AMP, we published a UK Battery Strategy, which outlined the Government’s vision for the UK to achieve a globally competitive battery supply chain by 2030 that supports economic prosperity and the net zero transition.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
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 through the planning system to increase the availability of laboratory space.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
We have committed to strengthening national planning policy so that it better supports the needs of Research and Development, and will consult on these changes in due course.
We are also working to make investment in this sector more attractive. This includes working with local planning authorities to encourage the use of proactive planning tools, such as Local Development Orders, to make it easier to bring forward development.
To support this, the Autumn Statement announced £5 million of funding to help local planning authorities prepare Local Development Orders for commercial development.