Craig Tracey

The Government is aware that a range of building materials are in short supply nationally. This is driven by demand and increased global competition to secure supplies. At present, we do not have any information to suggest that demand from HS2 is having a material impact on supplies within the UK or on major projects in the construction, manufacturing and engineering sectors. However, the Government recognises that this is a critical situation and we are following events closely.

The Construction Leadership Council’s Coronavirus Task Force has established a Product Availability Working Group, comprised of product manufacturers, builders’ merchants and suppliers, contractors of all sizes, and housebuilders. The Task Force continues to monitor the supply and demand of products, and identify those in short supply.

The UK and Turkey are both Parties to the United Nations Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Waste and Their Disposal. The Convention provides a global system for controlling the export of hazardous wastes and wastes collected from households. The UK and Turkey are also both members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and are subject to an OECD Council Decision which provides the legal framework for the control of movements of wastes within the OECD to ensure the environmentally sound and economically efficient recovery of wastes.

The requirements of the Basel Convention and the OECD Decision are implemented in UK law by the EU Waste Shipment Regulations and the UK Transfrontier Shipment of Waste Regulations. This legislation requires that those involved in the shipments of waste take all necessary steps to ensure waste is managed in an environmentally sound manner throughout its shipment and during its recycling or recovery in the country of destination.

The UK regulators take a proactive and intelligence-led approach to checking compliance with waste shipments legislation and intervene to stop illegal exports taking place when necessary. In England in 2018/19, the Environment Agency (EA) inspected almost 1,000 shipping containers at ports and returned over 200 of those to sites. During this period, the EA also prevented 12,000 tonnes of waste from reaching ports which may have otherwise been exported illegally.

Any operators found to be illegally exporting waste can face severe sanctions - from financial penalties to imprisonment for a period of up to two years.

The United Kingdom’s trade relationship with Israel is already strong, totalling £4.9 billion in the four quarters to the end of Q3 2020. The United Kingdom-Israel Trade and Partnership Agreement entered into force on 1^st January 2021. As the Foreign Secretary noted, the United Kingdom is now able to start scoping for greater ambition in our trade relationship with Israel. Science and innovation are key elements of this relationship and we are currently building a framework for a new Britain-Israel Science Partnership. Moreover, the ‘TechHub’, based in British Embassy Tel Aviv, continues to partner Israeli expertise with British companies, delivering significant benefits to the British economy.

The United Kingdom-Israel Trade and Partnership Agreement entered into force on the 1 January 2021. The agreement provides an ambitious framework to continue to grow our future trading relationship, which totalled £4.9 billion in the four quarters to the end of Q3 2020. We have identified opportunities to deepen our bilateral trade relationship in sectors such as financial services, infrastructure, and technology. We will work with our Israeli counterparts to realise these including through reinstating plans to host a UK-Israel Trade and Investment conference in London.

The United Kingdom-Israel Trade and Partnership Agreement entered into force on the 1^st January 2021. The agreement provides an ambitious framework to continue to grow our future trading relationship, which totalled £4.9 billion in the four quarters to the end of Q3 2020. We are now working with Israeli counterparts on the implementation of our agreement and to scope where there is a shared ambition to deepen our bilateral trade relationship. This includes the opportunity to reinstate plans to host a United Kingdom-Israel Trade and Investment Conference.

HS2L does not keep a separate register for hospitality events and receptions but does record all expenditure in the annual report and accounts and discloses all expenditure over £25,000 via transparency reporting on gov.uk

(a) In line with the Government’s transparency agenda, HS2 Ltd publishes every payment over £25,000 and all payments over £500 using corporate purchasing cards.

(b) This information is published in HS2 Ltd’s Community Engagement Progress Reports which are available on https://www.hs2.org.uk/document_types/community-engagement-progress-reports/

In line with the Government’s transparency agenda, HS2 Ltd publishes data for all payments over £25,000 and any payments over £500 made using corporate purchasing cards. This information is available on gov.uk

HS2 Ltd spend for rail, air and road travel – which reduced as a result of the pandemic - is as follows:

HS2 Ltd publishes data on senior officials’ expenses and hospitality associated with business trips as part of its transparency disclosures available on gov.uk. This information is updated on a quarterly basis.

The criteria for accessing insurance products is a matter for the insurance industry, therefore no such assessment has been undertaken by the DWP.

Universal Credit is not paid to claimants who have sufficient income available from other sources to support themselves. Where claimants have income available to meet their everyday living costs, their entitlement to Universal Credit is adjusted accordingly.

Regular income payments that are paid to meet living costs, including individual income protection insurance payments, result in reductions in the claimant’s Universal Credit entitlement pound for pound.

This is published in the supplementary tables available here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/universal-credit-statistics-29-april-2013-to-14-january-2021.

For those that do experience a shortfall, Discretionary Housing Payments are available. Since 2011 we have provided over £1 billion in Discretionary Housing Payment funding, enabling local authorities to support households that need additional help by making financial awards to people experiencing financial difficulty with housing costs who qualify for Housing Benefit or the housing costs element of Universal Credit.

Universal Credit household shortfalls November 2020

The Breast Screening Risk Adaptive Imaging for Density trial is looking into the use of supplementary imaging techniques for women, within the standard breast screening programme, who are found to have radiographically dense breast tissue. The UK National Screening Committee, which advises ministers and the National Health Service in all four countries in the United Kingdom, will review this evidence when it becomes available.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has not yet published final guidance on the use of trastuzumab deruxtecan (Enhertu) for the treatment of metastatic HER2-low breast cancer. The NICE published final draft guidance on 5 March 2024, that does not recommend it as a clinically and cost-effective use of National Health Service resources. Stakeholders had until 19 March 2024 to lodge an appeal against the NICE’s recommendations. The NICE currently expects to publish final guidance on 3 April 2024.

The United Kingdom National Screening Committee (UK NSC) is aware of the The Lancet publication of the long-term outcomes of the UK Breast Screening Age trial.

The UK NSC will examine the findings carefully along with other initiatives in this area, which includes the use of artificial intelligence and digital pathology in the National Health Service Breast Screening Programme (NHS BSP). Currently there is a robust estimate that the current NHS BSP strategy is effective in preventing deaths from breast cancer. This involves regular screening in women aged 50 up to their 71^st birthday.

The UK NSC also awaits the publication of the Age Extension Trial of screening in women over the age of 70 which is due to report in 2026.

The Committee’s overriding concern is that any significant change to the Programme should result in more good than harm and be cost proportionable.

The National Health Service is restoring the full operation of all cancer services, with local delivery plans being delivered by Cancer Alliances.

Systems will work with general practitioners and the public locally to restore the number of people coming forward and being referred with suspected cancer to at least pre-pandemic levels.

Sufficient diagnostic capacity in COVID-19 secure environments will be supplied through the use of independent sector facilities, the development of Community Diagnostic Hubs and Rapid Diagnostic Centres, further all cancer screening programmes will be fully restarted.

NHS Digital has produced a count of living patients that are classified as being on the Shielded Patient List in England, aged 13-24 years old inclusive as at 27 August 2020, who fell within one or more cancer disease groups at that point in time. The total number falling within one of these categories as at 27 August 2020 was 4,858 patients.

The UK has close diplomatic, security and economic relations with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Together we are deterring Russia, supporting Ukraine and deepening our cooperation on defence and security. On 6 June the Prime Minister met the Estonian Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary regularly engages with her Baltic counterparts. In the last 18 months, we have signed declarations of cooperation with each of the Baltic States and will continue to strengthen our security and economic collaboration.

The UK welcomes the decision by the Lebanese Government to ease labour restrictions for Palestinian refugees. We acknowledge Lebanon's generosity in hosting refugees, which the UK will continue to support through our assistance for education and basic needs.

The Government regularly assesses the impact of Iran's continued destabilising activity throughout the region, including its political, financial and military support to several militant and proscribed groups, including Hizballah, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Such activity compromises the region's security, its ability to prosper and escalates already high tensions, with consequences for the international community. It is for this reason that we currently have over 200 EU sanctions listings in place against Iran, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in its entirety; have proscribed Hamas' military wing as a terrorist organisation; and support the enforcement of UN prohibitions on the proliferation of weapons to non-state actors in the region, including to Lebanese Hizballah (UNSCR 1701).

We understand the review is in the final stages and the final report is due to be completed shortly. We continue to engage with the EU at a senior level and push for timely publication. We will review the findings carefully before deciding on any next steps.

We have long been concerned by Hizballah's stockpiling of weapons within Lebanon, in contravention of relevant UN Security Council Resolutions (UNSCRs). We regularly raise this at the UN Security Council, and we call on the Lebanese authorities to abide by provisions of the relevant UNSCRs. Hizballah's destabilising influence only endangers Lebanon and its people.

Working with our French counterparts, our focus is on deterring and preventing people from entering the Channel, tackling the criminal gangs responsible and protecting lives.

The new Migration and Economic Partnership with Rwanda, together with the provisions of the Nationality and Borders Act also seek to create a deterrent effect.

The Department does not centrally collect information on the cost to the public purse for each police force involved in policing the route of HS2.

The New Homes Bonus is an unringfenced grant, this allows local authorities to use the funding as they see fit, as the Government recognises that authorities are in the best position to make decisions about local priorities. Authorities are expected to engage with their local community to decide how the money is spent. The Department does not monitor how individual authorities spend their allocations.