Douglas Chapman

On 10 May the Government announced that it will be introducing a statutory limit on the length of non-compete clauses of 3 months. This formed part of a wider policy paper, ‘Smarter regulation to grow the economy’, which focused on how we can improve regulation across the board to reduce burdens, push down the cost of living and drive economic growth.

Introducing the statutory limit on the length of non-compete clauses of 3 months will require primary legislation and the Government will introduce this legislation when parliamentary time allows.

The Government has taken action to support UK SMEs in the events sector, including support with business rates; increasing the employment allowance; and exempting small and micro businesses from regulations where possible. The Government has also acted to reverse the National Insurance rise, which will save small businesses £4,200 on average and brought in the Energy Bill Relief Scheme, which will protect small businesses from high energy bills over the winter.

Events showcase the UK's industrial strengths to the world while also attracting international visitors to all corners of the UK. The Government is working closely with the Department for International Trade and Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to improve the UK’s already strong offer so that we can attract more high profile events and champion UK sectors on the global stage.

The Government completed an Offshore Energy Strategic Environmental Assessment (OESEA4) of a draft plan/programme for licensing and leasing areas for future offshore energy developments including offshore oil and gas, offshore gas and carbon dioxide storage, offshore renewables, and offshore hydrogen, in relevant waters of the UK Continental Shelf.

Public consultation on the OESEA4 Environmental Report took place between 17 March and 27 May 2022. The Government response to the OESEA4 consultation was published in September 2022 and the plan/programme was adopted in September 2022.

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/uk-offshore-energy-strategic-environmental-assessment-4-oesea4.

There are no plans to hold such discussions. The UK Government continues to work closely with the Scottish Government on energy matters. This includes engagement through the Net Zero, Energy and Climate Change Intermenstrual Group which facilitates collaboration and coordination across devolved and reserved competence, ensuring we are delivering effectively for all parts of the UK.

The law requires Ofgem, as the expert independent regulator to enforce Supply Licence Conditions and ensure consumers are treated fairly. My Rt. Hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced a review of energy regulation on 8 September and more details will be published shortly.

The Department has discussions regularly with broadcasters on a range of matters including those related to the broadcasting of Sport.

The Listed Events regime is designed to ensure that sporting events of national significance are accessible to as wide an audience as possible by ensuring that coverage of certain sports are offered to free-to-air broadcasters. Currently, international football matches for the FIFA World Cup Finals Tournament and the European Football Championships Finals Tournament are designated on the listed events regime under Group A - where full live coverage must be offered for free-to-air broadcast. This includes the matches of the home countries that have qualified for the event.

We believe that the current Listed Events regime works well and strikes an appropriate balance between retaining free-to-air sports events for the public while allowing rights holders to negotiate agreements in the best interests of their sport.

Officials are discussing this issue with the trade association for the video games industry, Ukie. We know that bulk purchasing through automated bots is a concern for some of their members who we understand are currently looking at any further actions they can take to prevent these behaviours, and are working with their retailers to improve experiences for customers.

Officials are discussing this issue with the trade association for the video games industry, Ukie. We know that bulk purchasing through automated bots is a concern for some of their members who we understand are currently looking at any further actions they can take to prevent these behaviours, and are working with their retailers to improve experiences for customers.

The Community Radio Fund was set up in 2005 and has an annual budget of £400,000, which is used to help support community radio stations across the UK. It is administered by Ofcom, and applications are assessed by an independent panel.

For the financial year 2020-21, we have worked with Ofcom to use this Fund to provide emergency cash grants to help community radio stations to meet urgent liabilities and to keep themselves in business. Ofcom announced details of 81 awards on 4 June - allocating a significant proportion of the Fund’s budget for the year - and will be inviting applications for a further emergency funding round shortly to ensure that the full amount goes to those stations most in need of support at this time.

We are continuing to liaise with stakeholders across the sector regarding ways in which the Government can support community radio through Covid-19 and beyond.

We recognise there has been a significant negative impact on radio advertising revenues as a result of the COVID-19 crisis and have worked closely with commercial radio broadcasters and trade bodies to support the industry through this exceptionally challenging period.

In addition to the wider economic support available to UK businesses, the government has brokered sector-specific support for commercial radio. Discussions with Arqiva, the UK’s transmission network operator, have resulted in a package of assistance on transmission costs with six months free transmission for Arqiva’s small station customers.

Last month, I met representatives from across the UK where we discussed this very topic. In England, we have put in place a significant amount of support to help students and families alike with the cost of living. This year alone, this government will spend around £37bn on cost of living support.

I take my role of giving children the very best start in life incredibly seriously. This Government spends more than £1 billion annually delivering free school meals to pupils in schools. More than one third of pupils in schools in England now receive a free meal. We have expanded the Holiday Activities and Food programme so that disadvantaged children in England will be offered free healthy meals and enriching activities over the Easter, summer and Christmas holidays. This expansion was built on previous programmes, including last summer’s, which supported around 600,000 children across 152 local authorities.

I also recognise the cost-of-living pressures that have impacted students. That is why we have earmarked £276 million of student premium funding this year to support disadvantaged students who need additional help. We have continued to increase living costs support each year for English-domiciled students with a 2.3% increase to maximum loans and grants for living and other costs for this academic year, and a 2.8% increase for the 2023/24 academic year.

In addition, we have frozen maximum tuition fees for the current academic year and also for the 2023/24 and 2024/25 academic years. By 2024/25, maximum fees will have been frozen for seven years. We believe that a continued fee freeze achieves the best balance between ensuring the system remains sustainable, offering good value for the taxpayer, and reducing debt levels for students.

As well as keeping tuition fees flat, we have introduced and boosted degree apprenticeships, where, if people want to earn and learn, they can get their degrees paid for by their apprenticeship.

We are working with both the higher and further education sectors on what steps they need to take as we come to the end of the Transition Period.

This includes questions around participation in EU-funded programmes and future migration arrangements for example.

Our economic priority is to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on our economy as far as possible. This is an incredibly difficult period for everyone, and we understand that graduates are likely to feel concerned as they enter a far tougher job market than those before them.

Some universities are going above and beyond to support those graduating this summer, providing extensive online careers advice, including webinars offering interview and CV-writing tips and skills and follow-up one-to-one calls. However, we need all universities to step up and play a key role to help graduates take the next step, whether into work or further study.

The recently announced National Tutoring Programme creates an opportunity for graduates to apply for tutoring roles providing support for pupils and schools in the most disadvantaged areas. More details of the programme will be available shortly.

We know that post-graduates often secure employment in higher skilled and higher paid employment than graduates and non-graduates. The government can support with the financial burden of accessing a master’s degree with a loan of up to £11,222. Where graduates are considering a career in teaching, tax-free postgraduate bursaries of up to £26,000 are available for trainee teachers starting initial teacher training in 2020/21, depending on the subject in which they train to teach.

The UK’s world-leading universities remain open to international students and we are working as a priority to make processes as flexible and easy as possible to allow students to study at UK institutions in the 2020-21 academic year.

On 22 June, with my counterparts in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, I wrote to prospective international students to outline the support and guidance that is available to students who are considering studying in the UK from the autumn. In the letter, I reiterate the temporary and targeted flexibilities that the government has announced for international students including, amongst other mitigations, confirmation that distance learning or blended learning will be permitted for the 2020/21 academic year provided that international students’ sponsors intend to transition to face-to-face learning as soon as circumstances allow.

We are also in discussions with Universities UK and other sector representatives on a regular basis to ensure that we are united in welcoming international students to the UK. We expect international students - particularly those who will be subject to the 14-day self-isolation period - to be appropriately supported upon arrival by their chosen university during these unprecedented times. International students who are considering studying at a UK higher education (HE) provider from September 2020 should contact their chosen university to find out how they are adapting to the COVID-19 outbreak.

On Monday 4 May, my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, announced the package of measures to stabilise university admissions this autumn and ensure sustainability in HE at a time of unprecedented uncertainty. Full details of the package have been published on GOV.UK: www.gov.uk/government/news/government-support-package-for-universities-and-students.

The government has also confirmed that HE providers in England are eligible to apply for its support packages, including business loan support schemes. The Office for Students (OfS), the regulator in England, estimates that these schemes could be worth at least £700 million to the sector.

We will only intervene further where we believe there is a case to do so and where we believe intervention is possible and appropriate and as a last resort. In such instances, we will work with providers to review their circumstances and assess the need for restructuring and any attached conditions. The department will be working with HM Treasury and other government departments, as well as with the devolved administrations, to develop this restructuring regime.

Due to its sensitive personal nature, this information is not held by the House of Commons Commission. Guidance and support has been made available by the House service for Members in this position.

At COP26, 197 Parties agreed to the Glasgow Climate Pact to urgently keep 1.5°C alive. We brought nature to the heart of the climate COP for the very first time, with more than 140 world leaders, representing 91 per cent of the world's forests, committing to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030. At COP27, the UK Government continued to demonstrate leadership on nature and climate through new investments: the Secretary of State committed to £30 million of seed finance into the Big Nature Impact Fund, a new public-private fund for nature in the UK which will unlock significant private investment into nature projects. She (not he) also announced an additional £12 million investment in the Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance to make marine biodiversity and vulnerable coastal communities more resilient, and a further £6 million in the UN’s Climate Promise programme to help developing countries achieve their climate commitments.

These steps build on a strong foundation of action and leadership by the UK, reducing our emissions by over 40% since 1990 while growing the economy by three quarters. Defra has a vital role to play in delivering the Government's Net Zero Strategy and ensuring nature-based solutions are a vital part of the climate agenda.

The UK will continue to lead globally on the road to the Convention on Biological Diversity COP15.2, hosted in Montreal, where we must secure agreement to halt and reverse biodiversity loss globally by 2030.The UK is committed to securing an ambitious outcome. We will continue to champion the protection of at least 30% of land and ocean globally, as the chair of the Global Ocean Alliance.

Responsibility for the domestic environment is devolved. However, in England, we are taking unprecedented steps to address biodiversity decline and protect nature, not least through our world leading Environment Act, which requires a new, legally binding target to be set in England to halt the decline in species abundance by 2030, and introduces Biodiversity Net Gain, Local Nature Recovery Strategies and a strengthened biodiversity duty on public authorities to work together to protect our native species.

The Government has always been clear about the need to end the use of peat and peat-containing products in horticulture in England.

We have worked with the horticulture industry to develop a Responsible Sourcing Scheme for Growing Media, which allows manufacturers and retailers to make informed choices of growing media inputs to peat free products, based on environmental and social impacts.

We continue to support industry in their efforts to go peat free, this has included over £1 million on a project to provide the necessary applied science to help underpin the development and management of alternative growing media. We are co-funding monitoring with the horticultural industry on the composition of growing media (including peat) supplied for amateur and professional use in the horticultural market.

While there has been some progress, the voluntary approach to phasing out the use of peat in horticulture has not succeeded. The Government therefore published a full consultation on banning the sale of peat and peat-containing products in the amateur sector by the end of this Parliament in England and Wales. The Government also asked for any evidence stakeholders can provide on the impacts of ending the use of peat and peat-containing products, we will publish our response to this consultation in due course.

We will continue to work across Government, and the private sector, to find solutions that will enable the use of peat and products containing peat to end. This includes the ground-breaking work being conducted by Forestry England to reduce peat use within tree nurseries; and identifying regulatory barriers in respect of potential peat replacement products.

The Government has always been clear about the need to end the use of peat and peat-containing products in horticulture in England.

We have worked with the horticulture industry to develop a Responsible Sourcing Scheme for Growing Media, which allows manufacturers and retailers to make informed choices of growing media inputs to peat free products, based on environmental and social impacts.

We continue to support industry in their efforts to go peat free, this has included over £1 million on a project to provide the necessary applied science to help underpin the development and management of alternative growing media. We are co-funding monitoring with the horticultural industry on the composition of growing media (including peat) supplied for amateur and professional use in the horticultural market.

While there has been some progress, the voluntary approach to phasing out the use of peat in horticulture has not succeeded. The Government therefore published a full consultation on banning the sale of peat and peat-containing products in the amateur sector by the end of this Parliament in England and Wales. The Government also asked for any evidence stakeholders can provide on the impacts of ending the use of peat and peat-containing products, we will publish our response to this consultation in due course.

We will continue to work across Government, and the private sector, to find solutions that will enable the use of peat and products containing peat to end. This includes the ground-breaking work being conducted by Forestry England to reduce peat use within tree nurseries; and identifying regulatory barriers in respect of potential peat replacement products.

The forthcoming Food Strategy White Paper is a once in a generation opportunity to create a food system that feeds our nation today and protects it for tomorrow.

It will build on existing work across Government and identify new opportunities to make the food system healthier, more sustainable, more resilient, and more accessible for those across the UK. Given ongoing wider circumstances, we expect to publish the food strategy after the pre-election period for the local elections.

The House authorities on behalf of the Commission have met with representatives of the Trade Unions for staff in the House of Commons and PDS formally at least three times per week since the beginning of March, and with representatives of Members’ and Peers’ Staff Association (MAPSA) and Unite as representatives of Members’ staff. These discussions have covered all aspects of how the House is responding to Covid-19, including preparations for the return of the House on 2 June.

The Commission has also invited submissions from the groups mentioned above.