Euan Stainbank

As set out in the King’s Speech, our priorities in this session are to bring forward our draft Bills on banning conversion practices and on race and disability equality, alongside strengthening protections from hate crime for LGBT people and improving trans people’s healthcare.

Conversion practices are abuse. Such practices have no place in society and must be stopped. As outlined in the King’s Speech, this Government is committed to bringing forward a full, trans-inclusive ban on conversion practices. We continue to work cross-government on this important issue with a view to publishing our draft Bill later this session.

The Crown Commercial Service (CCS) provides public sector organisations with a range of commercial agreements, through which they can procure common goods and services, as well as offering commercial advice and procurement services. CCS does not set a limit on the amount that an individual organisation can spend on a single contract procured using CCS commercial agreements or services. It is the responsibility of each organisation, including the Scottish Government, to determine its own level of spend on each contract.

Places for Growth published a formative evaluation report in October 2024, which outlined that the programme is on track to deliver an estimated £729m in local economic benefits to cross Government locations between 2024 and 2030. Further details on the programme will be set out in the Spending Review after which an assessment will be undertaken. Places for Growth is committed to ongoing programme evaluation.

The government is committed to supporting the UK’s domestic bus manufacturing industry and ensuring a fair, competitive procurement process. The new National Procurement Policy Statement will be focused on our missions, growing the economy, creating high-quality local jobs, driving innovation and opening up opportunities to small businesses and social enterprises. Contracting authorities are encouraged to consider how their procurement strategies can support domestic supply chains, including the bus manufacturing sector.

The Government is committed to strengthening the long-term competitiveness of the UK bus manufacturing sector and accelerating the shift to zero-emission vehicles. This includes reforms to bus procurement, supporting the work of the DfT UK Bus Manufacturing Expert Panels, and a £15 billion investment over five years to improve local transport in the North and Midlands, supporting sector growth and new zero-emission buses. Through DRIVE35, we are providing funding to support R&D and commercial scaling of zero-emission vehicles, creating skilled jobs and attracting private investment for sustained sector success.

The Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act 2023 ensures all tips, gratuities and service charges must be passed on to staff in full – except for permitted deductions like tax.

It is estimated this ban on employer deductions ensures workers receive around £200 million worth of tips each year that was previously retained by employers. A statutory code of practice was published to support employers on fair and transparent distribution of tips and ensure the requirements are followed.

This Government will go further, making it mandatory for employers to consult with workers at their place of business when developing their tipping policies.

The Subsidy Control Act 2022 enables public authorities to deliver targeted and timely interventions to address local needs and drive economic growth while minimising harm to competition within the UK. It also implements the UK’s international commitments, including those in the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement and World Trade Organization rules.

The UK and Scottish Governments established a joint taskforce in June to consider the situation at Alexander Dennis, and ministers from both Governments have been in correspondence on the matter since then.

The Scottish Government recently announced it would provide additional subsidy to Alexander Dennis for a furlough scheme.

We suspended export licences for Israel where these relate to items for use in military operations in Gaza. This includes licences for components for fighter aircraft, helicopters and drones, naval systems and targeting equipment.

Since the details of individual suspended licences contain sensitive information relevant to the individual exporter companies, the government is not providing further comment on them.

The US market is Scotland's second largest export market for goods, worth £4bn in 2024. In response to US tariffs, the government launched a Request for Input on the 3 April to gather feedback directly from stakeholders across the whole of the UK that could be affected by our possible response options.

On 8 May, the UK concluded a landmark economic deal with the US, saving thousands of jobs, protecting key British industries, and helping drive economic growth. DBT Ministers and officials engaged regularly with the Devolved Governments on US tariffs during the progress of the talks with the US and continue to do so.

We are working as quickly as possible to understand what we can do to support investors interested in developing projects at Grangemouth, including what policy or regulatory support is needed to enable investment. The inaugural Grangemouth Investment Taskforce, jointly chaired by the HMG and the Scottish government took place on May 21, 2025, to drive forward potential investment propositions.

The National Wealth Fund stands ready, and we encourage investors to come forward to join us in this major opportunity to secure a long-term industrial future in Grangemouth.

Project Willow – an independent feasibility study led by Ernst and Young and jointly funded by the UK and the Scottish Governments – evaluated over 300 technologies to identify those that could be effectively deployed in Grangemouth. This included options to produce hydrogenated vegetable oil products, such as sustainable aviation fuel and renewable diesel.

We are now ready to take these opportunities forward. Backed by £200 million from the National Wealth Fund, our UK and Scottish Government investment agencies are working together to find investors for clean energy proposals in the Grangemouth area.

As sustainable biomass is a limited resource, the Government expect to prioritise its use in sectors like aviation, which have fewest options to decarbonise. Renewable liquid heating fuels are also much more expensive to use than other heating solutions.

Before taking decisions on whether to support the use of renewable liquid fuels in heating, the Government would require stronger evidence on their affordability for consumers, and the availability of sustainable feedstock.

As sustainable biomass is a limited resource, the Government expect to prioritise its use in sectors like aviation, which have fewest options to decarbonise. Renewable liquid heating fuels are also much more expensive to use than other heating solutions.

Before taking decisions on whether to support the use of renewable liquid fuels in heating, the Government would require stronger evidence on their affordability for consumers, and the availability of sustainable feedstock.

Before July, there was no overall plan for the future of the Grangemouth refinery. Within weeks, we worked with the Scottish Government to put together a £100m package to support the community and invest in the local workforce, along with tailored support to secure good, alternative jobs.

We launched Project Willow to find an industrial future for the site – identifying nine low-carbon and renewable energy business models that could create 800 jobs by 2040.

We are ready to take these forward as co-investment projects with the private sector. Backed by £200 million from the National Wealth Fund, our investment agencies are working to find investors for these proposals and other low carbon and clean energy proposals in the Grangemouth area.

After the refinery closes, Grangemouth will supply Scotland with imported fuel. We have rigorously assessed Petroineos’ import terminal model to ensure it will provide energy security and resilience for Scotland, and we will continue monitoring to ensure long term confidence for Scottish consumers and businesses.

The Online Safety Act requires user-to-user and search services to take proportionate steps to tackle illegal content – and protect children from harmful content – on their services. The Act does not prevent adults from seeking out legal content including health content, and it is not about specific applications.

The regulator Ofcom will instead look at the systems and processes that in-scope services have in place for tackling illegal content and protecting children. There are also protections against the ‘over removal’ of content, where platforms take down content they should leave on their sites.

The UK’s data protection legislation applies to technology companies providing services to people in the UK, if they are processing personal data. The legislation sets out general rules on how such data should be processed and safeguarded. This includes ensuring that any processing is lawful, fair and transparent. Organisations must also carry out a data protection impact assessment, when processing activities involving new technologies that are likely to result in a high risk to individuals’ rights and freedoms. The legislation is independently regulated by the Information Commissioner's Office. We recently strengthened their powers in the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 to help them investigate suspected breaches of the legislation.

The Advanced Research and Invention Agency’s (ARIA) ‘Exploring Climate Cooling’ programme, backed by £56.8 million, has been designed to build an evidence base which will enable scientists to better understand and properly assess whether or not Earth cooling approaches could help to mitigate climate change safely.

ARIA is an independent research body, and they are conducting cautious, controlled research aimed at improving understanding of the risks and impacts of Solar Radiation Modification. This will produce important information for decisions around the world.

ARIA have put in place an independent oversight committee, made up of international experts, to support effective governance of outdoor experiments and communication of their findings. Projects with field trial components will be subjected to risk and impact assessment by an independent team of experts and subjected to a degree of co-design with local communities; the results of both exercises will be publicly available prior to any outdoor experiment taking place. An independent assessment will also take place on completion of any outdoor experiment, also to be made publicly available.

The Advanced Research and Invention Agency’s (ARIA) ‘Exploring Climate Cooling’ programme, backed by £56.8 million, has been designed to build an evidence base which will enable scientists to better understand and properly assess whether or not Earth cooling approaches could help to mitigate climate change safely.

ARIA is an independent research body, and they are conducting cautious, controlled research aimed at improving understanding of the risks and impacts of Solar Radiation Modification. This will produce important information for decisions around the world.

ARIA have put in place an independent oversight committee, made up of international experts, to support effective governance of outdoor experiments and communication of their findings. Projects with field trial components will be subjected to risk and impact assessment by an independent team of experts and subjected to a degree of co-design with local communities; the results of both exercises will be publicly available prior to any outdoor experiment taking place. An independent assessment will also take place on completion of any outdoor experiment, also to be made publicly available.

The Government published a consultation on Copyright and AI in December 2024.

This consultation seeks views on proposals to introduce a package of measures, which includes a requirement for AI developers to be more transparent about how they obtain their training material, to enable copyright to be respected and more easily enforced.

The proposals include a rights reservation mechanism. This would need to be simple, practical, and accessible to both individual creators and larger rights holders. The Government welcomes feedback from UK-based creators on this approach, and how it will work in practice.

The consultation closed on 25 February.

The Government is committed to ensuring that everyone, regardless of background, should have access to and benefit from quality sport and physical activity opportunities.

The Park Tennis Court Programme was a joint investment between the UK Government and Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) that started in 2022 and concluded in 2024.

All future funding of sports facilities will be considered as part of the Spending Review.

The Government is committed to ensuring that everyone, regardless of background, should have access to and benefit from quality sport and physical activity opportunities.

The Government provides the majority of funding for grassroots sport through our Arm’s Length Body, Sport England, which invests over £250 million in Exchequer and Lottery funding each year. Sport England’s work focuses on increasing participation in sport, including tennis, at grassroots level to give more and better opportunities to all. Sport England provides long term investment to the Lawn Tennis Association, the National Governing Body for tennis in Britain, which receives up to £10.2 million for five years to invest in community tennis initiatives that will benefit everyone.

Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only.

The majority of out-of-school settings providers do a good job of delivering safe and enriching education and activities.

These providers have a legal duty of care to ensure the safety of children that attend their setting and protect them from harm. Local authorities are also legally responsible for safeguarding children in their areas and, when there are concerns, we expect them to intervene using the wide range of powers available to them. Similarly, local authorities have a statutory duty to make enquiries about safeguarding concerns under the Care Act 2014. Statutory guidance for the Care Act 2014 makes clear that local authorities must ensure that the services they commission are safe, effective, and of high-quality.

We have acted to improve sector safety by updating the safeguarding code of practice for out-of-school setting providers and accompanying guidance for parents and carers. We also published new e-learning for out-of-school providers and strengthened guidance for local authorities.

We are seeking to further improve safeguarding standards and have published a call for evidence to help improve our understanding of safeguarding within the sector. This will help gather evidence required to inform potential approaches, such as a national framework, and enhance the safety of these settings.

This government is clear that no teacher should feel unsafe or face violence or abuse in the workplace.

The department will always support teachers to ensure they can work in safe and calm classrooms. All school employers, including trusts, have a duty to take reasonable steps to protect the health, safety, and welfare of their employees.

​For schools in England, the department expects schools to take immediate and robust action if incidents of violence occur. Any decision on how to sanction the pupil involved is a matter for the school. In the most serious cases, suspension and a permanent exclusion may be necessary to ensure that teachers and pupils are protected from disruption and to maintain safe, calm environments. Should the incident constitute a criminal offence, the school should report it to the police.

My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, has met representatives from the devolved administrations on a number of occasions including at the UK Education Ministers Council. Whilst behaviour has not been the primary focus of these conversations, different government policies and approaches have been discussed and the department continues to be interested in the approaches taken in the devolved nations.

Defra regularly engages with the devolved Governments on a range of animal welfare issues.

The UK has strong laws in place to protect the environment. Contravention of many of these is a criminal offence. Convictions are sought to punish significant or persistent environmental offending.

The Government is committed to supporting the uptake and development of alternative methods to the use of animals in science. The Labour Manifesto includes a commitment to partner with scientists, industry, and civil society as we work towards the phasing out of animal testing, which is a long-term goal.

Progress has been made towards the development and adoption of non-animal test methods within the OECD’s Environmental Health and Safety Programme. The UK leads on and supports numerous projects producing internationally harmonised tools and guidance for ‘New Approach Methodologies’ based regulatory chemical assessment across a number of working groups. This includes the Test Guidelines Programme, where the UK recently contributed to the development of the first internationally harmonised guideline to describe a non-animal defined approach that can be used to replace completely replace animal tests to identify skin sensitizsers and predict potency.

In line with the Government’s Manifesto commitment, Defra, along with partners from sectors with interests in animal science and on a cross-Government level are currently engaging with DSIT to develop a strategy to support the development, validation and uptake of alternative methods to animal testing. We expect the publication of this strategy later this year.

I refer the hon. Member to the answer given on 8 May 2024 to Question 49143.

The waste hierarchy sets out a priority order in which waste should be managed (prevention, preparing for reuse, recycling, recovery, disposal). The process of converting waste (both biogenic and fossil fractions) into fuels/energy is a recovery operation for the purposes of the waste hierarchy. This is because once combusted, material is lost from the circular economy.

Whilst we have no plans to change the waste hierarchy, Defra’s position is that we welcome innovative and new measures to manage residual waste and that there is nothing to stop the production of fuel from residual waste if this is determined, by local authorities or other waste producers, to be the best overall environmental outcome for such waste.

As committed to in the Government’s manifesto, we will be publishing a long-term strategy for transport to set out the Department’s vision for domestic transport across England. We intend to publish the Strategy towards the end of this year.