Asked by: James Cartlidge (Conservative - South Suffolk)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether he plans to hold discussions with the (a) Fairtrade Foundation and (b) other stakeholders on the fair treatment of workers around the world.
Answered by Stephen Doughty - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The UK Government is committed to working closely with international labour organisations, including the Fairtrade Foundation, to advance free and fair trade around the world that is inclusive, sustainable and reduces poverty.
Lord Collins' priority of championing equal rights for all extends to workers globally and is reflected in our work with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to promote more and better jobs for workers globally, including raising workers' rights issues, and promoting equal pay for equal work for women. The Government acts globally to prevent forced labour in supply chains, including, for example, by supporting reform of labour migration policies in South East Asia to ensure fair treatment of migrant workers.
Many female dominated sectors include precarious, informal and isolated work. The UK is pressing for better representation and leadership within union movements, including for paid care workers. The UK's new Trade Centre of Expertise will build the capacity of producers, businesses and governments in developing countries to participate in and prosper from global trade.
Asked by: James Cartlidge (Conservative - South Suffolk)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the UK-EU Agreement in Respect of Gibraltar on defence.
Answered by Luke Pollard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
Protecting the UK’s operational autonomy of the military facilities in Gibraltar has been a red line throughout negotiations of the UK-EU Agreement in Respect of Gibraltar.
The agreement reached on 11 June 2025 maintains full operational autonomy of the UK’s military facilities in Gibraltar, which play a vital role in protecting regional security and important trade routes - we would not have agreed to a deal which compromised our military facilities in Gibraltar.
Asked by: James Cartlidge (Conservative - South Suffolk)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what the in service date for the effector resulting from the European Long-Range Strike Approach programme is.
Answered by Maria Eagle - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
The European Long Range Strike Arrangement (ELSA) is exploring national requirements around several systems and effectors to achieve various capabilities and ranges. The longest-range systems under consideration have in-service dates from 2030 onwards.
Asked by: James Cartlidge (Conservative - South Suffolk)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the Answer of 19 December 2024 to Question 19731 on Poland: Guided Weapons, what the planned in service date is for the Future Common Missile.
Answered by Maria Eagle - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
We are continuing to work with Poland to develop our plans for future Integrated Air and Missile Defence capabilities. The planned in-service dates of those capabilities will be determined in due course.
Asked by: James Cartlidge (Conservative - South Suffolk)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the NHS Agenda for Change Pay Scale for reflecting trends in the level of workloads faced by medical professionals in the NHS.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The management of staff workloads is a matter for local employing organisations, and is not considered to be a national pay, terms, and conditions issue.
The Agenda for Change pay scale, and the national terms and conditions of service, are used to support the employment of non-medical staff in the National Health Service. The NHS Staff Council has overall responsibility for the maintenance of the pay scales and the conditions of service.
The Job Evaluation Scheme underpins the Agenda for Change system of pay and supports the principle of equal pay for work of equal value. Pay bands are assigned based on the requirements of the role, such as skills and knowledge.
Asked by: James Cartlidge (Conservative - South Suffolk)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to recommendation 5 of the Strategic Defence Review: Making Britain Safer: secure at home, strong abroad, published on 2 June 2025, when he plans to launch a tender to deliver the Digital Targeting Web.
Answered by Maria Eagle - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
The Digital Targeting Web is not a single piece of equipment or software with a single supplier, but an ecosystem that will bring together the current disparate multitude of targeting systems and software into a secure and efficiently connected, cross-classification, capability that will enable warfighting at pace and scale across all 5 operational domains on the Digital Backbone.
It will easily enable the introduction of emerging and novel technology, improve data-standardisation to enable better data and information sharing so that Defence has a much-improved ability to understand and shape the battlespace. Through the automation of processes, and the more timely provision of targeting data to weapon systems, the DTW will ensure the end-to-end targeting cycle is accelerated to better support commanders and provide UK Defence with a warfighting advantage over our adversaries. There will be no ‘single supplier’ nor tender to deliver the Digital Targeting Web, but a series of accelerators will be spun up to achieve the DTW. The first industry day has been set up for 18 July 2025 where industry can find out more about the approach and potential opportunities.
Asked by: James Cartlidge (Conservative - South Suffolk)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of using rural exception sites for delivering affordable housing.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The National Planning Policy Framework expects local planning authorities to support opportunities to bring forward rural exception sites to provide affordable housing to meet identified local needs.
In the government response to the revised NPPF published on 12 December 2024, we committed to give further consideration to how we can better support rural affordable housing, including through rural exception sites, as part of our work to produce a set of national policies for decision making in 2025.
Asked by: James Cartlidge (Conservative - South Suffolk)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of applying permitted development rights to small reservoirs.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Under existing nationally set permitted development rights, farmers are able to create smaller, on-farm reservoirs. Guidance on the rights in question is available on gov.uk here.
The government continues to keep permitted development rights under review.
Asked by: James Cartlidge (Conservative - South Suffolk)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps he is taking to ensure that critical components of military drones manufactured in the UK and supplied to Ukraine are sourced from UK suppliers.
Answered by Luke Pollard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
Where the UK’s drone industry can meet Ukraine’s drone requirements, Task Force KINDRED try to source from UK industry. This has been reaffirmed by the Defence Secretary’s announcement at the Ukraine Defence Contact Group on 4 June 2025, where he pledged £350 million investment into drones this financial year, with the majority of the spend to be with British companies.
The UK’s military support to Ukraine is based upon Ukraine’s needs, prioritising speed of delivery for equipment.
When drone production or their performance is constrained by supply of components, the Ministry of Defence has worked with UK companies to develop and produce new components.
Asked by: James Cartlidge (Conservative - South Suffolk)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to to table 5.1 on pages 44-45 of the Spending Review 2025, published on 11 June 2025, CP 1336, whether the Single Intelligence Account budget will be added to the Ministry of Defence's budget in 2027-28.
Answered by Darren Jones - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
The PM announced in February that an increase in NATO qualifying defence spending to 2.5% would be fully funded by a reduction to the ODA budget.
In line with practice among our allies, and recognising the increased contribution provided by our security and intelligence agencies on defence, we are including greater elements of the Single Intelligence Account spend in our NATO defence reporting. This will bring total NATO qualifying spending to 2.6% by 2027-28. This does not mean that the intelligence and security services will be added to the MOD budget.
NATO qualifying defence spending has always included elements beyond the MOD TDEL budget. This includes elements of spend such as armed forces pensions.