Jim Shannon

The Government is committed to working with Devolved Administrations and delivering compensation to people who are infected and affected as soon as possible.

As of 30 June 2024, 109 individuals in Northern Ireland have received interim compensation payments. This comprises 85 individuals infected with contaminated blood or blood products, and 24 bereaved partners of infected individuals who have sadly passed away. While the Statistical Expert Group, established by the Infected Blood Inquiry, has provided valuable insight into the numbers of infections from blood and blood products in the UK between 1970 and 1991. Due to the nature of the Infected Blood scandal there is uncertainty over the number of people, especially those affected, who might be eligible for compensation. The final number of eligible people will ultimately depend on the number of victims who come forward. The Government will compensate people who have been infected and affected by the infected blood scandal, and we expect the Infected Blood Compensation Authority to begin making payments by the end of the year.

My department is working in partnership with Invest Northern Ireland through DBT’s Trade and Investment hub in Belfast and its wider global network to showcase NI as a location for investment.

We are focused on driving investment into all parts of the UK, including through our forthcoming International Investment Summit in October 2024.

DBT Ministers have engaged with the Northern Ireland Executive since assuming office, including productive meetings and correspondence at SoS and Minister of State level as well as detailed and ongoing official level dialogue regarding the interests of Northern Ireland Executive and businesses in Northern Ireland in the UK Government growth agenda.

This Government is focused on its five-point plan to breathe life back into Britain’s high streets. Our plans include tackling retail crime, ensuring a level playing field between online and high street businesses, stamping out late payments and ending the blight of empty spaces. This work will ensure that our high streets are great places for our businesses, supporting economic growth across the UK.

The British Business Bank supports SMEs to grow by improving their access to finance. The Growth Guarantee Scheme offers a 70% government guarantee on loans to SMEs of up to £2 million in Great Britain, and £1 million in Northern Ireland and is available until the end of March 2026.

The industry-led Retail Sector Council has identified High Street Regeneration and Investment as one if its key area of work and has been considering a sector vision for the high street.

The Secretary of State and I have met with Royal Mail’s parent company, International Distribution Services, and the EP Group to discuss the proposed takeover of IDS.

The universal service obligation is a legally binding commitment on the designated universal service provider and its ongoing provision would be required irrespective of ownership of the business.

Under terms agreed between Airbus and Spirit, Airbus will acquire the elements of Spirit’s Belfast site responsible for the A220 airliner. This includes the wing and mid-fuselage sections. The Government is working with the Northern Ireland Executive to help ensure the best outcome for Short Brothers and all its incredibly skilled, hard working, staff. My Department is in touch with Spirit, Airbus, Boeing and other potential buyers. We have a keen interest in seeing that any acquisition includes a commitment to develop Short Brothers and its supply chain, and to provide the best possible opportunity for growth in Northern Ireland.

The Government is taking a range of steps to make heat pumps more affordable and remove barriers to their installation. This includes providing grants of £7,500 under the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS), supporting innovation and reviewing permitted development rights.

For the small number of homes where a heat pump is not suitable, we expect other technologies to play a role in the transition to clean heat. We continue to build the evidence base on alternative technologies and this research will inform future policy development.

The Government believes that renewable liquid fuels could play a limited role in heating. As sustainable biomass is a limited resource, we expect to prioritise the use of renewable liquid fuels in sectors like aviation, and potentially homes that are not readily suitable for heat pumps, as these offer the greatest opportunity to reduce emissions and have fewest options to decarbonise through alternative low carbon technologies.

Our Warm Homes Plan will offer grants and low interest loans to support investment in insulation, low carbon heating and other home improvements to cut bills. It will be focused on making it economically worthwhile for people to transition to clean sources of heating, including for those living in properties off the gas-grid.

We will announce further policy detail of the Warm Homes Plan in due course. Currently, alongside consumer advice sites, the Home Upgrade Grant and Boiler Upgrade Scheme are in place to support those not connected to the gas grid to decarbonise.

Communities should benefit from hosting local renewable energy infrastructure and the Government will shortly publish updated community benefits guidance for onshore wind in England. The devolved administrations have their own policies regarding community benefits.

Investing in clean energy at speed and scale is the only way to deliver energy security and protect families from future energy shocks.

The strongest protections in the Online Safety Act are against child sexual abuse and exploitation. The higher the risk on a service, the more measures and safeguards they will need to take to keep their users safe from harm, and prevent their services being used as a platform to groom and exploit children

Ofcom, the online safety regulator, has strong powers to combat this kind of abuse and will keep its codes of practice to tackle illegal harms under review.

The Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO) is working with departments to assess the potential of digital transformation on key public facing services, and to improve them. CDDO continues to assess the potential impacts of AI on public service productivity, and is collaborating with departments to explore AI opportunities aimed at enhancing Civil Service productivity, looking to then trial the products to assess the real-world impact.

The Government is committed to the licence fee for the remainder of the current Charter period. The Government will keep an open mind about the future of the licence fee, and will engage with the BBC and other relevant stakeholders before deciding on next steps.

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

The majority of students who applied for places at universities in 2024 will have done so before the change of government in July 2024.

Final applications, acceptances and confirmations of these places will continue to be finalised until the end of October 2024.

The department will continue to work closely with the higher education sector to support the 2025 intake of students and to ensure they can progress to their next step in life.

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

Having a good standard of English and mathematics is key to a good education, future career options and for ensuring rising standards in literacy and numeracy. The department’s focus is on continued study and improving capability in English and mathematics because of the evidenced benefits this brings to students‘ lives.

The department does not require students who have not yet achieved a GCSE grade 4 or above in mathematics and English to re-sit the qualification. If a student wishes to re-take their Level 2 English and mathematics they should do so when they and their provider think they are ready.

The Curriculum and Assessment Review will seek to deliver an excellent foundation in English and mathematics, including how best to support 16 to 19 year olds who currently do not achieve Level 2 by the age of 16.

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

Small businesses are important to the economy and to apprenticeships. This government will transform the skills system by developing a Growth and Skills Levy so that opportunities, including apprenticeships, are available across the country and businesses of all sizes can meet their ambitions, fill their skills gaps and stimulate the economic growth that this country needs.

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

It is important for universities, their students and staff, that there is a sustainable higher education (HE) funding system that provides opportunities, supports students and maintains the world-leading status of our universities. The government is committed to a sustainable funding model, which supports high value provision, thereby powering opportunity and growth and meeting the skills needs of the country.

The government keeps the HE funding system under continuous review. The department will work with universities to support students and deliver for the economy. An announcement on student finance arrangements for the 2025/26 academic year will be made in due course.

Pesticides are strictly regulated based on the risks and benefits of use. The Government will always take decisions according to these legal requirements and with full consideration of the evidence.

This government recognises that nature is at a crisis point across Britain. We will therefore change existing policies to prevent the use of those neonicotinoid pesticides that threaten our vital pollinators.

Responsibility for dog control is devolved in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

In England and Wales, owners whose dogs are dangerously out of control are breaking the law and the maximum penalty is a custodial sentence of up to 14 years. This includes in relation to attacks on postal workers.

Defra is working with the Home Office, police, local authorities and animal welfare groups to help prevent attacks by encouraging responsible dog ownership, to ensure dog control issues are addressed before they escalate and to make sure the full force of the law is applied. As part of this work, we will continue to consider whether the current dog control rules are sufficient to ensure communities are protected.

Through our bulk milk testing, wider surveillance and monitoring of past infections in cattle, we are confident the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) virus strain B3.13 that has been responsible for incidents of influenza of avian origin in cattle in the USA has not been detected in Great Britain. Our national reference laboratory at the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) Weybridge laboratory has also confirmed that temperatures used in pasteurisation would be effective in destroying any live virus.

The APHA has assessed the risk to livestock in Great Britain from this outbreak of Influenza A (H5N1) of avian origin in livestock in the USA, as very low (event is very rare but cannot be excluded) (Avian influenza in cattle in USA (publishing.service.gov.uk). The Food Standards Agency (FSA) have assessed the risk to UK consumers from HPAI strain B3.13 in imported milk, dairy products, colostrum and colostrum-based products originating from US dairy cattle as very low with medium uncertainty (Rapid Risk Assessment: Risk to UK consumers from Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) H5N1 B3.13 in US dairy products | Food Standards Agency). The Human Animal Infections and Risk Surveillance group (HAIRS) consider that the HPAI B3.13 strain presents at most a very low risk with regard to spread from animals-to-humans in the UK HAIRS risk statement: Avian influenza A(H5N1) in livestock - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

We do not currently anticipate any impact of influenza of avian origin on the dairy sector in the UK, nor on the supplies of milk. However, whilst the responsibility for animal health is devolved, all four UK administrations work closely together to consider and respond to animal disease threats. We remain vigilant and will continue to use our established systems to monitor for changes in risk through both HAIRS and our Veterinary Risk Group.

A key aim for this administration is to reset the UK government’s relationship with devolved governments in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland and EU and therefore look forward to discussions on a range of issues relating to the Windsor Framework, including State aid.

Local authorities in England are required to report fly-tipping incidents and enforcement actions to Defra, which are published annually at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/env24-fly-tipping-incidents-and-actions-taken-in-england. This excludes the majority of private-land incidents.

Data for the 2023/24 reporting year will be published later this year.

This government has set out its mission to halve violence against women and girls within a decade and will treat this work as a national emergency.

No one should ever have to face the risk of violence or harassment when travelling on our transport networks.

We are taking action to make sure women and girls in particular feel safe on our transport network. We work closely with railway partners, including the British Transport Police (BTP), to achieve this. BTP utilises specialist teams of plain clothed and uniformed officers across the network to target and identify offenders. It uses enhanced patrols, with a directed, intelligence-led focus around the nighttime economy, providing high-visibility presence to reassure rail staff and the public.

Current public campaigns and support tools include the National Rail ‘Zero Tolerance’ campaign aimed at ending sexual harassment and BTP’s Railway Guardian app, which provides safety advice, links to partner organisations and enables reporting of incidents to the force directly. Previous public awareness campaigns have included using real victim stories to encourage more members of the public to come forward and report incidents of sexual harassment to the force.

The Government has not made a recent assessment of chargepoint efficiencies across the UK.

The Department for Transport works closely with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency and the Devolved Governments to verify vehicle registration and location data for use in compliance. The ZEV Mandate includes a range of measures to prevent and penalise circumvention.

Foreign registered vehicles brought temporarily into the UK by non-UK residents are exempt from UK registration and the payment of vehicle excise duty for up to six months in any 12-month period.

When the keeper of a vehicle becomes resident in the UK, or the vehicle has remained in the UK for more than six months, the vehicle should be registered and vehicle excise duty paid in line with UK laws.

Where there is sufficient evidence that the six-month rule is breached, enforcement action can be taken by the police, local authorities with devolved powers or the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency.

Regulation 261/2004 sets out passenger rights in the event of certain flight disruptions. Under this Regulation, passengers who have their flight cancelled are entitled to a refund or alternative flight. In some circumstances, passengers may also be entitled to additional compensation.

Government is committed to working with industry and stakeholders to ensure consumers continue to have a high level of protection whilst travelling by air.

The Government has no plans to move people from the old State Pension system to the new State Pension system.

It is not the case that everyone receiving the new State Pension (i.e. those reaching State Pension age on or after 6 April 2016) will receive more than those under the old State Pension system. Both systems reflect the National Insurance record of the individual. Therefore, the amount people receive varies.

The unemployment rate has fallen slightly over the last 12 months, by 0.1%pts to 4.2%.

The unemployment rate does not capture everyone who is out of work. The economic inactivity rate has increased by 0.7%pts, equivalent to 350,000 people, over the same period. Economic inactivity due to long-term sickness is at a near-record high at 2.8m.

The number of employed 16–24-year-olds has fallen by 183,000 in the last 12 months, driven by higher economic inactivity. DWP places a strong emphasis on developing policies that support young people into employment, whilst also acknowledging that their needs will vary based on their location and individual circumstances.

My department, working closely with the Department for Education, are developing the Youth Guarantee, to refocus support to all young people aged 18-21 years old not in education, employment or training. We will ensure they have access to quality opportunities for training, an apprenticeship or help to find work for, to prevent them becoming excluded from the world of work at a young age.

DWP currently offers demand led labour market support to young people aged 16-24 through a comprehensive range of interventions at both national and local levels. This includes flexible, locally driven provision, nationwide employment programmes and tailored support delivered by work coaches in Jobcentres and in local communities, in collaboration with our partners.

Based on the latest published Pension Credit caseload statistics (sources below), in February 2024 there were 1,359,475 households in Great Britain claiming Pension Credit.

The published Pension Credit figures refer to households, so the number of individuals will be higher (i.e., taking account of households where it is a couple claiming Pension Credit).

Source:

Pension Credit data is published here: Pension Credit – Data from May 2018

We have interpreted ‘sustainability’ to mean the viability of Jobcentres in rural areas.

DWP has a network of 634 established Jobcentres across the UK. The location of Jobcentres needs to balance customer demand, the range of services it needs to offer and operational efficiency.

If a Jobcentre is relocated, the Department fully assesses the likely impact, including completion of an Equality Assessment.

We will be looking to work with a range of partners, including local areas to further develop and deliver our manifesto commitments which will inform wider thinking on the delivery of employment support.