Mary Glindon

The UK and the EU allow for visa-free short-term travel in line with their respective arrangements for third country nationals. The UK allows EU citizens short-term visa-free travel for up to six months. Meanwhile, the EU allows for travel within the Schengen Area for up to 90 days in any rolling 180-day period; this is standard for third countries travelling visa-free to the EU. UK nationals planning to stay longer will need permission from the relevant Member State. This may require a visa and/or permit.The UK Government will continue to listen to and advocate for UK nationals.

The Government’s plans to widen the definition of a Public Interest Entity were announced in the King’s Speech as part of the announcement on the draft Audit Reform and Corporate Governance Bill.

Companies whose securities are traded on the main market of the London Stock Exchange and banks, building societies and insurers are required to have an audit committee. Other private companies are not required to have an audit committee, but may choose to have one. Outside of the regulated financial sector, companies are not required to have an internal audit function. The Government plans to extend the scrutiny of the largest private companies’ external audits through the draft Audit and Corporate Governance bill and will set out full details of what that will include in due course.

The Government announced that it would publish a draft audit reform and corporate governance bill in the King’s Speech, which is expected to include extending enhanced Public Interest Entity audit requirements to very large private companies. The financial resilience of major suppliers to government, including firms working on infrastructure projects, is monitored on an ongoing basis by the Crown Commercial Service.

As announced in the King’s speech, the Government intends to publish a draft Audit Reform and Corporate Governance Bill in due course. We expect the Bill to include further details on the proposed directors’ enforcement regime, including in respect of the scope of the regime.

The Plan to Make Work Pay set out a commitment to review the implementation of Carer’s Leave, and that work is now underway. To deliver on this, we are bringing forward the Post Implementation Review of this legislation to complete before the end of this parliament.

Our ambitious Clean Energy Mission will be an incredible opportunity for jobs and investment all across the country, supporting the Growth Mission. The Office for Clean Energy Jobs will support workers from high carbon sectors to move to clean energy jobs by targeting skill interventions to reskill and upskill workers. We will continue to coordinate our approach to ensure a just transition across Government, including working closely with Skills England.

The Government will introduce a new Industrial Strategy to drive long-term sustainable, inclusive and secure growth - through securing investment into crucial sectors of the economy. The Industrial Strategy will be key in identifying levers to ensure that we continue to build strong domestic supply chains for green industries and are able to capitalise on the growth opportunities of the net zero transition.

Additionally, we have established the Office for Clean Energy Jobs within DESNZ. The Office is dedicated to ensuring that clean energy jobs are not only abundant but also of high quality, focussing on fair pay, favourable terms, and good working conditions.

The Department has not made an assessment of the potential impact of means testing the Winter Fuel Payment on levels of fuel poverty in winter 2024-25. A statistical publication estimating the rate of fuel poverty for those in receipt of Winter Fuel Payment in 2023, and the proportion of households who would be in fuel poverty under new eligibility criteria, will be published in due course.

The Government is implementing the October 2023 Government Policy Framework for Greater Position, Navigation and Timing (PNT) Resilience, which will provide greater resilience for the PNT services that the UK relies upon in the event of any disruption to Global Navigation Satellite Systems such as GPS and Galileo. The UK public and businesses still have access to the Galileo Open Service, though the UK no longer participates in Galileo, and the UK armed forces have access to the US GPS secure service. The Government will consider participation in EU programmes on a case by case basis where participation would meet the UK’s interests.

Since 1 January 2020, operators have been required to direct their annual financial contribution for gambling research, prevention and treatment as required by Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice (LCCP) SR code 3.1.1 to one or more of the organisations on a list maintained by the Gambling Commission. The purpose of this list is to demonstrate to operators how to be compliant with the LCCP requirement. Once the levy system is in force, it is likely that the LCCP RET will be no longer relevant or needed. The Commission has consulted on this and will publish their response in due course.

It is a priority for levy funding to be directed where it is needed most. This is why we have appointed statutory bodies to lead on research, prevention and treatment which will be led by the evidence of what works to improve and expand efforts to understand, tackle and treat gambling-related harm. We will also put in place robust governance arrangements to ensure that levy funding is spent in line with our objectives.

Official statistics from a range of sources provide the Government with insights into the economic contribution of the betting and gaming industry as a whole. The latest headline statistics show that the gambling sector contributed £4.9bn to Gross Value Added (GVA) in 2022, accounting for 0.2% of UK GVA. In the financial year 2023/24, the gambling sector employed around 94,000 people in Britain (provisional), accounting for 0.2% of UK jobs and paid approximately £3.4bn in betting and gaming duty. We do not hold official statistics on GVA, employment or tax revenue for adult gaming centres specifically.

The Gambling Commission’s industry statistics show that between April 2022 and March 2023, gross gambling yield for adult gaming centres was £533m. This represented c. 11% of gross gambling yield generated by non-remote casinos, arcades, betting and bingo.

Official statistics from a range of sources provide the Government with insights into the economic contribution of the betting and gaming industry as a whole. The latest headline statistics show that the gambling sector contributed £4.9bn to Gross Value Added (GVA) in 2022, accounting for 0.2% of UK GVA. In the financial year 2023/24, the gambling sector employed around 94,000 people in Britain (provisional), accounting for 0.2% of UK jobs and paid approximately £3.4bn in betting and gaming duty. We do not hold official statistics on GVA, employment or tax revenue for adult gaming centres specifically.

The Gambling Commission’s industry statistics show that between April 2022 and March 2023, gross gambling yield for adult gaming centres was £533m. This represented c. 11% of gross gambling yield generated by non-remote casinos, arcades, betting and bingo.

The department recognises the vital role played by free school meals (FSM) and encourages all eligible families to take their entitlement up. There are currently around 2.1 million pupils eligible for and claiming FSM.

The department provides the Eligibility Checking System, allowing local authorities to quickly verify eligibility for FSM and ensure FSM are easily received.

The department is aware of a range of measures aimed at maximising take up of FSM, including through approaches being trialled by local authorities. We are supportive of local authorities taking action to ensure government support reaches families, subject to them meeting legal and data protection requirements.

The government is committed to delivering an ambitious strategy to reduce child poverty by tackling the root causes and giving every child the best start at life. To support this, a new ministerial taskforce has been set up to develop a Child Poverty Strategy, which will be published in spring 2025. The taskforce will consider a range of policies, assessing what will have the greatest impact in driving down rates of child poverty.

As with all government programmes, the department will keep its approach to FSM under continued review.

The government does not set or recommend pay in further education (FE) as this remains the responsibility of individual colleges who are free to implement pay arrangements in line with their local needs. There are no current plans to introduce binding sectoral bargaining in FE.

The department is investing around £600 million across in FE in the 2024/25 and 2025/26 financial years. This includes extending retention payments of up to £6,000 after tax to eligible early career FE teachers in key subject areas, including in sixth form colleges. We also continue to support recruitment and retention with teacher training bursaries worth up to £30,000 tax-free in certain key subject areas, and with support for industry professionals to enter the teaching workforce through the Taking Teaching Further programme. The department will also work with the FE sector to recruit 6,500 additional teachers across schools and colleges to raise standards for children and young people.

The department recognises the vital role that FE teachers play in developing the skills needed to drive our missions to improve opportunity and economic growth.

The government does not set or recommend pay in further education (FE), and the FE sector does not have a Pay Review Body. Colleges are not bound by the national pay and conditions framework for school teachers and are free to implement their own pay arrangements.

We are investing around £600 million across the financial years 2024/25 and 2025/26, including extending retention payments of up to £6,000 after tax to eligible early career FE teachers in key subject areas. We also continue to support recruitment and retention with teacher training bursaries worth up to £30,000 tax-free in certain key subject areas, and with support for industry professionals to enter the teaching workforce through our Taking Teaching Further programme.

My right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has announced a Budget on 30 October, which will be followed by a multi-year spending review in the spring of next year. Decisions about future post-16 funding and capital programmes will be subject to the outcomes of these fiscal events.

The legislation which introduced E10 across Britain in September 2021 is the Motor Fuel (Composition and Content) and the Biofuel (Labelling) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2021.

The impact assessment accompanying these regulations estimates that moving from E5 to E10 will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 1 .8%, saving around 750,000 tonnes of CO2 per year from petrol vehicles. Ethanol contains less energy than fossil petrol and so increasing the ethanol content of petrol increases fuel consumption. The impact assessment estimates E10 will decrease the energy content of petrol by 1.7% compared to E5 and assumes fuel consumption will increase by that amount.

The cross-government third National Adaptation Programme sets out plans to tackle the effects of climate change. For transport, this means working closely with transport infrastructure operators to take meaningful and measurable action to address risks posed by our changing climate.

The Department for Transport has plans in place to adapt to and address the risks of climate change. The Department consulted in April 2024 on a draft strategy to enhance climate change adaptation planning and action across the transport sector. The responses to this consultation are being considered.

Monthly statistics for the number of People and Households sent a Migration Notice for Move to Universal Credit in Great Britain by geography including by Westminster Parliamentary Constituency and by legacy benefit type are published quarterly on Stat-Xplore - Log in

People invited to Move to Universal Credit statistics are currently available from July 2022 to December 2024 in the People invited to Move to Universal Credit dataset. Households invited to Move to Universal Credit statistics are also available in the Households invited to Move to Universal Credit dataset.

In addition there are a number of ready-made tables by various breakdowns available in the Move to Universal Credit tables.

Users can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest and, if needed, can access Introduction to the Stat-Xplore User Guide on how to extract the information required. There is also a Universal Credit Official Statistics: Stat-Xplore user guide - GOV.UK

We strongly value the input of disabled people and people with health conditions, in addition to representative organisations that support them, and that is why we have brought forward this Green Paper and the consultation.

The consultation welcomes the views of voluntary organisations, and we hope many will respond before the consultation closes on the 30 June 2025. Our programme of accessible public events will further facilitate input, including in-person and online, and will help us hear from disabled people and representative organisations directly.

We are also exploring other ways to facilitate the involvement of stakeholders in our reforms. In addition to the consultation, we will establish ‘collaboration committees’ that bring groups of people together for specific policy development areas and our wider review of the PIP assessment will bring together a range of experts, stakeholders and people with lived experience.

As we develop proposals further, we will consider how to best to involve voluntary and community organisations in the planning and implementation of reforms, including in our employment support package.

No such assessment has been made. The Universal Credit system permits Department of Health and Social Care to check a citizen’s entitlement to Healthy Start vouchers, and Department for Education to check eligibility for Free School Meals.

We announced our intention to record assessments as standard in the Pathways to Work Green Paper as a valuable tool to improve people’s trust in the health assessment process. We are developing our plans to implement this measure and will set out further details in a White Paper later this year.

Trustees have a range of duties set out in governing provisions of the scheme, common law and relevant statutory provisions. These include duties to make investment decisions in the best interests of members of the pension scheme. The Law Commission concluded in 2014, that there was no impediment to trustees taking account of Environmental, Social and Governance factors, where they are or may be financially material, and that trustees should take into account financially material factors. The Financial Markets Law Committee’s (FMLC) report in 2024 revisited the Law Commission’s findings and argued that there is a strong case for trustees to consider climate change and other environmental factors as ‘financial factors’ in investment decision-making. The government welcomes the opinion the FMLC reached.

The Law Commission’s 2014 report also stated that trustees may take such factors, which are not strictly and directly financial, into account. This should be to the extent that they would not involve a risk of significant financial detriment to the trust’s funds and where they have good reason to think scheme members would support the decision. The FMLC’s report concludes that financial factors are broad and many factors that may appear at first to be ‘non-financial’ are in fact ‘financial’. Findings from both reports reflect the permissive nature of trustee fiduciary duty, and why the government is not currently considering any change to the law.

The Department works closely with the Department for Education on a wide range of matters to ensure the education system is supporting healthcare students, including student funding.

For the 2025-26 academic year, the Government will increase the NHS Bursary tuition fee contributions, maintenance grants and all allowances by 3.1%. This is the second consecutive academic year that this Government has increased support through the NHS Bursary. For the 2025-26 academic year, the Government has also announced that maximum loans for living costs from Student Finance England (SFE), including reduced rate non-means tested loans for students in NHS Bursary years, will increase by 3.1%.

The Government reviews the funding arrangements for medical students annually. This includes the NHS Bursary scheme and SFE support.

The Department works closely with the Department for Education on a wide range of matters to ensure the education system is supporting healthcare students, including student funding.

For the 2025-26 academic year, the Government will increase the NHS Bursary tuition fee contributions, maintenance grants and all allowances by 3.1%. This is the second consecutive academic year that this Government has increased support through the NHS Bursary. For the 2025-26 academic year, the Government has also announced that maximum loans for living costs from Student Finance England (SFE), including reduced rate non-means tested loans for students in NHS Bursary years, will increase by 3.1%.

The Government reviews the funding arrangements for medical students annually. This includes the NHS Bursary scheme and SFE support.

The Department works closely with the Department for Education on a wide range of matters to ensure the education system is supporting healthcare students, including student funding.

For the 2025-26 academic year, the Government will increase the NHS Bursary tuition fee contributions, maintenance grants and all allowances by 3.1%. This is the second consecutive academic year that this Government has increased support through the NHS Bursary. For the 2025-26 academic year, the Government has also announced that maximum loans for living costs from Student Finance England (SFE), including reduced rate non-means tested loans for students in NHS Bursary years, will increase by 3.1%.

The Government reviews the funding arrangements for medical students annually. This includes the NHS Bursary scheme and SFE support.

The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) operates the Healthy Start scheme on behalf of the Department. Those eligible for Healthy Start must apply to the NHSBSA to receive Healthy Start payments.

All applicants, where they meet the eligibility criteria, must accept the terms and conditions of the Healthy Start prepaid card at the point of application. As the prepaid card is a financial product and cannot be issued without the applicant accepting these terms, the NHSBSA is not able to automatically provide eligible families with a prepaid card.

We remain open to all viable routes to improve uptake to ensure that as many eligible people as possible are accessing the scheme, to support their children with a healthy start in life.

In March 2025 Healthy Start supported over 359,000 people.

NHS England commissions selective internal radiation therapy for chemotherapy refractory / intolerant metastatic colorectal cancer in adults in accordance with criteria which is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Selective-internal-radiation-therapy-for-chemotherapy-refractory-intolerant-metastatic-colorectal-cancer.pdf

The National Cancer Plan, coming later in 2025, will set out plans to improve the experience and outcomes for people at every stage of the cancer pathway. It will include how to improve communication and coordination for patients, so that they feel informed, empowered, and in control of their care.