Richard Quigley

This Government will introduce a modern Industrial Strategy to drive long-term sustainable, inclusive and secure growth - through securing investment into crucial sectors of the economy. To do this, we will work in partnership with local and regional leaders to support successful industries across all nations and regions of the UK. This work will support the Government’s growth mission: to drive the highest sustained growth in the G7, aligned with our missions to increase opportunities for all and make Britain a clean energy superpower.

The adoption of a child is about ensuring that a child has a permanent family, with the adopter taking legal and parental responsibility for them. At the age of 18, parental responsibility is no longer relevant, as an adult assumes responsibility for themselves. Introducing adoption for over 18s is not a priority as there is no legal imperative to introduce adult adoption. Legal processes, such as the making of a will, already enable individuals to pass on inheritance or financial rights without adoption being necessary. Similarly, the ability to legally change names through deed poll means that adoption is not the only way to share a family name.

The Department for Transport has not made an assessment of the availability of funding for a fixed-link viability study to the Isle of Wight. We believe that decisions on transport interventions for a local community are best made at local level and it would be for the Local Authority to lead any feasibility study work.

Robust data on the number of young people out of work, education and training is not available at a constituency level.

This Government is committed to supporting young people through the DWP Youth Offer and new Youth Guarantee, alongside launching Skills England and a new National Jobs and Career Service.

Since 2013, there has been a total of 40 deaths of young people aged under 18 years old in contact with Tier 4 inpatient children and young people’s mental health services, including those on home leave, or who had absconded. We are unable to provide the information broken down by year as requested, as the annual data held by NHS England includes a small patient count of fewer than five cases which could lead to the identification of individuals. Data is not available prior to 2013.

All deaths of children and young people under the care of Tier 4 services are routinely reported to the Department via NHS England. Such deaths are also notified to the Care Quality Commission and the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Safety in Mental Health.

With regards to investigating inpatient deaths, the NHS Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF), introduced in August 2022, promotes four core principles to inform learning from safety events: compassionate engagement; systems-based learning; proportionate responses; and supportive oversight. While PSIRF represents a significant improvement to the way that the National Health Service responds to patient safety incidents, it does not alter the requirements set out in the National Learning from Deaths policy framework. These require a patient safety incident investigation to be undertaken into any event where problems in care are thought more likely than not to have led to the death of a patient.

To help ensure that future deaths are prevented, NHS England has radically redesigned the children and young people’s inpatient model of care, working in partnership with hundreds of children, young people, and their families. One of the key recommendations from working with families through the Quality Transformation Programme was to change the service model to enable families to stay overnight at inpatient services to maintain the connection with their loved one and, critically, to ensure that the delivery of care at a point during a crisis is seen as being delivered to the young person, as well as their family and support network. These recommendations have been built into the new service model. NHS England is in the process of testing the new service model through the use of a development service specification.

The immigration system will allow those who meet the visa requirements, such as having a job offer from an approved sponsor and being paid the appropriate salary, to come to the United Kingdom to be dentists. It does not differentiate between those who wish to provide National Health Service dentistry from those who may wish to work in private practice.

We engage regularly with our international partners on irregular migration, with a commitment to tackling people trafficking and the gangs profiting from it. In July we declared steps to reinforce our cooperation with Europol and announced up to £84 million for projects across Africa and the Middle East to address the reasons why people flee their homes. Through our new Border Security Command, we will also intensify efforts in transit countries to break the business models of these gangs including by disrupting the supply chains of small boat equipment and prosecuting those responsible.

Border Force Maritime Command is the UK’s national sea-going law enforcement body. Its Cutter and CPV fleet tackles the whole range of law enforcement duties, including preventing and deterring importation of illegal drugs, organised people crime and other threats.

Renewal of the Border Force fleet remains a key Departmental priority.

A dynamic UK shipbuilding sector has potential to play a key role in creating and sustaining jobs and in ensuring shared prosperity around the country.

Foreign nationals who have completed a period of Crown service overseas are able to apply for naturalisation. British nationality law allows for discretion to be exercised over some of the residence requirements for naturalisation applications, if the customer can demonstrate they were in Crown service.

In most cases, people seeking to settle or naturalise in the UK will need to prove they have the required level of English depending on the route they are applying under. The English language requirement for each visa route is set out within the Immigration Rules for each individual route.

Appendix English Language of the Immigration Rules sets out how an applicant can meet this requirement. The English language requirements for naturalisation applications are set out in The British Nationality (General) Regulations 2003. This includes information about the options available to demonstrate the required level of English.

The government recognises the ongoing challenge posed by the reduced appetite of Registered Providers of social housing to buy affordable homes delivered under Section 106 agreements. We will continue to work with housebuilders, local authorities, and Registered Providers to tackle this problem.

One of the causes of this ongoing challenge is a reduction in Registered Providers’ financial capacity over recent years. The government recognises that Registered Providers need support to build their capacity and increase their contribution to affordable housing supply. We have consulted on a 5-year social housing rent settlement, to give Registered Providers the certainty they need to invest in new housing. The consultation closed on 23 December; we are carefully considering the feedback we received and will respond in due course.

We have also announced that councils will be allowed to keep 100% of the receipts generated by Right to Buy sales, so that they are better able to build and buy new homes. We have provided flexibility for councils to combine Right to Buy receipts with Section 106 contributions (this flexibility will be in place until the end of 2025-26 and then subject to review).

The Devolution Priority Programme aims to see a new wave of mayors elected in May 2026, including for Hampshire and the Solent. This will see local authorities in the area join up with their neighbours to form a new Combined Authority over a sensible geography, and will include Hampshire County Council, Portsmouth City Council, Southampton City Council and Isle of Wight Council as constituent members of the new proposed Combined Authority.

Separately, all councils across Hampshire and the Solent have received an invitation to work together to develop new unitary proposals that are in the best interests of the whole area. All levels of local government have a part to play in bringing improved structures to their area through any necessary reorganisation. Government is open to hearing from councils their views on reorganisation.

This government is supporting clean energy projects right across Wales – from tidal stream on Anglesey to floating wind in the Celtic Sea - which will create jobs, deliver regional growth and accelerate our drive towards lower bills for households and businesses.

Our new Clean Energy Jobs Plan sets out how we will at least double the number of jobs supported by clean energy industries in Wales by the end of the decade.