Richard Tice

Set out in the table below are the number of cases reported to and collected by the Citizens Advice consumer service over the past 5 years.

The Government recognises the important position our steel companies play in the supply chains for a number of key industries. This is why we are developing a steel strategy. With regards to the transition of Port Talbot, Tata will be importing steel slab and coil for a temporary period whilst the new electric arc furnace (EAF) is being built. We continue to prioritise engagement with British Steel.

Neither Tata Steel nor British Steel are currently critical suppliers into UK defence programmes. High quality steel, including for the Royal Navy’s new Dreadnaught class submarines, is already being made by EAF steel producers.

The UK government recognises the strategic importance of the steel industry for economic growth and national security. We are committed to developing the sector.

Many countries, particularly across Europe, are replacing aging blast furnaces with Electric Arc Furnaces (EAFs). While the future of the remaining blast furnaces ultimately lies with British Steel, as I recently conveyed to the Hon Gentleman, the government is reviewing innovative technologies, such as Direct Reduced Iron, to support primary steelmaking in the future.

EAFs will also bolster our economic security by reducing our reliance on imports. This shift will enable us to use the abundant supply of scrap metal available in the UK, thereby increasing the resilience of our steel sector and the wider UK supply chain from global shocks.

The Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) published its analysis of the cost of reaching net zero by 2050 in chapter 3 of the July 2021 edition of its UK Fiscal Risk Report. As the OBR has noted, “the costs of failing to get climate change under control would be much larger than those of bringing emissions down to net zero.”

The UK has halved its emissions, having cut them by around 53% between 1990 and 2023.

Each year the department publishes updated energy projections, analysing and projecting future energy use and greenhouse gas emissions in the UK. They take into account climate change policies where decisions on policy design and funding are sufficiently advanced to allow robust estimates of policy impacts to be made. These projections allow us to monitor progress towards meeting the UK’s carbon budgets.

The latest published projections can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/energy-and-emissions-projections-2022-to-2040

Final estimates of UK greenhouse gas emissions are also published annually.

The UK’s diverse power mix reduces dependence on one generation source, ensuring security of supply in a range of conditions. Transitioning away from fossil fuels and towards a range of home-grown clean energy technologies will reduce the UK’s vulnerability to unstable energy prices while ensuring energy security. The Government is accelerating the development and deployment of low-carbon flexible energy generation and storage, including batteries and pumped hydro, to manage the intermittency of wind and solar. The Clean Power 2030 action plan, set for release by year-end, will detail the Government's strategy for achieving a secure, clean power system by 2030.

Landowners, businesses and homeowners that have electrical equipment, such as pylons or towers, sited on their land have the right to compensation for the value of their land, as well as for any losses or expenses incurred. Acquiring authorities can also put in place discretionary schemes offering additional compensation. As compensation is provided by the electricity network licence holders, not the Government, we cannot provide an estimate of potential costs.

More broadly, the Government is committed to ensuring that communities who live near new clean energy infrastructure can see the benefits and is currently considering how to deliver this most effectively.

Developers of electricity networks and all nationally significant infrastructure projects in England and Wales need to assess the impacts of their proposals, including on agricultural land, natural habitats and in terms of construction and maintenance. This is done through Environmental Impact and Habitats Regulations Assessments, which are then considered during the consenting process. This includes consideration of safeguarding Best and Most Versatile agricultural land and ensuring the protection of natural habitats.

All electricity transmission network projects, regardless of location, must go through the independent and robust planning process. Developers must evidence that they have engaged and consulted with communities. They must take account of community views, environmental impacts, efficiency of the system and the cost to consumers, and consider alternative options.

The proposals to require every local authority in England to maintain registers of children not in school, which are to be included in the future Children’s Wellbeing Bill, are intended to help local authorities identify all home educating families in their areas, so that they can ensure children are receiving a safe and suitable education. To ensure these registers can operate effectively, parents of eligible children will be required to provide some information to their local authorities but, as part of the implementation of the legislation, the department would engage with stakeholders to ensure that any burdens on families are minimised. In addition, the children not in school proposals will also include a duty on local authorities to provide support to home educating families should they want it, which will help more families to deliver a suitable education, ensuring more children receive the high standard of education they deserve.

Part (a) - The UK has a resilient food supply chain and is equipped to deal with situations with the potential to cause disruption. We produce 62% of all the food we need, and 75% of food which we can grow or rear in the UK for all or part of the year. Food security is built on supply from diverse sources, strong domestic production as well as imports through stable trade routes.

UK consumers have access through international trade to food products that cannot be produced here, or at least not on a year-round basis. This supplements domestic production, and also ensures that any disruption from risks such as adverse weather or disease does not affect the UK's overall security of supply.

Defra works with industry and across Government to monitor risks that may arise. This includes extensive, regular and ongoing engagement in preparedness for, and response to, issues with the potential to cause disruption to food supply chains.

Part (b) - Farmers are the backbone of Britain, and we recognise the strength of feeling expressed by farming and rural communities in recent weeks. We are steadfast in our commitment to Britain’s farming industry because food security is national security.

Around 500 claims each year will be impacted and farm-owning couples can pass on up to £3m without paying any inheritance tax.

Not only is the Government confident that these reforms will not impact food production, our Budget has set out a £5 billion farming budget over two years – dedicating more money than ever before to sustainable food production.

The Marine Management Organisation (MMO) is responsible for licensing foreign vessels to fish in English waters and for fisheries enforcement of vessels within English waters. The MMO has boarded and inspected foreign vessels at sea on 1451 occasions since the start of 2019 to the 31 October 2024. Infringements were detected during 585 of these inspections. In addition to these inspections at sea, 36 infringements by foreign vessels were detected remotely. The number of enforcement actions the MMO has taken against foreign fishing vessels operating illegally in English waters in each of the last five years is:

Fisheries control and enforcement is a devolved matter and, as such, Fisheries Authorities in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are responsible for managing fisheries risk and conducting inspections in their respective waters.

The UK agricultural sector is both robust and adaptable and operates in an open market with the value of commodities established by those in the supply chain. We have seen evidence of this particularly in recent years following global events such as the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine.

Recognising that farmers should always receive a fair price for their products, the Government is committed to tackling contractual unfairness wherever it exists.

Innovation is key in supporting our efforts to improve agricultural sustainability. The Government wants the UK to be a great place for technology innovators to start and grow their businesses, and access both domestic and international market adoption opportunities. We have already announced our intention to bring forward the secondary legislation needed to implement the Precision Breeding Act.

The Government is also fully committed to Environmental Land Management schemes and will optimise them so they produce the right outcomes for all farmers, while delivering food security and nature recovery in a just and equitable way.

Defra will continue to work closely with stakeholders from all farming sectors on the best way to support farmers and the agricultural industry over the long-term, designing our policies in partnership.

People living in rural areas often have greater distances to travel to access essential services, employment, education and other social and recreational activities. We know that this can make it more costly and time consuming for rural communities.

As announced in the King’s Speech, the Government will introduce a Buses Bill later this parliamentary session, which will put decision-making into the hands of local leaders, including in rural areas across England. This will allow local areas to determine how best to design their bus services so that they have control over routes and schedules.

The Government has made a commitment that all policy decision-making should be rural proofed. Defra leads on rural proofing, but individual departments are responsible for ensuring that their policy decision-making delivers for rural communities.

Decisions on tax policy, including fuel duty rates, are made by the Chancellor at fiscal events.

The Rural Fuel Duty Relief Scheme was introduced in 2011 to provide a 5p reduction to motorists buying fuel in certain areas. The areas included in the scheme demonstrate certain characteristics such as: pump prices much higher than the UK average, remoteness leading to high fuel transport costs from refinery to filling station, and relatively low sales meaning that retailers cannot benefit from bulk discounts.

Improving local bus services is a key part of this government’s growth mission. The government will introduce a Buses Bill later this Parliamentary session. This will put the power over local bus services back in the hands of local leaders right across England, including in Boston and Skegness, to choose the model that works best in their area, whether that be franchising, high-quality partnerships with private operators or local authority ownership.

In addition, the government has confirmed £925 million for the 2025 to 2026 financial year to support and improve bus services in England outside London. Local authorities can use the £925 million to introduce new bus routes, make services more frequent and protect crucial bus routes for local communities. We have also confirmed over £150 million to introduce a new £3 cap on single bus fares in England outside London from 1 January 2025 to 31 December 2025, bringing total government bus investment confirmed at the budget to over £1 billion.

The government will continue working closely with local transport authorities including Lincolnshire County Council, and others, to deliver better bus services throughout England.

Improving local bus services is a key part of this government’s growth mission, and the government has set out plans to deliver better bus services, grow passenger numbers and drive opportunity to under-served regions.

As announced in the King’s Speech on 17 July 2024, the government will introduce a Buses Bill later this session. This will put the power over local bus services back in the hands of local leaders right across England, including in Boston and Skegness, to ensure networks meet the needs of the communities who rely on them. The Bill will seek to increase the powers available to local leaders to choose the model that works best in their area, whether that be franchising, high-quality partnerships with private operators or local authority ownership.

In addition, the government has confirmed an additional £925 million for the 2025 to 2026 financial year to support and improve bus services in England outside London, bringing total bus investment at the Budget to over £1 billion. Local authorities can use the £925 million to introduce new bus routes, make services more frequent and protect crucial bus routes for local communities.

The government will continue working closely with local transport authorities including Lincolnshire County Council, and others, to deliver better bus and public transport services throughout England.

More modern Class 170 trains were introduced to this route in 2023, and additionally these trains will be completely refurbished over the next three years. Meanwhile, East Midlands Railway will continue to improve its timetable of strengthened trains and passenger handling in the summer peak, building on the success of the last two years.

The Government takes the condition of local roads very seriously and is committed to maintaining and renewing the local road network. For England as a whole, the Government has a manifesto commitment to enable local highway authorities to fix up to a million extra potholes a year.

Lincolnshire County Council is the local highway authority for the Boston and Skegness constituency, and it is therefore responsible for the maintenance of its local highway network. Lincolnshire County Council will receive £43.6 million from this Department during 2024/25 to help it carry out its local highway maintenance responsibilities. It is up to the local authority to decide how that funding is used.

Lincolnshire County Council will also receive £3.3 million for small scale transport improvements including reducing congestion through the Integrated Transport Fund.

To help reduce congestion through improving traffic flow, the Department has also provided Lincolnshire County Council with £878,352 for traffic systems since 2021: £250,000 from the Traffic Signal Maintenance Grant in 2021, and £500,000 from the Green Light Fund, and £128,352 from the Traffic Signal Obsolescence Grant in 2024.

The Department checks immigration status when assessing eligibility for Universal Credit, but the requested statistics are not readily available. We are, however, exploring the feasibility of developing suitable statistics related to the immigration status of non-UK / Irish customers Universal Credit claimants.

The Department publishes quarterly statistics on National Insurance number allocations to adult overseas nationals entering the UK on Stat-Xplore. The latest statistics, for January 2002 to June 2024, can be compiled by rolling year end to June and nationality down to country level, and are available by Westminster parliamentary constituency (based on the address given at time of National Insurance number registration).

Users can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest and, if needed, can access guidance on how to extract the information required.

The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) has a relatively low percentage of unpaid maintenance. Only 8% of the total maintenance due to be paid since the start of the CMS remains to be collected through the collect & pay service. This was as high as 17% in March 2015.

The CMS has a range of strong enforcement powers that can be used against those who consistently refuse to meet their obligations to provide financial support to their children including deducting directly from earnings, bank accounts and forcing the sale of a property. The Department plans to streamline the enforcement process further by removing the requirement to obtain a court issued liability order, and instead allow the Secretary of State to issue an administrative liability order. Introducing this simpler administrative process will enable the CMS to take faster action against those paying parents who actively avoid their responsibilities.

A CMS modernisation programme is ongoing which is delivering services with increased effectiveness and efficiency by optimising the use of digital channels and self-service. These efficiencies will make it easier for customers to report changes and report non-payment so CMS caseworkers can focus on the collection of unpaid child maintenance.

The information requested on the cost of recruitment fees, the average recruitment cost, and the cost of training for National Health Service staff recruited from overseas is not collected centrally.

The information requested on the cost of recruitment fees, the average recruitment cost, and the cost of training for National Health Service staff recruited from overseas is not collected centrally.

The following table shows the amount of money United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust spent on translation and interpretation services each of the last five financial years:

In addition, the following table shows the amount of money Lincolnshire Community Health Services NHS Trust spent on translation and interpretation services in each of the last five financial years:

During the COVID-19 pandemic, spend on translation and interpretation services reduced due to the reduction in planned activity across the providers’ sites. Since then, providers have significantly increased the number of patients they see and treat, which has resulted in increased interpretation and translation costs.

The following table shows the number and proportion of full time equivalent (FTE) staff employed by National Health Service trusts and integrated care boards in England, by broad staff groups, as of July 2024:

Source: NHS England, NHS Hospital and Community Health Service Workforce Statistics

Notes:

1. Professionally qualified staff will mostly be degree level professionally qualified staff such as doctors, nurses, midwives, paramedics, allied health professionals and professionally qualified scientific staff.
2. The support to clinical support group will be staff such as healthcare assistants, nursing associate, nursing assistant practitioners, maternity support workers, ambulance technicians, assistant/assistant practitioner AHPs, healthcare science assistants. They will likely hold a range of qualifications relevant to their role.
3. Administrative and clerical staff will include both those with regular interaction with patients such as ward receptionists or clerks (included in published statistics as clerical and administrative support to clinical staff) and also those staff working in ‘back office’ central functions such as finance or human resources roles.
4. Managers or senior managers who are not required to be a specific professionally qualified staff member to undertake their roles.
5. Other NHS infrastructure roles will include NHS property, estates and hotel staff.

Further data is available at the following link:

https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/nhs-workforce-statistics

Patient care is too broad a category and could encompass a wide range of spending. We are unable to break this down as it stands. However, the total administration spend for NHS England and the integrated care boards is available on page 177 of NHS England’s Annual Report and Accounts 2023/24, which is available at the following link:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6709344a92bb81fcdbe7b728/nhs-england-annual-report-and-accounts-2023-to-2024.pdf

We have consistently supported hostage talks, and continue to work alongside our allies and partners in the region, exercising every possible diplomatic lever to see the hostages immediately and unconditionally released. Negotiations remain the best chance to get hostages home to their loved ones, and we call on all parties to return to the negotiating table. It is utterly appalling that hostages taken by Hamas terrorists on 7 October are still being held captive, including one British national, Emily Damari, and three other hostages with strong British links. In support of the ongoing hostage rescue activity, the UK Ministry of Defence conducts surveillance flights over the Eastern Mediterranean, including operating in airspace over Israel and Gaza. Surveillance aircraft are unarmed, do not have a combat role and are tasked solely to locate hostages.

We condemn Hamas' continued holding of hostages in Gaza, including Emily Damari and others with UK links, who remain cruelly detained. The Foreign Secretary and I have met all the families of hostages with links to the UK, whose loved ones have been murdered or taken by Hamas and have heard firsthand the suffering they have endured. We welcome the tireless efforts of our partners in Qatar, Egypt and the United States, and fully endorse their efforts to secure a resumption of ceasefire negotiations and a hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas.

The Government published information about the reforms to agricultural property relief and business property relief at www.gov.uk/government/publications/agricultural-property-relief-and-business-property-relief-reforms, and further explanatory information at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/what-are-the-changes-to-agricultural-property-relief.

In accordance with standard practice, a tax information and impact note will be published alongside the draft legislation before the relevant Finance Bill.

The Government does not speculate on tax changes outside of fiscal events.

As part of her July statement the Chancellor set out some immediate steps to make efficiencies across government including reducing departmental administration budgets, stopping non-essential spending on communications and consultancy, and disposing of surplus Government property.

The Government will provide an update on the delivery of these commitments at the Budget alongside further steps it is taking to ensure value for money in public expenditure.

The pub and hospitality industry make an enormous contribution to our economy and society, and this is recognised in the tax system.

The alcohol duty system supports pubs and hospitality businesses through Draught Relief, which ensures eligible products served on draught pay less duty. Draught Relief helps to level the playing field between pubs and supermarkets, allowing pubs and brewers to price their on-trade products more competitively.

The Government is closely monitoring the impact of the recent reforms and rates that took effect on 1 August 2023. As with all taxes, the Government keeps the alcohol duty system under review during its Budget process.

The Home Office does not hold information relating to the proportion of budgets spent on translation and interpretation services for police forces.

Decisions on how to use funding and resources are an operational matter for Chief Constables. Police and Crime Commissioners are best placed to make resourcing decisions within their communities based on their local knowledge and experience.

The Home Office does not currently centrally hold or collate information on the number of non-crime hate incidents recorded by individual police forces.

Data on how many people are in immigration detention and how many people have been removed in each of the last five years is available up to year ending June 2024, and can be found within the Returns and Detention data tables at, https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-system-statistics-year-ending-june-2024/how-many-people-are-detained-or-returned#data-tables.

The Home Office holds data on notifiable crimes recorded by the police in England and Wales including the date when they were recorded and the date when a resulting investigation has been closed.

This data is routinely published as official statistics.

The Home Office does not currently hold or collate information on the number of non-crime hate incidents recorded by police forces.

The Home Office collects and publishes information annually on the number of armed police officers in the Police use of firearms statistics. The latest available data is for the year ending 31 March 2024 and can be accessed at the following link:

Police use of firearms statistics: Police use of firearms statistics, April 2023 to March 2024 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

The number of armed police officers and, of those, the number that were operationally deployable can be found in data table 2.