Asked by: Robert Courts (Conservative - Witney)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what his policy is on the UK's role in global ocean conservation.
Answered by Alan Duncan
The oceans are vital to support life on earth, and are critical to the United Kingdom. The UK and its Overseas Territories are custodians to the fifth-largest marine estate in the world. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) therefore has an important role in promoting security at sea and improving the conservation and sustainable use of our oceans, and we are looking at how the UK can take this yet further. We already take a leading role on maritime protection and are on track to deliver marine protected areas across nearly 4 million square kilometres of the planet's oceans and seas through our Blue Belt programme by 2020.
The FCO works closely with the Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and others including agencies such as the UK Hydrographic Office, the Centre for Environment Fisheries and Aquaculture Science and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency to promote global marine conservation. The FCO and DEFRA in particular have also been closely involved in the negotiations of the Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) to develop an international legally binding instrument under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction.
I am committed to combatting the menace of marine plastic pollution. This Government introduced a charge on plastic carrier bags, cutting their use in the UK by 80 per cent, and avoiding the disposal of 9 billion carrier bags, many of which might otherwise have ended up in the oceans. And from 1 January 2018, we will ban the production of plastic microbeads, the strongest legal measure of its kind anywhere in the world.
Asked by: Robert Courts (Conservative - Witney)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how much of the Home Building Fund has been allocated; and what proportion of that amount has been allocated to small and medium-sized house builders.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
The £3 billion Home Building Fund provides long and short term loan finance to build the homes this country needs.
Of the £3 billion Home Building Fund, £1.38 billion (46 per cent) has been allocated to successful applicants. Of the £1 billion funding specifically allocated to support small and medium sized builders, custom builders and innovators, £540 million has been allocated. The amount of that fund specifically allocated to small and medium sized builders is £292 million.
Asked by: Robert Courts (Conservative - Witney)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what plans his Department has put in place to ensure the continuation of secure personal correspondence between armed forces personnel deployed in remote locations and their families after the e-bluey system ends on 31 March 2017.
Answered by Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton
Personnel deployed on operations enjoy access to a variety of methods for contacting their friends and family, including via internet access or mail services. Therefore the cessation of the e-bluey service will not impact on the provision of secure personal correspondence for deployed personnel.
Asked by: Robert Courts (Conservative - Witney)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, what assessment he has made of the level of interest among small and medium-sized enterprises in the Great.gov.uk digital platform.
Answered by Greg Hands - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Great.gov.uk is designed to engage as many businesses as possible, especially small and medium-sized enterprises and to date we have had a highly positive response to our digital services with over 5000 business registered for accounts, including 1500 registrations for our “Find a Buyer” Service and over 360,000 visits to the site.
Asked by: Robert Courts (Conservative - Witney)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent assessment he has made of the strength of relations between India and the UK.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
The Prime Minister, my Rt Hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) made her first bilateral visit overseas, outside of Europe, to India in November 2016. This demonstrates how strongly we value the relationship with India. As the Foreign Secretary, my Rt Hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) said when he visited India in January, the UK and India are natural partners. We share a longstanding, broad and deep friendship with India, including in trade and investment, people-to-people ties and our partnership on defence and international security.
Asked by: Robert Courts (Conservative - Witney)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent discussions he has had with his international counterparts on progress in the campaign against Daesh.
Answered by Tobias Ellwood
We are in frequent contact with our coalition partners, as we reach a key phase in the campaign against Daesh.
The Prime Minister, the member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) discussed Daesh with President Trump during her visit to Washington DC on 27th January and with President Erdogan and Prime Minister Yildrim during her visit to Turkey the following day, reaffirming our commitment to work together to fight Daesh.
Asked by: Robert Courts (Conservative - Witney)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what plans he has for ensuring close co-operation with EU countries on defence policy after the UK has left the EU.
Answered by Mike Penning
The nature of our future relationship with the EU on foreign, security, and Defence issues remains under consideration. We are, however, clear that we will continue to have a leading role in European and wider global security, and wish to continue to cooperate with European partners to tackle shared challenges.
Asked by: Robert Courts (Conservative - Witney)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, When he plans for RAF Typhoons to deploy to Romania as part of NATO's southern air policing operations.
Answered by Mike Penning
UK Typhoon from 3 Squadron, RAF Conningsby, will contribute to NATO’s Southern Air Policing mission this summer. We are working with NATO, Romania, and other key Allies, including Italy and Turkey, to design and deliver our deployment.
Asked by: Robert Courts (Conservative - Witney)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he is taking to encourage innovation in the construction industry.
Answered by Jesse Norman
The Government is working with the Construction Leadership Council and its innovation work streams to drive forward innovation across the sector. It is also promoting innovation through its approach to its own construction procurement, set out in last year’s Government Construction Strategy, including requiring digital construction or Building Information Modelling (“BIM”) on all projects, stimulating adoption of digital construction in the sector’s supply chains. On major projects such as Crossrail and HS2, the client is acting as a powerful driver of innovation in construction. The Government has also set aside £1.7 billion of funding to pilot ‘accelerated construction’ to speed up house building on surplus public sector land. This will seek to encourage small and medium builders, new developers and innovative methods of construction in order to build at double the rate of traditional house builders. In addition, at Budget 2016 the Government committed funding to the next three years of the ‘Digital Built Britain’ Programme further to develop digital construction technologies and the UK’s global leadership in them.
Asked by: Robert Courts (Conservative - Witney)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what recent discussions he has had with local authorities on 100 per cent business rate retention.
Answered by Marcus Jones - Treasurer of HM Household (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Commons)
By the end of the Parliament, local government will retain 100% of taxes raised locally, giving councils control of an additional £12.5 billion of business rates to spend on local services. To ensure the reforms are fiscally neutral, some existing grants will be phased out and responsibilities will be devolved to local authorities. This move towards self-sufficiency and away from dependence on central government is something councils have long campaigned for. We have worked in close collaboration with local government in how to implement this commitment, including through the Business Rates Retention Steering Group, which is jointly chaired by the Local Government Association and the Department for Communities and Local Government.
Last week, we introduced the Local Government Finance Bill that will establish the legislative framework for the reformed system. All relevant documents can be found here: http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2016-17/localgovernmentfinance.html. We will continue to work closely with local government during the passage of the legislation, to shape the detail of the reforms.