Scott Arthur

The Government believes the only way to protect consumers permanently is to speed up the transition towards homegrown clean energy. The creation of Great British Energy will help us to harness clean energy and have less reliance on volatile international energy markets and help in our commitment to make Britain a clean energy superpower by 2030.

The Warm Home Discount provides a £150 rebate off winter energy bills for eligible low-income households. On 25 February, we published a consultation on the expansion of the Warm Home Discount, giving more eligible households £150 off their energy bills. These proposals would bring around 2.7 million households into the scheme – pushing the total number of households that would receive the discount next winter up to around 6 million. The Warm Home Discount regulations expire in 2026, and we will want to consider all options for future bill support beyond this point.

We continue to monitor energy prices and the price cap and are working to ensure bills are affordable for consumers in the long-term, including through our work with Ofgem to reform standing charges, and through our Warm Homes Plan which will upgrade millions of homes to make them warmer and cheaper to run.

The Government believes the only way to protect consumers permanently is to speed up the transition towards homegrown clean energy. The creation of Great British Energy will help us to harness clean energy and have less reliance on volatile international energy markets and help in our commitment to make Britain a clean energy superpower by 2030.

The Warm Home Discount provides a £150 rebate off winter energy bills for eligible low-income households. On 25 February, we published a consultation on the expansion of the Warm Home Discount, giving more eligible households £150 off their energy bills. These proposals would bring around 2.7 million households into the scheme – pushing the total number of households that would receive the discount next winter up to around 6 million. The Warm Home Discount regulations expire in 2026, and we will want to consider all options for future bill support beyond this point.

We continue to monitor energy prices and the price cap and are working to ensure bills are affordable for consumers in the long-term, including through our work with Ofgem to reform standing charges, and through our Warm Homes Plan which will upgrade millions of homes to make them warmer and cheaper to run.

Heat network suppliers commercially contract for the fuel that powers heat networks and so they are not subject to the domestic energy price cap.

The Government is however, introducing heat network regulation in January 2026 which aims to provide consumers with comparable protections to existing gas and electricity regulations.

The heat network regulator, Ofgem, will have powers to investigate and intervene where heat network prices charged to consumers appear to be disproportionate or unfair.

Regulatory oversight will be supplemented by statutory redress through the Energy Ombudsman who will have the same powers to hear complaints and make legally binding decisions as they do in gas and electricity markets.

The Government is committed to making the UK the destination of choice for top international talent, who have an important impact on innovation and entrepreneurship in the UK. Their impact is particularly noticeable in the UK’s leading startup ecosystem; a quarter of Tech Nation-endorsed Global Talent Visa (GTV) holders are founders, and 39% of the UK’s fastest growing start-ups have at least one foreign born co-founder. In addition to providing a pipeline of entrepreneurs, international talent contributes significantly to innovation in key growth-driving sectors, and makes up 37% of higher education research staff.

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) delivers a substantial portfolio of researcher-led projects and strategic investments, including research investigating the causes for and underpinning the development of treatments for Brain Cancer. The Medical Research Council (MRC) spent £2.86 million on brain cancer research in funding year 2023-24. MRC, Innovate UK, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council all support research in this area. UKRI also plays a key role in funding underpinning research which may not be attributable to a specific condition but will benefit medical research more generally.

Copyright law already protects the rights of authors, who have several means of asserting their moral and economic rights. The Government published its consultation on Copyright and AI on 17 December 2024. This sought views on giving rights holders of creative works greater control over use of their material to train AI models and supporting their ability to be remunerated where it is used. The consultation closed on 25 February 2025.

The Government’s priority now is to review all responses to the consultation, to help inform its approach to copyright and AI. The Government will continue to engage extensively as it considers next steps, and its proposals will be set out in due course.

My department supports the safe deployment of drones for commercial and public benefit, through R&D support and innovative regulation. Wider drone policy is led by the Department for Transport.

Since 2019, the Future Flight Challenge, administered by Innovate UK, has provided £125m of public funding for collaborative R&D and innovation in this area.

We established the Regulatory Innovation Office to support our ambition to be the best place in the world to innovate. ‘Drones and other autonomous technology’ is an initial focus area of the Regulatory Innovation Office.

Large scale commercial prize draws are a significant and growing market. Whilst not regulated as a gambling product under the Gambling Act, we want people who participate to be confident that proportionate protections are in place. The department is grateful for the voluntary action taken so far by the sector to act transparently and apply player protection measures.

We want to ensure high standards across the sector. The Minister for Gambling recently met with the leading operator Omaze to discuss this work further and will meet others in the sector soon. We will update Parliament further in due course.

The Government is committed to the long term success of our world class games sector, having identified the creative industries as one of eight priority sectors in the industrial strategy.

£5.5 million in funding for the UK Games Fund (UKGF) has been announced for 2025/26, which will provide grants to early-stage studios across the UK to develop prototypes and new intellectual property, and run development programmes for new graduates.

Video games companies can also access the International Business Development strand of the UK Global Screen Fund, which provides financial support for business strategies that drive international growth and IP development for companies working in film, TV (animation, drama and documentary) and interactive narrative gaming.

Additionally, video games companies benefit from the Video Games Expenditure Credit, and access support from the Create Growth Programme.

We are working closely with the Department for Education (DfE) and Skills England on skills policy to address skills shortages in the creative industries, including the games sector. This includes DfE’s work on growth and skills levy reform. We will set out more detail as part of the Creative Industries Sector Plan, to be published in coming months.

The Government is committed to the long term success of our world class games sector, having identified the creative industries as one of eight priority sectors in the industrial strategy.

£5.5 million in funding for the UK Games Fund (UKGF) has been announced for 2025/26, which will provide grants to early-stage studios across the UK to develop prototypes and new intellectual property, and run development programmes for new graduates.

Video games companies can also access the International Business Development strand of the UK Global Screen Fund, which provides financial support for business strategies that drive international growth and IP development for companies working in film, TV (animation, drama and documentary) and interactive narrative gaming.

Additionally, video games companies benefit from the Video Games Expenditure Credit, and access support from the Create Growth Programme.

We are working closely with the Department for Education (DfE) and Skills England on skills policy to address skills shortages in the creative industries, including the games sector. This includes DfE’s work on growth and skills levy reform. We will set out more detail as part of the Creative Industries Sector Plan, to be published in coming months.

The Government is committed to the long term success of our world class games sector, having identified the creative industries as one of eight priority sectors in the industrial strategy.

£5.5 million in funding for the UK Games Fund (UKGF) has been announced for 2025/26, which will provide grants to early-stage studios across the UK to develop prototypes and new intellectual property, and run development programmes for new graduates.

Video games companies can also access the International Business Development strand of the UK Global Screen Fund, which provides financial support for business strategies that drive international growth and IP development for companies working in film, TV (animation, drama and documentary) and interactive narrative gaming.

Additionally, video games companies benefit from the Video Games Expenditure Credit, and access support from the Create Growth Programme.

We are working closely with the Department for Education (DfE) and Skills England on skills policy to address skills shortages in the creative industries, including the games sector. This includes DfE’s work on growth and skills levy reform. We will set out more detail as part of the Creative Industries Sector Plan, to be published in coming months.

Sustainability of the local media sector across the country is an area of particular concern for this Government. We are developing a Local Media Strategy, in recognition of the importance of this vital sector. Our vision is a thriving local media that can continue to play an invaluable role as a key channel of trustworthy information at local level, reporting on the issues that matter to communities, reflecting their contributions and perspectives, and helping to foster a self-confident nation in which everyone feels that their contribution is part of an inclusive national story.

Officials have met with the Public Interest News Foundation, founders of the Local News Commission, as part of our continued engagement with key external stakeholders. Government welcomes the publication of the Commission’s report and will consider its recommendations as part of our wider work on the Strategy. Our work is also being informed by the range of studies conducted into the state of local journalism in the UK in recent years.

Education is a devolved matter and as such issues relating to higher education (HE) in the devolved nations is a matter for the relevant government.

The HE sector needs a secure financial footing to face the challenges of the next decade, and to ensure that all students can be confident they will receive the world-class HE experience they deserve. This is why, after seven years of frozen fee caps under the previous government, the department has taken the difficult decision to increase maximum tuition fee limits for the 2025/26 academic year by 3.1%, in line with the forecast rate of inflation.

In return for the increased investment we are asking students to make, we expect the sector to deliver the very best outcomes, both for those students and for the country. We will publish our plan for HE reform in summer 2025, and work with the sector and the Office for Students (OfS), the regulator of HE in England, to deliver the change that the country needs.

The government also provides funding through the Strategic Priorities Grant on an annual basis to support teaching and students in HE, including expensive-to-deliver subjects such as science and engineering, students at risk of discontinuing their studies, and world-leading specialist providers.

Further, in December, the OfS announced temporary changes to its operations to allow greater focus on financial sustainability. Ultimately, HE providers are independent from government and as such must continue to make the necessary and appropriate financial decisions to ensure their long-term sustainability.

We are clear that HE providers need to ensure their governance arrangements are robust and facilitate prudent financial planning, and are fit for purpose more widely, including upholding academic freedom and freedom of speech and ensuring good quality of provision. The OfS has recently consulted on proposals to strengthen the conditions related to management and governance for providers that wish to join its register.

The UK has a world-class higher education (HE) sector, with four universities in the world university rankings top 10, and 15 in the top 100, alongside a wide array of leading institutions which attract international students from around the world. The graduate visa enables international students who have successfully completed an eligible qualification to stay in the UK for two years, or three years for doctoral students.

Data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency shows that international students contributed £12.1 billion in tuition fees to UK HE providers in the 2022/23 academic year.

This government has made clear its approach to international students. We welcome international students who enrich our university campuses, forge lifelong friendships with our domestic students and become global ambassadors for the UK.

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

As part of the government’s unbreakable 100 Year Partnership with Ukraine, the department is working closely with the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine on a range of policy areas including early years, skills and apprenticeships, and the application of digital technologies in schools. There is already higher education (HE) twinning and partnerships underway through the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s UK-Ukraine twinning programme and British Council’s Leaders of University Transformation for Ukraine’s Reinvention programme which have set a good foundation for further UK-Ukraine HE partnerships to emerge.

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

Schools may choose to offer British Sign Language (BSL) as part of their school curriculum, or as an extra-curricular activity. The government does not hold data on the extent to which BSL is currently taught in schools.

The department is in the process of developing a BSL GCSE. The BSL GCSE is a key feature of our commitment to enhancing the status of BSL in education and society. This landmark GCSE is an important step towards greater recognition of BSL as a language and will foster better communication between deaf and hearing communities.

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

Access to higher education (HE) should be based on ability, not someone’s background. Opportunity should be available to all, and it is the department’s aspiration that no one is left behind.

The department wants to close the gap in entries for disadvantaged students, by ensuring there are quality options which are flexible to their needs, with sound advice and fair and transparent admission processes.

The department is continuing with and delivering the Lifelong Learning Entitlement to provide high quality, flexible and modular education, with the new student finance system underpinning and facilitating fuller access and flexible study. From September 2026, learners will be able to apply for Lifelong Learning Entitlement funding for the first time for courses and modules starting from January 2027 onwards.

The government continues to provide means-tested non-repayable grants to low income full-time undergraduate students with children and/or adults who are financially dependent on them. The department has announced an increase to maximum dependants’ grants for the 2025/26 academic year by 3.1%, based on forecast inflation using the RPIX (Retail Price Index Excluding Mortgage Interest) inflation index. We have also increased maximum non-means-tested disabled students’ allowance for full-time and part-time undergraduate and postgraduate students with disabilities by 3.1% for 2025/26.

Students undertaking nursing, midwifery and allied health profession courses also qualify for non-repayable grant support through the NHS Learning Support Fund.

Additionally, the department is increasing maximum loans for living costs for the 2025/26 academic year by 3.1% to ensure that more support is targeted at students from the lowest income families. Higher rates of loan for living costs are also paid to students eligible for benefits, such as lone parents and some disabled students, as well as care leavers, who are normally assessed as low income independent students. In addition, care leavers are also entitled to a £2000 statutory bursary, paid via their local authority.

The government also provides financial support through the Office for Students (OfS) to support student access and success, including for disadvantaged students. £301 million was provided for the 2024/25 academic year.

The department recognises that there is still much more to do to expand access and improve outcomes for disadvantaged students. Too many people across our country do not get the opportunity to succeed. We will act to change this. We are calling for providers to go further and play a stronger role in expanding access and improving outcomes for disadvantaged students, making sure that they are delivering robust and ambitious access and participation plans. By summer, we will set out our plan for HE reform and the part we expect HE providers to play in this.

The Department for Transport has worked with the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) to develop a Global Technical Regulation on electric vehicle batteries (GTR 22). If implemented, the regulation would set standards for the lifespan of a battery and its minimum durability. It will also ensure that information about electric vehicle batteries is easily accessible, accurate and comparable. The Government is currently considering options for the implementation of GTR 22 battery regulations in the UK.

In the meantime, the Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Mandate requires all new electric vehicles to be sold with a warranty that includes battery replacement if capacity falls below 70% in the first 8 years or 100,000 miles, whichever is sooner.

The Government recognises that investment in high quality active travel infrastructure supports its economic growth, health and net zero missions by helping to revitalise high streets; enabling people to live longer, healthier lives; and helping to reduce transport emissions. The Department announced the details of almost £300 million of funding for active travel in 2024/5 and 2025/6 on 12 February.

The Department’s Ministers will be having regular discussions with their Treasury counterparts as part of the ongoing Spending Review which will conclude later this Spring.

Everyone should feel safe cycling and harassment and intimidation of women cycling is totally unacceptable. Public sexual harassment is a crime that often leaves victims, who are disproportionately likely to be women, feeling very unsafe. That is why tackling it is very much an important part of our mission on VAWG.

Once in force, the Protection from Sex-Based Harassment in Public Act 2023 will help tackle this issue and ensure women both feel and are safer on our streets. The Act builds on existing harassment legislation within the Public Order Act 1986. It introduces an aggravated offence punishable by up to two years imprisonment upon conviction where someone commits the existing Public Order Act 1986 4A offence of causing harassment, alarm or distress based on someone’s sex or presumed sex.

Active Travel England is working with local authorities to provide safe cycling infrastructure which should help women feel safer when cycling. Design guidance for new infrastructure, such as that funded through the Active Travel Fund, requires that new schemes are accessible to all users, including women.

it is for local authorities to make their own decisions about where to prioritise investment in local transport networks. Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plans (LCWIPs) aim to help authorities take a strategic approach to improving conditions for walking, wheeling and cycling. Revenue funding awarded by Active Travel England can be used by local authorities to support LCWIP development.

In addition, Active Travel England supports a range of programmes to help enable more active travel for schoolchildren, including Living Street’s Walk to School Outreach, Modeshift STARS and Bikeability cycle training. The Department has also recently published guidance for local authorities on implementing School Streets, which can encourage more active travel to schools.

Investment in active travel schemes makes it easier for people to walk, wheel or cycle, and thereby plays a significant role in improving people’s physical and mental health. Ministers from this Department have met regularly with their counterparts in the Department of Health and Social Care to discuss this as well as the other ways that the Department can contribute to the Government’s health mission. On 12 February, Active Travel England announced almost £300 million of funding for new walking, wheeling and cycling schemes. The health benefits of these will lead to 43,000 fewer sick days per year, easing pressure on the NHS.

There are no plans to change the way savings held in a Lifetime ISA are treated in the assessment of Universal Credit.

It is appropriate that means tested benefits, including Universal Credit, take all forms of savings into account. This includes investments where the Government provides a contribution to encourage saving such as the Lifetime ISA. People will not be required to cash in these ISAs in order to claim Universal Credit, but they will be taken into account as part of their capital. If a person has capital over £16,000, they will be expected to rely on their savings until their capital reduces to £16,000 before they can claim Universal Credit.

Information on the impacts of the Pathways to Work Green Paper will be published in due course, and some information was published alongside the Spring Statement. These publications can be found in ‘Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working Green Paper’.

A further programme of analysis to support development of the proposals in the Green Paper will be developed and undertaken in the coming months.