Asked by: Siobhan Baillie (Conservative - Stroud)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department plans to help finance (a) research on and (b) delivery of salt marsh restoration projects as a contribution to the national evidence base on carbon sequestration.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
Through the UK Blue Carbon Evidence Partnership, Defra is working with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero alongside the other UK Administrations to address key research questions relating to blue carbon habitats, such as saltmarsh. In 2022, the UK Government launched its £140 million Natural Capital and Ecosystem Assessment (NCEA) programme, a flagship three-year R&D programme, spanning England’s land, coast and sea. The programme includes mapping of blue carbon stock and sequestration rates in important coastal environments such as saltmarsh habitats, alongside wider ecosystem services which provide societal, ecological and economic benefit.
The Environment Agency’s Restoring Meadow, Marsh and Reef (ReMeMaRe) initiative is working to restore our estuarine and coastal habitats to benefit people and nature. The EA’s restoration handbooks are a key tool to support restoration of coastal blue carbon habitats in the UK and beyond.
We are also supporting direct investment into saltmarsh restoration through our £80m Green Recovery Challenge Fund, which is supporting nature recovery projects across England. The Government is supporting eight blue nature finance projects, including blue carbon, with around £750,000 of grants through the Natural Environment Investment Readiness Fund. This funding is being used to develop a pipeline of projects that can demonstrate viable private-sector investment models, ultimately working to restore important blue habitats such as saltmarsh.
Asked by: Siobhan Baillie (Conservative - Stroud)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what recent discussions he has with his counterparts in the European Union on the impact of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on peace and security in Europe.
Answered by Leo Docherty - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence) (Minister for the Armed Forces)
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) poses a persistent threat to the peace and security of Europe. There have been at least 10 threats by Iran to kidnap or assassinate British or UK-based people this year. The recent transfers of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to Russia for use in Ukraine is yet another facet of Iran's destabilising behaviour. The UK has sanctioned over 300 Iranian individuals and entities for their role in weapons proliferation, human rights abuses, and terrorism, including the IRGC in its entirety. The Foreign Secretary raises this regularly with his European partners.
Asked by: Siobhan Baillie (Conservative - Stroud)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how frequently the Child Maintenance Service has used deduction from unlimited partnerships to enforce measures under the 2018 reforms.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We have interpreted this question to be in relation to deduction from ‘unlimited’ partnerships to mean not a limited company.
The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost to clerically review each case.
The Child Maintenance 2012 system whilst providing visibility of sole and joint account data, does not have the functionality to separate joint domestic accounts from business accounts. Moreover, there can be more than one director in ‘unlimited’ partnerships, which within Child Maintenance is treated the same as a joint account
Asked by: Siobhan Baillie (Conservative - Stroud)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how frequently the Child Maintenance Service has used deductions from joint accounts as an enforcement measure under the 2018 reforms.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost to clerically review each case.
The Child Maintenance 2012 system whilst providing visibility of sole and joint account data, does not have the functionality to separate joint domestic accounts from business accounts.
Asked by: Siobhan Baillie (Conservative - Stroud)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether the seed finance made available through the Big Nature Impact Fund will be used to fund saltmarshes.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The Big Nature Impact Fund (BNIF) will be a private sector vehicle and could invest in projects involving saltmarsh habitats that meet its criteria for investment.
Asked by: Siobhan Baillie (Conservative - Stroud)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department has taken recent steps to (a) strengthen protections for and (b) promote the restoration of saltmarsh habitats.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
HM Government recognises the important role that nature-based solutions, including blue carbon habitats, such as saltmarsh can play to prevent biodiversity loss and support adaptation and resilience to climate change, alongside their carbon sequestration benefits.
England’s Environment Agency (EA) reports on the extent and zonation of saltmarsh in England. The latest report (looking at saltmarsh area change over a decade from 2006-2009 to 2016-2019) is published on GOV.UK and has mapped existing restoration sites and supports further restoration practices. 38% of UK waters are already in Marine Protected Areas, covering the majority of saltmarsh habitats. Our focus is now on ensuring these are effectively managed.
The EA also lead the ‘Restoring Meadows, Marsh and Reef Initiative’, working with partners across government, the eNGO sector, academia and industry to streamline regulatory processes, build capacity and share knowledge to facilitate the accelerated restoration of estuarine and coastal habitats, with an initial focus on three priority habitats - saltmarshes, seagrass beds and native oyster reefs. At COP26, as part of this initiative, the EA also launched its Saltmarsh Restoration Handbook, a guide written by practitioners and experts to support groups wanting to undertake their own saltmarsh restoration project, one of 3 ‘Blue Carbon Restoration Handbooks’.
We are also working to increase private investment in nature. The £10 million Natural Environment Investment Readiness Fund is also supporting three projects with almost £300k of grants, to explore, develop and then test methodologies to measure and verify the carbon storage potential in saltmarsh habitats. This includes a project to develop a Saltmarsh Carbon code from the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology.
Finally, through the UK Blue Carbon Evidence Partnership, UK Administrations are working with the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Estate and Defra to continue to strengthen our evidence base relating to blue carbon habitats including saltmarsh. The first aim of the Partnership has been to identify and then clearly set out the most pressing research questions relating to blue carbon within an Evidence Needs Statement that will act as a signal to the research community for further work.
Asked by: Siobhan Baillie (Conservative - Stroud)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he has published a full list of products and services that qualify for the VAT reduction to energy saving materials, announced in the Spring Statement.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
A full list of energy-saving materials that, when installed in residential accommodation, qualify for the VAT reduction announced at Spring Statement 2022 has been published in section 2.10 of Energy-Saving Materials and Heating Equipment (VAT Notice 708/6), which is available on GOV.UK.
Asked by: Siobhan Baillie (Conservative - Stroud)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he plans to remove VAT on (a) heat pump radiators and (b) other home upgrade products that use energy savings materials.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
At Spring Statement 2022, the Chancellor announced the expansion of the VAT relief on the installation of energy saving materials (ESMs) to residential accommodation in Great Britain.
The changes reverse restrictions introduced in 2019 following a Court of Justice of the European Union ruling, including re-instating wind and water turbines as qualifying materials, and removing complex eligibility conditions. Further to this, qualifying installations, including ground and air source heat pumps, will benefit from a VAT zero-rate until April 2027. Overall, this represents an additional £280 million of support for investment in ESMs over the next 5 years.
The changes to the VAT treatment of ESMs announced at Spring Statement 2022 were brought in at pace to immediately support households to improve the energy efficiency of their homes, bolstering the UK’s energy security and contributing to our transition to Net-Zero.
In order to accelerate take-up and prevent loss of investment, the changes were brought in from 1 April 2022, 10 days after Spring Statement 2022. A longer delay between announcement and implementation risked having an adverse effect on the ESMs market, i.e. in anticipation of future relief business and consumers may have otherwise delayed entering into a contract thereby causing a temporary stalling effect in the market, and risking supply bottlenecks further down the line.
Evaluating the case for adding new technologies to the relief would require careful consideration and consultation to ensure changes represent value for money and would not have unintended behavioural effects, a process which would have delayed making changes to immediately benefit the public.
The Government keeps all taxes under review and continues to welcome representations on how the tax system can be improved. It is important that Government policy takes into account the pace of technological development in the ESMs market and the changing policy context since this particular relief was first introduced. That said, requests for further changes should be viewed in the context of over £50 billion of requests for relief from VAT received since the EU referendum. Such costs would have to be balanced by increased taxes elsewhere, increased borrowing, or reductions in Government spending.
Asked by: Siobhan Baillie (Conservative - Stroud)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many looked after children studying at KS5 level in the latest period for which figures are available, and what the exam and assessment results were for looked after children in the 2020-21 academic year.
Answered by Will Quince
The department does not hold information on the numbers of all care leavers in further education. The department does hold and publish information on the activities of care leavers aged 17 to 21 who had been looked after by local authorities in England. This includes information on care leavers in education but not specifically further education. The latest statistics are available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/fast-track/607634ac-0f37-4ffc-8cdc-576d0bb9b16b.
The department does not hold information centrally on all looked-after children who are studying at KS5 or who are in further education. The department does hold and publish information on pupils who were at the end of key stage 4 in 2018/2019 and reports on their destinations in the following academic year (2019/2020). The figures show, in academic year 2019/20, 5,450 children looked after were in a sustained education destination in the year following the end of key stage 4. Of these, 2,910 were in further education, 860 were in a school sixth form or sixth form college and 1,240 were in some other form of education. Further information is available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/d583af1d-ad7d-4f1f-990b-2b27586d6c69.
The latest information on attainment for looked after children is published here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/outcomes-for-children-in-need-including-children-looked-after-by-local-authorities-in-england.
Asked by: Siobhan Baillie (Conservative - Stroud)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many (a) looked after children and (b) care leavers went onto further education for the latest available year.
Answered by Will Quince
The department does not hold information on the numbers of all care leavers in further education. The department does hold and publish information on the activities of care leavers aged 17 to 21 who had been looked after by local authorities in England. This includes information on care leavers in education but not specifically further education. The latest statistics are available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/fast-track/607634ac-0f37-4ffc-8cdc-576d0bb9b16b.
The department does not hold information centrally on all looked-after children who are studying at KS5 or who are in further education. The department does hold and publish information on pupils who were at the end of key stage 4 in 2018/2019 and reports on their destinations in the following academic year (2019/2020). The figures show, in academic year 2019/20, 5,450 children looked after were in a sustained education destination in the year following the end of key stage 4. Of these, 2,910 were in further education, 860 were in a school sixth form or sixth form college and 1,240 were in some other form of education. Further information is available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/d583af1d-ad7d-4f1f-990b-2b27586d6c69.
The latest information on attainment for looked after children is published here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/outcomes-for-children-in-need-including-children-looked-after-by-local-authorities-in-england.