Stuart Anderson

The Period Poverty Taskforce has begun a programme of work to tackle stigma and shame surrounding menstruation; established research priorities to improve the evidence surrounding period poverty and menstrual stigma in the UK and has begun to identify access barriers and the groups that are most affected by them. In addition to this, The Department for Education launched a new scheme which makes free period products available in state-funded primary schools, secondary schools and colleges in England, to ensure that menstruation does not present a barrier to young people’s learning.

The work of the Taskforce was paused on 20 March 2020 in light of COVID-19 to allow the GEO secretariat to be redeployed to respond to the pandemic, and to ensure that we were not asking businesses to volunteer resources at this difficult time. Further announcements on the plans and the work of the Taskforce will be made in due course.

The Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, which was established on 16 July of this year, has set out an ambitious plan of engagement and analysis to deliver against its terms of reference.

The Commission intends to engage with individuals and organisations nationwide in order to deliver its work, and has already held initial meetings with some of the key stakeholders, delivery partners and agencies for employment, education, health and criminal justice.

Its work will be crucial in informing and improving the national conversation on race and also demonstrates this government’s mission to level up opportunity for everyone - whatever their background. Further updates on the Commission's progress will be posted on its website in due course.

This Government is actively working on these issues. To encourage greater age diversity in workplaces, we have published a strategy 'Fuller Working Lives: A Partnership Approach', which aims to increase the retention, retraining and recruitment of older workers by bringing about a change in the perceptions and attitudes of employers.

On levelling up opportunity regardless of social class, the Social Mobility Commission’s latest report (published on 10 June 2020) recognises progress in improving life chances for poorer groups and keeping disadvantaged pupils in education for longer. In line with that, we have launched a £1 billion package to directly tackle the impact of lost teaching time due to COVID-19, including a £350 million National Tutoring Programme targeted at those children and young people who need the most help.

On gender and ethnicity in senior professions, we support the business-led voluntary Hampton-Alexander and Parker Reviews respectively. The FTSE 100 and 350 have achieved their 33% women on boards targets and there are now only two all male boards, against 152 in 2011. We also support the Financial Reporting Council’s efforts to improve the quality of company diversity reporting, including by ethnicity.

Finally, in relation to sexuality, in Autumn 2019, we brought together participants from over 150 businesses to share experiences and best practice in making workplaces genuinely LGBT-inclusive and we are exploring what more can be done to tackle LGBT workplace discrimination.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

The Government is clear that any suicide is a tragedy and is fully committed to tackling suicide among veterans. In September 2021, we announced a new method for recording veteran suicide. We expect the first reports from this data to be available in 2023.

Concurrent to that work, the MOD, ONS and OVA are working collaboratively to publish a 10-year lookback on veteran deaths through suicide, alcohol misuse and drug abuse. Having a better understanding of the number of veterans taking their own lives will help inform future policy and interventions in support of veterans.

Our ambition is to ensure that no veteran’s request for help goes unanswered. The veterans' mental health and wellbeing service, Op COURAGE, was allocated £17.8million funding last year and an extra £2.7million over the next three years. Further, we are supporting veteran-friendly accreditation for GPs and veteran-aware training for social work teams.

Additional funding has been awarded to service charities involved in supporting the mental health of veterans, such as through the £5million Afghanistan Veterans Fund, as well as an additional £10 million to the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust.

More than 2,000 Civil Service jobs have already been relocated from Greater London.

Places for Growth is contributing towards the Declaration on Government Reform and Levelling Up agenda by significantly increasing the geographic spread of Civil Servants across the UK, increasing opportunities for people from a wider range of places and closing the distance between national and local decision-makers. This is being delivered by moving 15,000 Civil Service roles out of Greater London by 2025.

Our ambition is to ensure that no veteran’s request for help goes unanswered. The veterans' mental health and wellbeing service, Op COURAGE, has been allocated £17.8m funding this year and will benefit from a boost of £2.7m over the next three years. The Prime Minister recently announced an additional £5 million for service charities following the UK's withdrawal from Afghanistan, which will be used on a range of projects including increasing capacity in mental health support. In March, the government also announced an additional £10 million to the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust to distribute to charitable projects supporting veterans’ mental health needs. This is on top of the annual £10 million awarded to the Trust.

The upcoming ‘Strategy for our Veterans Action Plan’ will further outline the Government’s plans to support veterans.

This year, we have committed £750 million to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping - aiming to end rough sleeping within the parliament.

I am committed to providing veterans with a gold standard of support; that means services that are easily accessed and which meet veterans needs. We have already taken steps to improve veterans access to social housing, removing the local connection requirement and giving vulnerable veterans priority access, and I look forward to announcing further steps later this year when I publish the Veterans Strategy Action Plan.

As part of Budget 2020, the Government committed to moving 22,000 Civil Service roles out of central London within the next decade. These roles will be moving to locations across the UK, including Glasgow, Belfast, Cardiff, Darlington and Wolverhampton. 11 departments have announced their location plans so far.

Places for Growth is working closely with Government departments as part of the Spending Review and has early commitments to move up to 15,000 Civil Service roles by 2024/25. Additional plans for the relocation of roles will be finalised in the coming weeks.

We will publish a landmark Levelling Up White Paper later this year, articulating how bold new policy interventions will improve opportunity and boost livelihoods across the country as we recover from the pandemic.

The majority of veterans successfully access mental health services available to the general population. For those who require bespoke treatment, NHS England’s Op COURAGE brings together three NHS England veterans’ mental health services into a single pathway with a common point of access. £17.8m has been provided for these services this financial year, and an additional £10m has also been allocated to the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust to distribute to charitable projects supporting veterans’ mental health needs.

Veterans offer huge skills, talents and economic potential to society, including employers. One of the commitments in the Government’s Veterans Strategy Action Plan, published in January this year, is to tackle the outdated and incorrect perceptions that some in society hold about veterans. We are working closely with the business community - for example Deloitte’s Veterans Work programme, and research organisations such as the Forces in Mind Trust - to identify perceived barriers and break them down by showcasing the incredible achievements of veterans, including those who, like people from across society, have been affected by mental health challenges.

Alongside this the Government works closely with employers, for example through the MOD’s Career Transition Partnership, to provide a platform which brings together those leaving the Armed Forces and employers seeking to access the talent of the Armed Forces community together. Many people serve full and exceptional careers in the Armed Forces whilst successfully managing mental ill-health. However, there are instances where the severity of mental ill-health means serving in the Armed Forces is no longer a viable option. Transition and welfare support is available for those who are discharged as a result of mental ill-health.

The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority. I have therefore asked the Authority to respond.

The Department has worked closely with Acas to promote their services through awareness campaigns, including a joint campaign on social media and radio aimed at vulnerable workers and recently publicising the launch of Acas’s disability hub on their website. Additionally, BEIS funds Acas to provide support and guidance on workplace matters, which any member of the public can access through its website and by contacting their helpline between 8am and 6pm, Monday to Friday.

Businesses have significant power to drive change towards achieving our domestic net zero goal both through reducing their own emissions is important, but also their role in designing the ground-breaking new technologies, world leading products and innovative approaches to reach net zero, with the private sector providing much of the investment needed.

The policies and spending brought forward in the Net Zero Strategy mean that since the Ten Point Plan, £26 billion of government capital investment for the green industrial revolution has been mobilised. The Strategy will leverage up to £90 billion of private investment by 2030.

The UK’s industrial sector plays both an essential role in the economy and is a major source of CO₂ emission. The Industrial Decarbonisation Strategy, published in March 2021, and expanded in the Net Zero Strategy, sets out how industry can decarbonise in line with net zero, while transforming industrial regions by attracting inward investment, future-proofing businesses, and securing the long-term viability of jobs.

The Net Zero Strategy sets out the Government’s intention to work with businesses to produce their own business specific plans, while also encouraging businesses to take action in the run up to COP by joining the global ‘Race to Zero’ campaign, which already includes over half of FTSE 100 companies.

Carbon Capture, Usage and Storage (CCUS) is integral to the UK’s Green Industrial Revolution. Building on the UK’s industrial strengths and capabilities, we are leading efforts to establish this critical technology.

In July this year we launched call 1 of a CCUS Innovation 2.0 competition[1] to:

• support cost reductions in carbon capture, usage and storage;
• to help UK industry to understand the opportunity for deploying next generation carbon capture technology on industrial, waste, or power generation sites for 2030;and
• made available £19.5m of grant funding available as part of CCUS Innovation 2.0, eligible to small and medium enterprise (SME) applicants.

In order to support green growth sectors, since 2012 we have now run 8 rounds of the Energy Entrepreneurs Fund (EEF)[2].

The EEF seeks the best ideas, irrespective of source, across these energy technology areas from the public and private sector. It particularly aims to assist small and medium-sized enterprises, including start-ups, and those companies that are selected will receive additional funding for incubation support.

We also launched a £70 million Direct Air Capture (DAC) and Greenhouse Gas Removal (GGR) Innovation competition in 2021.

The programme is currently in Phase 1 of the programme and has 23 innovation projects developing a range of technologies.

[1] CCUS Innovation 2.0: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ccus-innovation-20-competition

[2] Energy Entrepreneurs Fund: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/energy-entrepeneurs-fund

The Government is committed to supporting UK manufacturing businesses, including start-ups and recognises the vital role they play in the UK economy, by driving innovation, exports, job creation and productivity growth.

We are committed to supporting manufacturers to take advantage of innovative technology and we recently announced £8 million in new government funding for the Made Smarter Adoption programme to help Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) increase productivity, competitiveness and drive up efficiency by adopting industrial digital technology, building on the success of our Made Smarter North West Pilot.

The Government’s business support schemes have been put in place to help eligible businesses to get through the pandemic, from all regions and backgrounds. Information on these schemes and other resources is available via the free Business Support Helpline.

The Start Up Loans Company, part of the Government-owned British Business Bank, provides loans and pre- and post-application support to new entrepreneurs, including a year of free business mentoring for successful applicants. Since 2012, over 86,000 Start Up Loans worth over £769 million have been issued to new entrepreneurs. We are also investing £147 million through the Made Smarter Innovation programme to help forward-thinking UK manufacturers create new, green products and processes, slash carbon emissions, drive up productivity and create thousands of highly skilled new jobs across the country.

The Government’s On-street Residential Chargepoint Scheme (ORCS) is available to all UK local authorities to provide public chargepoints for their residents without access to private parking. In 2021/22, £20 million is available under the scheme to ensure more local authorities and residents can benefit. Amendments have been made to the ORCS to encourage ambitious local authority projects, and improve access to the funding for local authorities in areas of limited electrical capacity.

Local authorities in England can also take advantage of Energy Saving Trust’s Local Government Support Programme, fully funded by the Department for Transport, which offers support to help authorities develop and deliver EV strategies, and programmes to increase adoption of ultra-low emission vehicles. This includes support with the roll out of charging infrastructure through applying for ORCS funding.

In addition, Government is investing almost £40 million in projects to support innovation in wireless and on-street charging technology to encourage the uptake of electric vehicles.

The Simple Energy Advice Service (SEA) provides impartial and tailored advice to help people improve their household’s energy efficiency and make their homes greener. SEA consists of an easy-to-use website supported by a call centre and the website has been accessed by over 1.5 million users. The Government is currently undertaking user research into improving the service.

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) also published an EPC Action Plan detailing a series of commitments to engage consumers to support policy and drive action. The Government is also working with Local Authorities through the Local Energy Programme to develop support for retrofit programmes by addressing local barriers to clean growth activity.

BEIS officials review Acas’ performance on a regular basis as set out in the ‘Acas Framework Document’. This document sets out the broad framework within which Acas operates including the performance expectations for the services they deliver.

The Government had already committed £1.5 billion to support the early market and remove barriers to ZEV ownership. Alongside the new phase out dates for new petrol and diesel cars and vans, we pledged a further £2.8 billion package of measures to support industry and consumers to make the switch to cleaner vehicles. This includes up to £1 billion to support the electrification of UK vehicles and their supply chains.

The Government will provide £1.3 billion to support the continued roll-out of chargepoint infrastructure at homes, workplaces, residential streets and across the wider roads network, to provide motorists with confidence to purchase an EV. Government and industry have already supported the installation of nearly 25,000 public charging devices. This includes more than 4,500 rapid devices – one of the largest networks in Europe.

Government grants for plug in vehicles continue to be available to help reduce the up-front purchase price of electric vehicles, with total money committed at £582 million for cars, vans, motorcycles and taxis to 2022/23.

The March 2020 Budget included the extension of favourable benefit in kind tax rates for zero emission vehicles out to 2025: company car tax is 1% in 2021/22 and 2% in 2022/23 through to 2024/25; and all zero emission cars are exempt from vehicle excise duty (VED).

Local Authorities may also provide additional incentives such as free parking and exemption from the congestion charge.

BEIS does not hold this data but in 2019 the Local Data Company’s report on Retail & Leisure Market vacancies put the 1 year+ vacancy rate at 7.4%. ONS data indicates that there were nearly 320,000 retail units in the UK in 2019 which suggests around 22,700 stores had been vacant for a year or more. This represents the most recent estimate available.

In order to mitigate against a rise in the number of vacant units, the Government has introduced a range of measures to protect businesses that are struggling to pay their rent due to Covid-19. We have extended the moratorium on commercial landlords’ right to forfeiture for the non-payment of rent to the 25 March 2022 and we will introduce legislation to help landlords and tenants resolve historic Covid-19 rent debt through binding arbitration if necessary.

We continue to reduce the financial burden on retailers by providing eligible retail properties in England with 66% business rates relief for the period from 1 July 2021 to 31 March 2022, capped at £2 million per business for properties that were required to be closed on 5 January 2021, or £105,000 per business for other eligible properties.

Our Simple Energy Advice Service (SEA), which was launched in 2018, provides impartial and tailored advice to help people improve their household energy efficiency and make their homes greener and cheaper to run. The SEA, which consists of an easy-to-use website supported by a call centre which members of the public may contact for digital assistance, has been accessed by over 1.4 million unique users since its launch.

Homeowners may also refer to the advice provided by their Energy Performance Certificate, which are tailored to the characteristics of the property following an assessment of the building and recommend measures to improve household energy efficiency.

At a local level, the Government has supported skills development and advice provision through a number of local supply chain demonstration pilots, which tested new approaches to supporting home energy retrofit in the able-to-pay sector in England and recognise the importance of locally provided advice. We are also working with Local Authorities through the Local Energy Programme to develop support for local retrofit programmes by addressing local barriers to clean growth activity.

Research and innovation into CCUS has been a key priority for the UK. Between 2004-2019 the UK has provided over £295m in public funding for CCUS Research and Innovation. In the BEIS Energy Innovation Programme (2011-2016) more than £41m was provided to CCUS innovation projects. These were funded by the Call for CCUS Innovation, Carbon Capture & Utilisation Demonstration (CCUD) programme and the Energy Entrepreneur Fund (EEF) scheme.

Under the Net Zero Innovation Portfolio (2021-2025), the BEIS CCUS Innovation 2.0 programme is seeking to fund next generation CCUS technology with up to £20m available.

The Carbon Capture and Storage Infrastructure Fund (CIF) which is expected to support Transport & Storage and Industrial Carbon Capture was first announced at the Budget in March 2020, and its allocation of £1bn was confirmed at the Spending Review in November 2020.

Under health and safety legislation, employers have a duty to protect the health, safety and welfare of their employees; Under equality legislation employers have a duty to make reasonable adjustments for disabled employees, which can include those with mental health needs.

The Government is working to equip employers with the knowledge and confidence to manage health and disability in the workplace. This includes advice on creating inclusive workplaces and working practices and help providing modifications and adjustments where needed to support individual employees, covering both mental and physical health conditions.

In 2019, Public Health England published a series of toolkits in partnership with Business in the Community to help every organisation support the mental and physical health of its employees. Government continues to work with Business Leaders via the ‘Thriving at Work Leadership Council' to break down stigma and also promotes mental health resources available at the Mental Health at Work website. The Department for Work and Pensions’ Disability Confident scheme will continue working with employers to actively promote best practice in supporting the mental and physical health of employees.

The Energy Company Obligation scheme (ECO), worth £640 million per annum, sets an obligation on larger energy suppliers to install energy efficiency and heating measures in the homes of low income and vulnerable households in Great Britain. A capped amount of replacement boilers is allowed, though there is no cap when certain insulation measures are installed alongside.

Under the current iteration of ECO, over 157,000 boilers had been installed up to the end of December 2020.

Furthermore, under the Warm Home Discount (WHD), the Industry Initiatives element of the scheme allows suppliers to support low income and vulnerable households through a range of measures, including replacement boilers in certain circumstances.

We have put in place one of the most generous packages of support in the world worth over £280 billion. For Hair and Beauty businesses, this includes business rates holidays, various loans schemes and the extended furlough scheme. Closed businesses such as hairdressers, like those in your constituency, can also receive a grant of up to £3,000 a month and a one-off payment up to a maximum £9,000.

I meet with the sector regularly to understand the impact of the pandemic on businesses.

The Government is keen to see greater corporate responsibility on the part of employers and encourages the public sector, charities and businesses to consider their impact on society. Employer-supported volunteering can help to build stronger communities and a stronger economy, by helping charities and community groups to do more and by creating a more motivated and productive workforce.

Employees have the right to reasonable time off work to carry out specified public duties such as those of a magistrate or a local councillor. There are currently no plans to extend the range of roles.

The Government and regulators have worked with regulated industries to support consumers who are struggling financially.

Examples of the support provided include in the financial services sector, where the FCA advises that consumers can apply, until the end of March, for payment deferrals including on mortgages, loans, credit cards, overdrafts, and motor finance. In the energy sector, BEIS secured a voluntary agreement with energy companies to support their customers impacted by Covid-19 and struggling with energy bills, including taking action to keep households on supply. Ofcom has also recently asked telecoms providers to bring in further support, including proactively engaging with those in debt, and waiving penalty charges.

Details of the support available to consumers struggling to pay their essential bills can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/advice-for-people-who-are-struggling-to-pay-essential-bills-because-of-coronavirus.

The Government has also through the COVID Winter Grant Scheme provided £170m to local authorities in England, to provide support for vulnerable households particularly affected by the pandemic, and help with the cost of food, energy, water bills and other essentials.