Tom Tugendhat

These arrangements are subject to the outcome of negotiations.

Commercial drivers and hauliers who move goods between Great Britain and the European Union will require new documentation from 1 January 2021. Hauliers should not attempt to cross the border unless they have all the right documentation.

The Government has produced an easy-to-use checker tool which can be accessed via gov.uk/transition for businesses and citizens to find out exactly what they need to do to prepare.

I refer the Hon. Member to the answer I gave to PQ 33512 on 21 April 2020.

The Government has made an unprecedented package of support available to businesses that are required to close or which have been severely affected by the restrictions put in place to tackle Covid-19 and save lives.

Following on from closure of the Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Grant Fund, other grant support measures have been in place to reflect the changing landscape of local and national Covid-19 restrictions. This includes funding for businesses required to close and discretionary funding for Local Authorities to support other businesses that whilst able to remain open may be severely impacted.

In January, my Rt. Hon. Friend Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer announced a further package of business grant support. Business premises that are required by law to close – including those businesses in the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors – are able to access grants of up to £4,500 per 6-week period of closure and a further one-off Closed Business Lockdown Payment of up to £9,000.

The Local Restrictions Support Grant (Closed) is available to all businesses in England that have been required to close due to local or national COVID-19 restrictions.

There are three key considerations when a Local Authority determines the eligibility of a business for a grant under the LRSG (Closed):

• Is the business the business rate payer of a hereditament that appears on the rating list?
• Is the main service of that business required to close due to the restrictions?
• Is the business able to self-declare that it meets all scheme conditions, including eligibility and State aid requirements?

Where an organisation meets all of these criteria, it is considered eligible to receive a grant through the mandatory LRSG (Closed) scheme.

Local authorities are responsible for making decisions on whether a business qualifies for a grant. In doing so they must take into account guidance released by government Statutory Instruments (including exceptions).

The Green Homes Grant Scheme launched for applications on 30 September and as announced on 18 November will run until 31 March 2022. Our installer data is at Local Authority rather than regional level. As of 23 November, the number of TrustMark registered installer businesses available in each of the Local Authorities within Kent are as follows:

• Dartford Borough Council - 70
• Gravesham Borough Council - 57
• Sevenoaks District Council - 70
• Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council - 66
• Maidstone Borough Council - 70
• Tunbridge Wells Borough Council - 75
• Swale District Council - 60
• Ashford Borough Council - 71
• Canterbury City Council - 69
• Thanet District Council - 64
• Folkestone and Hythe District Council - 62
• Dover District Council - 65.

Businesses should carry out COVID-19 risk assessments and consult the current guidance. If reflexology businesses interpret that they can remain open during the national COVID-19 restrictions, they should refer to the Close Contact Services guidance.

Businesses are eligible for the Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Grant Fund and the business rate holiday scheme if they are based in England with a property that is wholly or mainly being used for the purposes of retail, hospitality and/or leisure.

The Government has announced an additional discretionary fund to support small businesses that fall outside the scope of the Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Grants Fund and the Small Business Grants Fund, which have under 50 employees and have seen a significant drop of income due to Coronavirus restriction measures.

The Government is also providing an unprecedented package of wider support available to breweries. This includes business interruption loan schemes, job retention and self-employed income support schemes, as well as a bounce back loan scheme. The full details of all these measures have been published at:

https://www.businesssupport.gov.uk/coronavirus-business-support/.

The government is committed to deliver lightning-fast, reliable broadband to everyone in the UK. Our plan - to stimulate investment, bust barriers and drive competition - is working. We're on track for one of the fastest rollouts in Europe and for 60% of all households to have access to gigabit capable speeds by the end of the year. It is a huge leap forward from 2019, when it was just 9%.

The government will announce the next areas to be connected via Project Gigabit shortly as it pushes ahead with efforts to connect at least 85 per cent of the UK to gigabit-capable broadband by 2025.

The telecoms market is thriving with new entrants and investments changing the picture on the ground. Project Gigabit is designed to be responsive to this and the ordering and timing of the procurement pipeline will remain dynamic with quarterly updates to the plan.

Kent is Phase 2 of Project Gigabit’s procurement plans. There will be a procurement process for a supplier to provide gigabit coverage to all premises within the area which are not scheduled to get coverage through any other route (subject to a cost cap for the very hard to reach premises).

Both the new voucher scheme and the procurements are part of Project Gigabit, which we are supporting with funding of £5 billion so hard to reach communities are not left out - starting to level up now, not waiting for the end of the commercial rollout, and adding to the half a million rural homes and businesses already given coverage through our support

To provide immediate support across the UK we are funding up to £210 million worth of vouchers over the next three years to help with the costs of installing gigabit capable networks to people’s doorsteps and up to £110 million to connect up to 7,000 rural public buildings such as GP surgeries, libraries and schools.

Currently 93.64% of the constituency of Tonbridge and Malling have access to Superfast broadband, which is slightly lower than the national average of 96.84%. Tonbridge and Malling has seen 292 voucher connections with a value of over £447,805. There are also a further 312 vouchers that are pending connection, totalling £982,778.

Sports and physical activity providers and facilities play a crucial role in supporting adults and children to be active. That’s why we have continued to make sure that people can exercise throughout the national restrictions, and why we have ensured that grassroots and children’s sport is front of the queue when easing those restrictions.

On Monday 22 February, the Prime Minister announced a roadmap out of the current lockdown in England. The roadmap outlines four steps for easing restrictions. There will be a minimum of five weeks between each step: four weeks for the data to reflect changes in restrictions; followed by seven days’ notice of the restrictions to be eased. The Chief Medical Officer and the Chief Scientific Adviser have made clear that this will give adequate time to assess the impact of each step and reduce the risk of having to re-impose restrictions at a later date.

Step 2 will take place no earlier than 12 April and as part of this indoor sports facilities including gyms, leisure centres and swimming pools will reopen for individual usage. At Step 3, no earlier than 17 May, indoor group activities including swimming clubs can resume.

Since May 2019, eligible homes and businesses in rural areas that are part of a group project have been able to benefit from the Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme funded by the Rural Gigabit Connectivity programme. Voucher funding is a grant to individual residents and small businesses and is therefore committed when a voucher is issued to a beneficiary, at which point their supplier has 12 months to provide a connection. The Rural Gigabit Connectivity programme is due to close on March 31 2021, by which point all voucher requests must be received.

Due to the success of the voucher scheme, and in line with the government’s ambition to provide access to gigabit-capable broadband to the hardest-to-reach communities in rural areas across the UK, a new gigabit broadband voucher is being developed as part of the UK Gigabit programme. This will target the hardest to reach areas which are least likely to benefit from commercial rollout. The government expects the new voucher to go live in April 2021 and, along with further details of the voucher, a new eligibility checker will be published in order to help consumers identify if they are eligible for a voucher. BDUK will also work with suppliers to help them transition existing projects, where they are eligible, to the UK Gigabit programme so that communities do not miss out on the opportunity for government funding to enable their access to gigabit capable connections.

The National Leisure Recovery Fund seeks to support eligible public sector leisure centres to reopen to the public, giving the sport and physical activity sector the best chance of recovery to a position of sustainable operation over the medium term.

A total of £100 million is available as a biddable fund to eligible local authorities in England, which will be allocated in a single funding round covering the period 1 December 2020 to 31 March 2021. Eligible local authorities include: those in England who hold responsibility for the provision of leisure services, those who have outsourced their leisure provision to an external body to and those whose outsourced leisure arrangements have ended since 20 March 2020 and services are now delivered as an in-house function.

To help ensure an equitable distribution of the National Leisure Recovery Fund, a Notional Funding Allocation has been calculated for each eligible local authority and funding awards will only be made in excess of the Notional Funding Allocation in the most exceptional circumstances. The basis of the Notional Funding Allocation is a per capita allocation. This has then been adjusted to take into consideration physical activity levels, number of facilities and health outcome indicators.

Government has worked closely with the Local Government Association (LGA), ukactive, the District Councils' Network, Community Leisure UK, Chief Cultural and Leisure Officers Association and others to make sure the application and funding process is as fast and simple as possible.

Sports and physical activity are incredibly important for our physical and mental health, and are a vital weapon against coronavirus. That’s why we made sure that people could exercise at least once a day even during the height of lockdown - and why we opened up grassroots sport and leisure facilities as soon as it was safe to do so.

Nobody wanted to be in the position of having to introduce further National Restrictions. However as the Prime Minister said, with the virus spreading faster than expected we cannot allow our health system to be overwhelmed. Therefore, from Thursday 5 November until Wednesday 2 December indoor and outdoor leisure will be closed. The National Restrictions are designed to get the R rate under control through limiting social contact and reducing transmissions.

In order for these measures to have the greatest impact, we will all need to sacrifice doing some things that we would otherwise like to do, for a short period of time. We have not introduced further exemptions because when you unpick at one activity the effectiveness of the whole package is compromised. As soon as we're in a position to start lifting restrictions, grassroots sports will be one of the first to return.

All public expenditure in relation to the education administration of Hadlow College (and the related West Kent & Ashford College) have, and continue to be subject to, the highest levels of accountability and transparency.

All expenditure has been approved by the Financial Cases Committee (FCC) in the Education and Skills Funding Agency, which is an independent committee. The FCC includes Her Majesty's Treasury, external independent experts, legal, commercial and the Further Education Commissioner, and subsequently ministers and my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, as required by delegations.

The Technical and Further Education Act 2017 provides that the education administrators are officers of the court which approves their fee requests. The education administrators' hourly rates are based on a commercial procurement framework which offers material savings to their rates charged in normal insolvencies. The spending of the education administrators is fully disclosed through their six monthly reports to creditors, which are publicly available at Companies House.

Matters relating to any absences by school staff, whether related to COVID-19 or not, are a matter for the individual’s employer.

To manage their staffing requirements, schools may need to alter the way in which they deploy their staff and use existing staff more flexibly, as set out in our guidance. These include making best use of teaching assistants, hosting initial teacher training, using volunteers, engaging supply staff using in-year allocated budget, and seeking support from the local authority or trust.

Schools will continue to receive their core funding allocations – as determined by the local authority for maintained schools and through the general annual grant for academies – for the 2021/22 financial year (April 2021 to March 2022 for maintained schools and until August 2022 for academies and non-maintained special schools). This will happen regardless of any periods of partial or complete closure and will ensure schools can continue to pay staff and meet other regular financial commitments.

On Saturday 31 October 2020, my right hon. Friend, the Prime Minister announced New National Restrictions from Thursday 5 November until Wednesday 2 December to control the spread of COVID-19: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/new-national-restrictions-from-5-november.

On Wednesday 4 November, the Department for Education published guidance for education and childcare settings on the impact of these restrictions. The guidance can be found through the following link: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/education-and-childcare-settings-new-national-restrictions-from-5-november-2020.

Schools that provide a full-time education continue to remain open for all children and young people, as they have since the start of the autumn term, for the duration of the New National Restrictions.

Where provision is taking place outside of school, this provision should only operate where the provision is reasonably necessary to enable parents to work, search for work, or attend education or training, or where the provision is used for the purposes of respite care, including for vulnerable children.

Out-of-school activities that are primarily used by home educating parents as part of their arrangements for their child to receive a suitable full-time education (which can include supplementary schools, tuition centres, or private tutors) may also continue to operate.

All other out of school activities, not being primarily used by parents for these purposes, should close for face-to-face provision but can offer remote education for the duration of the New National Restrictions.

The Department’s advice on educational visits can be viewed at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/actions-for-schools-during-the-coronavirus-outbreak/guidance-for-full-opening-schools. The advice is in line with guidance from Public Health England, the Cabinet Office and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. It is currently under review and the findings will be available at the end of November.

The Government has introduced a package of support worth more than £200 billion to help as many individuals and businesses as possible during the COVID-19 outbreak. This includes small business grants, the coronavirus loan guarantee schemes, the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) and the deferral of VAT and income tax payments. The measures introduced have been designed to be accessible to businesses in most sectors across the UK.

Further measures have been announced by my right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that build on the significant support already available, and set out how the current support will evolve and adapt. These include the extension of the CJRS until the end of March 2021, the extension of the deadline for applications for the Bounce Back Loan scheme and other loan schemes until 31 January 2021, and increased support for the self-employed through the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme grants.

Furthermore, businesses in England that are forced to close due to national or local restrictions will receive up to £3,000 per month. Local authorities in England will also receive one-off funding of £1.1 billion to support businesses more broadly over the coming months, as a key part of local economies.

The Government will continue to work closely with local authorities, businesses, business representative organisations and the financial services sector to monitor the implementation of current support and understand whether there is additional need. Businesses can also access tailored advice through our Freephone Business Support Helpline, online via the Business Support website, or through their local Growth Hubs in England.

The Department is rebuilding or refurbishing school buildings required to deliver the school curriculum through the Priority School Building Programme. It would therefore not be possible for a school to have a building rebuilt or refurbished through this programme with the aim of it being leased to nurseries or other organisations. It is however possible for alternative funding to be provided from third parties so that additional accommodation is included in the scope of works, if this is agreed at the start of a project.

It is possible for all schools to lease areas of their facilities and schools may have informal or lease arrangements with third parties out of hours. Before granting any lease of public school land to a third party, a local authority, governing body, academy trust, or charitable landowning trust must comply with the legislative requirements to involve the Secretary of State. In most cases this requires an application for consent. The grant of a lease by an academy trust would also require the consent of the Secretary of State under the Academies Financial Handbook and the trust’s funding agreement.