Written Statements

Wednesday 21st March 2018 Written Statements

Wednesday 21 March 2018

Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

Wednesday 21st March 2018 Written Statements

[The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr Philip Hammond)]

In 2015, the UK became a founding member of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. The AIIB supports economic growth in Asia and drives up living standards. The UK’s membership deepens economic ties with Asia and creates opportunities for British businesses.

At the ninth UK-China economic and financial dialogue in Beijing on 16 December 2017, the Chancellor of the Exchequer signed a contribution agreement with the AIIB, formalising the UK’s commitment, made at the previous EFD in 2016, to provide $50 million USD to the AIIB’s special fund for project preparation. This fund provides grant support to low income developing country members of the AIIB to prepare infrastructure projects for the bank to finance. China and the Republic of Korea have committed $50 million USD and $8 million USD, respectively, and the fund is open for more contributions.

The contribution agreement states that the UK will make four equal payments of $12.5 million USD by the end of March in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 respectively. The UK’s contribution to the special fund will score as 100% official development assistance (ODA) as projects using UK money will only take place in low-income countries.

HM Treasury will make these payments, and any future payments to the AIIB, under the powers of the International Development Act 2002. The first payment will be made before the end of March.

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NHS Workforce

Wednesday 21st March 2018 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Mr Jeremy Hunt)]

The Government are committed to the delivery of world-class public services, and ensuring that public sector workers are fairly remunerated for the vitally important work that they do.

Public sector pay restraint was necessary to tackle the deficit left by the last Government. However, in September last year we ended the 1% pay award policy for public sector workforces, recognising that some flexibility would be required in certain areas, including in return for improvements to public sector productivity. There is still of course a need for fiscal restraint—our debt is the highest it has been in 50 years, and it is not fair to pass an increasing burden of debt onto future generations.

As a result of constructive dialogue over recent months, I am today announcing that I have agreed to NHS Employers and the NHS trade unions going out to consultation on a three-year pay agreement for NHS staff employed under the “Agenda for Change” pay agreement. This agreement covers over 1 million staff employed in the NHS excluding employed doctors and very senior managers and is a good example of where public sector employers and unions can work together to agree a pay rise in return for wider reform.

The three-year deal aims to ensure that every pound of the £36 billion pay bill delivers value for and is fair to patients, staff and the taxpayer. It targets recruitment, retention and capacity issues to support staff and help them meet demand within the NHS.

The deal will help ensure the NHS can continue to recruit the skilled compassionate workforce it needs by:

Targeting the greatest pay uplifts at the lowest paid in the NHS, affecting over 100,000 FTE staff, so that the lowest starting salary increases from £15,404 this year to £18,005 in 2020-21, through reform.

Investing in higher starting salaries for staff in every pay band by reforming the pay system to remove overlapping pay points; so a newly qualified nurse will receive starting pay 12.6% (£2,779) higher in 2020-21 than this year and starting pay for a midwife on moving to band 6 will increase by 18.1% (£4,800) as a result of pay band reform.

It will support the retention of staff by:

Guaranteeing fair basic pay awards for the next three years to the 50% of staff who are at the top of pay bands—a cumulative 6.5%.

Guaranteeing fair basic pay awards and faster progression pay for the next three years to the c.50% of staff that is not yet on the top of their pay band.

Through important reforms to pay progression, the deal will help improve staff engagement and ensure that all staff have the knowledge, skills and support to make the greatest possible contribution to patient care.

It will put appraisal and personal development at the heart of pay progression—with virtually automatic incremental pay replaced by larger, less frequent pay increases subject to staff meeting the required standards for their role.

Staff will be supported to develop their skills and competencies and demonstrate that they meet the required standards before moving to the next pay point.

The system will be underpinned by a commitment from employers to fully utilise an effective appraisal process.

The deal will release capacity for provider organisations:

The partners commit to working together to improve the health and wellbeing of NHS staff so as to improve levels of attendance in the NHS with the ambition of matching the best in the public sector. NHS Digital data suggests that latest sickness absence rate for the NHS is 4.13%. For AfC staff, this is estimated at 4.5%. Estimates suggest that a 1% drop in sickness absence could save the NHS £280 million.

Finally, the deal will encourage greater consistency and modernisation of terms and conditions:

New provisions will be agreed to give staff access to consistent child bereavement leave, enhanced shared parental leave (extension of statutory), and a national framework for buying and selling annual leave.

Steps will be taken to ensure that, over time, the calculation for sickness absence pay is the same for all staff.

There will be very modest changes to the value of the higher rates of unsocial hours pay for staff in pay bands 1 to 3 over the period of the multi-year deal to ensure the difference between these staff and all other AfC staff is narrowed over time.

Overall, this pay deal is fair to staff and taxpayers and will help to improve productivity through stronger evidence-based appraisal systems and through that, better staff engagement which we know can help improve outcomes for patients.

At the Budget in November my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that if discussions with health unions on pay structure modernisation for “Agenda for Change” staff were successful, he would protect frontline services by providing additional funding for such a settlement. I can confirm that through autumn Budget 2017, we set aside in the reserves £800 million per annum which funds the first year of the “Agenda for Change” pay deal. If the NHS trade unions accept this agreement following consultation with their members, the Government will release this funding. The Chancellor will provide for additional funding required to fulfil his commitment through the 2018 autumn Budget, and so make available the £4.2 billion over three years needed to fund the deal. This is all part of our balanced approach that keeps debt falling, while investing in our public services and keeping taxes low.

I will also be publishing a draft equality statement to meet my public sector equality duty. A final equality statement will be published when the agreement is implemented.

This agreement will be shared with the independent NHS Pay Review Body and I look forward to its report in due course.

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Housing Investment

Wednesday 21st March 2018 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Sajid Javid)]

Today, the Government are announcing are that we are now working with a further 44 areas across England to develop projects with the remaining £4.1 billion of the £5 billion housing infrastructure fund, with the potential to deliver over 400,000 homes in areas where housing need is greatest. This is in addition to the west midlands, where housing infrastructure fund funding for co-development was announced as part of a housing package at spring statement. These are strategic, long-term projects which will deliver housing not just for now, but for generations to come—creating new settlements, growing places and backing local authority ambition for growth and regeneration. They follow on from our announcement made on 1 February 2018 to take forward 133 marginal viability fund projects worth £866 million from the housing infrastructure fund to provide infrastructure to unlock up to 200,000 homes. This announcement reinforces our continued commitment to fix the broken housing market and support projects that would otherwise struggle to go ahead or take years for work to begin.

We are committed to helping to create a new generation of strong, vibrant communities where people want to live, work and build families. We are supporting the development of 24 new locally led garden cities, towns and villages, ranging in size from 1,500 new homes to over 40,000 homes. Over half of these settlements will go forward to the next stage of housing infrastructure fund forward funding co-development.

We also want to back places with ambitious plans for new homes where they are needed. Today the Government announce housing packages for Greater Manchester, who will commit to deliver 227,000 homes by 2035, and the west of England, to accelerate annual housing delivery to 7,500 homes over the next three years. Both of these areas will also go forward to the next stage of housing infrastructure fund forward funding co-development. This is in addition to the housing packages agreed with Oxfordshire and the west midlands. The forward funding component of the housing infrastructure fund was available to the uppermost tier of local authorities in England to bid into, with a focus on strategic, high-impact infrastructure projects.

The full area breakdown of successful forward fund projects we will be working with through co-development can be found on the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government website at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/housing-infrastructure-fund

As this is still a competitive process, success at this stage is not a guarantee of housing infrastructure fund funding. Shortlisted local authorities will submit their final business cases and successful funded bids will be announced from autumn 2018 onwards.

The housing infrastructure fund is divided into two streams:

A marginal viability fund—available to all single and lower tier local authorities in England—to provide a piece of infrastructure funding to get additional sites allocated or existing sites unblocked quickly. Bids have a soft cap of £10 million.

A forward fund—available to the uppermost tier of local authorities in England—for a small number of strategic and high-impact infrastructure projects. Bids have a soft cap of £250 million.

Housing packages are agreements between central and local government, in which local areas agree to build more homes in return for a package of support from Government.

Detail on the housing packages for Greater Manchester, west of England and west midlands can be found at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/housing-deals

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