Written Statements
Contingencies Fund Advance: Energy Price Guarantee (Domestic)
The Minister for Climate (Graham Stuart)
I hereby give notice of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy’s intention to seek an advance from the Contingencies Fund totalling £3,531,500,000 to enable initial expenditure on the Government’s energy price guarantee domestic scheme to be spent ahead of the passage of the Supply and Appropriation Act.
The funding is urgently required for HM Government to provide domestic support for household energy bills.
Parliamentary approval for additional resources of £3,531,500,000 for this new expenditure will be sought in a supplementary estimate for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Pending that approval, urgent expenditure estimated at £3,531,500,000 will be met by repayable cash advances from the Contingencies Fund.
The cash advances will be repaid upon receiving Royal Assent to the related Supply and Appropriation Bill.
The amount requested provides for initial scheme expenditure only, in anticipation of Parliament voting for the resource required for this financial year through an out-of-turn estimate. Due to urgency, the Contingencies Fund advance provides the immediate cash requirement in the period between scheme start and Parliamentary approval.
Further information can be found in the “Central Government Supply Estimates 2022-23, Out-of-Turn Supplementary Estimates, October 2022” available at www.gov.uk.
[HCWS398]
United States - Brazil Double Taxation Convention
(2 years ago)
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The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Victoria Atkins)
A double taxation convention with Brazil was signed in Brazil on 29 November. The text of the convention is available on the HM Revenue and Customs pages of the www.gov.uk website and will be deposited in the Libraries of both Houses. The text of the convention will be scheduled to a draft Order in Council and laid before the House of Commons in due course.
[HCWS399]
Online Safety Bill: Government Amendments
(2 years ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Paul Scully)
The Online Safety Bill is a vital piece of legislation, and this Government are committed to ensuring that it does more to protect children and ensure that any provisions for adults consider the importance of free speech. On 29 November, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan), issued a written ministerial statement (WMS) setting out a number of policy changes to achieve this aim.
The approach we are taking has three main aims. We are strengthening the protections for children in the Bill, ensuring that adults’ right to legal free speech is protected, and also creating a genuine system of transparency, accountability and control to give the British public more choice and power over their own accounts and experience. The Secretary of State’s WMS yesterday set out these changes in detail, alongside additional changes we are seeking to make.
Given the Bill’s stage of passage, it is not possible to make the majority of these changes at Report stage, as the amendments relate to clauses that were debated on the first day of Report. Therefore, as mentioned in the Secretary of State’s WMS of 29 November, the Government intend to return a limited number of clauses to a Public Bill Committee. This process would allow the proposed changes to go through robust and thorough scrutiny in the Commons, and would provide for line-by-line scrutiny of the amendments being made. The recommitted clauses would then come back to the whole House for debate at a third day of Report stage. A vote on this recommitment motion will take place immediately after Report stage on 5 December.
As amendments for consideration at Committee cannot be formally tabled before that vote has passed, I am therefore setting out alongside this statement indicative drafting to demonstrate the amendments we will be tabling should a Committee stage take place, so that parliamentary colleagues can consider them in detail and understand the Government’s intentions with the Bill. These amendments are substantively final and the policies that they reflect will not change; the draft amendment paper, attached as annex A, includes explanatory statements of each amendment. However, small tweaks to the drafting may be required before the amendments are formally tabled, to ensure that they are as clear and effective as possible. Amendments in the paper are based on the most recent Bill print, which follows amendments at the Bill’s previous Public Bill Committee stage.
I am acutely aware of, and fully agree with, Parliament’s desire to see this legislation enacted. I will therefore be seeking to keep the recommittal process as short as possible within the bounds of allowing proper consideration of the changes, and anticipate that should the recommittal process proceed, the Bill will be passed to the House of Lords for consideration in January. I intend to work closely with Parliament to ensure that we are able to get this vital piece of legislation on to the statute book in this parliamentary Session.
The attachment can be viewed online at: http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-statement/Commons/2022-11-30/HCWS403/.
[HCWS403]
Improving the UK’s Cyber Resilience Public Consultations: Government Response
(2 years ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Julia Lopez)
Today, the Department publishes the Government response to the consultation for improving the UK’s cyber resilience, which sought the public’s views on a package of measures.
Cyber resilience and the protection of critical infrastructure and technology are essential for the development of a thriving digital economy. The Network and Information Systems Regulations 2018 provide legal measures to boost the overall level of security of network and information systems that are critical for the provision of digital services and essential services.
In recent times, the frequency and scale of cyber incidents against UK targets are increasing the risk of severe damage to critical national infrastructure and the resilience of the economy. High-profile incidents in the last few years, such as the compromise of SolarWinds supply chain and the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack, as well as incidents this year including the attacks on the NHS 111 services and South Staffordshire Water, have demonstrated the devastating impact cyber-attacks can have, and as such it is essential that legislation in the UK evolves to boost our defence.
In January 2022, the Government launched a public consultation on proposals to improve the UK’s cyber resilience, which included seven individual measures relating to the NIS regulations, as well as further measures focusing on cyber skills, the consultation and Government response for which is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/proposal-for-legislation-to-improve-the-uks-cyber-resilience. The consultation aimed to gather feedback on the proposals, including favourability, and suggestions on how they could be refined, in order to continue their development further. Understanding the support from the public on these proposals and the nature of the feedback will allow us to ensure that the amendments contribute to development of our cyber-security legislation and ensure that we can effectively manage future cyber risks.
The Government response, relating to pillars one and two of the consultation, covers the entirety of the United Kingdom. Pillar one seeks to bring managed service providers in scope of NIS, as well as considering a more flexible and risk-based supervisory regime for digital services, ensuring greater resilience of the UK’s most critical digital service providers. Pillar two seeks to make amendments to the NIS regulations to future-proof the legislation, and allow the UK to adapt to emerging, evolving, and critical threats. These changes would allow updating amendments to be made to the regulations, new sectors and sub-sectors added, and existing sectors expanded via secondary legislation. In addition, the proposals would also amend the existing cost recovery system to implement an improved, fairer scheme; amend the incident reporting thresholds to include incidents that do not actually affect the continuity of the service directly, but none the less pose a significant risk to the security and resilience of the entities; and allow regulators to designate critical dependencies in their supply chain for which their services rely on.
Overall8 the feedback on the proposals has been very positive. This high level of support from industry demonstrates a recognition of the importance of these proposals in enhancing the resilience of the UK’s critical national infrastructure, which is critical for the continued growth of our economy.
The full Government response to the proposals is available on the Government website.
[HCWS401]
UK-Ukraine Digital Trade Agreement in Principle
(2 years ago)
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The Secretary of State for International Trade (Kemi Badenoch)
Earlier this year, the Government launched negotiations on a digital trade agreement as part of our commitment to the people of Ukraine. I am pleased to report that we have now reached agreement in principle on a deal that supports Ukraine’s economy and the country’s reconstruction and further cements the UK’s position as a global leader in digital trade.
The UK is steadfast in our support of the people of Ukraine in their brave struggle against Putin’s cruel and brutal war. We will continue to do everything in our power to support Ukraine’s fight and help ensure the long-term security and prosperity of Ukraine, as a free and sovereign nation. The UK-Ukraine digital trade agreement is one way we are achieving this.
Greater digitalisation of the economy is a key priority for our Ukrainian partners. They rightly recognise the UK as a global leader in digital trade, which is why they are striking their first ever digital trade agreement with us. This agreement will boost productivity, jobs, and growth and allow us to help Ukraine deliver on their digital ambitions.
The deal emulates the UK-led agreement on the G7 digital trade principles under our presidency last year, namely:
Ensure open digital markets, including through crucial commitments such as a ban on imposing customs duties on electronic transmissions.
Support cross-border data flows, including financial data, and prohibiting the unfair imposed localisation of data as well as committing to high standards of personal data protection.
Champion digital trading systems to cut red tape and make trade cheaper, faster, and more secure for businesses.
Uphold consumer benefits and business safeguards in digital trade. This includes important matters such as cyber-security, the protection of source code and online consumer protection.
Our digital trade agreement with Ukraine will expand on the current UK-Ukraine free trade agreement by modernising our bilateral trade in the digital era and deepening our economic ties with Ukraine. The UK’s services exports to Ukraine are increasingly digitised, with UK exports of digitally-delivered services and goods in trade amounting to £132 million in 2020—73% of all UK services exports to Ukraine. This deal will enable UK and Ukrainian businesses to trade in each other’s markets more easily, and help Ukrainian businesses recover from the impact of this cruel war.
Modern global trade is now digital. The UK is a forward-thinking trading partner in the modern global economy. This agreement sends a strong message to the people of Ukraine: we stand with you—now and throughout your economic reconstruction.
Following the agreement in principle, the legal text will now be finalised and prepared for signature. Signature of the agreement will take place at a future date, after which the agreement will also be presented to Parliament for scrutiny in the usual way.
[HCWS400]
Criminal Legal Aid Independent Review Consultation: Government Response
(2 years ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (George Freeman)
Today I am publishing the Government’s full response to the criminal legal aid independent review (CLAIR).
First, I would like to thank Lord Bellamy KC for his independent review of criminal legal aid and its recommendations. In March 2022, in response to Lord Bellamy’s independent review, we consulted on proposals that would mark the most significant reform to criminal legal aid in more than a decade, and would include an additional investment of around £135 million per year.
We set out our immediate fee reforms in the interim response which was published on 20 July 2022. In this interim response, we committed to increase most fees by 15% and this came into force on 30 September 2022. We also extended the scope of payment for pre-charge engagement work to cover work done ahead of an agreement, or where an agreement is not reached, in appropriate cases, in line with the Attorney General’s disclosure guidelines.
Following further discussions with stakeholders, we were also able to lay a statutory instrument in October 2022 to apply the 15% increase to cases that already had a representation order granted on or after 17 September 2020 but had not yet had a main hearing—with further reforms, including to remuneration for section 28 cases, to come.
In this full consultation response, published today, we set out our plans for longer term systemic change. The full consultation covers the 203 responses received to 106 consultation questions. We have been working hard to analyse the responses of all stakeholders to ensure our decisions are rooted in evidence. We are committing to an increased investment of £138 million per year in total. This means that an extra £85 million for solicitors and £43 million for the Bar in legal aid payments, as well as an additional £11 million on expert fees, will eventually be spent every year to ensure long-term sustainability. Included in the full consultation response are details of the newly established Criminal Legal Aid Advisory Board (CLAAB), which brings together criminal justice system partners to discuss the operation of the criminal legal aid system and make recommendations to the Lord Chancellor. The board met for the first time at the end of October 2022 and will continue to meet quarterly.
We have listened to consultation respondents and we propose reallocating money originally set aside to expand the Public Defender Service, to introduce training grants and for further reform of the litigators’ graduated fee scheme (LGFS). Instead, we are proposing structural reforms to police station fees and intend to consult further on a standard police station fee model, allocating £16 million to harmonising the fee scheme. This means that, when considered with the funding uplift that came into effect on 30 September, funding for the vital work undertaken by solicitors in the police station will increase by 30%. We are also continuing to look at how we can improve the uptake of legal advice in custody, in particular for children.
We do not consider that structural reform of the magistrates’ court fee scheme beyond the 15% fee increase already implemented is necessary, and this is supported by consultation responses. However, on top of this uplift, we will allocate an additional £5 million towards youth court reform from the 2024-25 financial year, which is expected to particularly benefit both solicitors and some junior barristers, as well as children.
My Department will model and consult on a revised LGFS scheme based on current data with a view to rely less heavily on pages of prosecution evidence (PPE) and instead focus more on fixed basic fees for each offence type.
As we set out in October 2022, over the remainder of this spending review period, an additional £3 million of funding will be made available for case preparation like written work and special preparation, as well as a further £4 million for defence barristers involved in pre-recorded cross-examinations, which are used to reduce the trauma of a trial for vulnerable victims and witnesses, by early 2023.
Our full consultation response also covers very high cost cases (VHCCs) and interim fixed fee offers (IFFOs) as well as fees for prison law and Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) work. Further proposals will be developed after consultation on how to revise the IFFO fee calculator.
Taken together, the reforms we have announced in the Government’s interim and full consultation responses will enable us to support a sustainable, diverse and stable criminal justice system in the long term. They will ensure that legal professionals are supported and remunerated fairly, in a way that reflects the development and changes that have occurred in our justice system since the initial conception of the fee schemes. Most importantly, they will ultimately benefit victims and everyone relying on the criminal justice system.
Continuing to engage the criminal defence sector, including the Bar Council and Law Society, remains important as we develop our final policies. I look forward to continuing our constructive work with criminal legal aid practitioners on criminal justice issues.
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