Written Statements

Wednesday 1st May 2024 Written Statements

Wednesday 1 May 2024

UK-Israel Trade Negotiations

Wednesday 1st May 2024 Written Statements

[The Minister for Trade Policy (Greg Hands)]

The fifth round of negotiations on the UK-Israel free trade agreement ran from 8 to 17 April 2024.

This round of negotiations was hosted by the UK and conducted in a hybrid manner: a delegation of Israeli officials travelled to London for in-person discussions, with further officials attending virtually. During this round, officials held technical text-based discussions covering 27 policy areas across 63 sessions.

This round of negotiations discussed a range of policy areas, with a particular focus on services, which are not covered by our current agreement. Services comprise around 80% of both the UK and Israel’s economies but, because of our outdated trade agreement, services only make up just over one third of total trade between us. The trading relationship between the UK and Israel is valued at £6.4 billion as of September 2023, and there is significant room for growth. An upgraded trade deal will play to British strengths and unlock trade for our world-leading services and digital sectors.

The UK will maintain its long-standing foreign policy positions in this FTA, including with respect to the internationally recognised borders of Israel, and will continue to exclude illegal settlements to ensure nothing in this FTA undermines the viability of a two-state solution.

The Government remain clear that any deals we sign, including with Israel, will be in the best interests of the British people and the UK economy. We will not compromise on our high environmental and labour protections, public health, animal welfare and food standards, and we will maintain our right to regulate in the public interest. We are also clear that during these negotiations the NHS, and the services it provides, is not on the table.

The Government will continue to keep Parliament updated as these negotiations progress.

[HCWS436]

Gambling White Paper: One Year On

Wednesday 1st May 2024 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Lucy Frazer)]

We are now one year on from the publication of the landmark gambling White Paper and the Government continue to take important steps in implementing their key policies and recommendations.

That White Paper recognised the significant contribution that racing makes to not just British sporting culture, but our wider economy. It is second only to football in attendance figures and constitutes a major part of various different rural economies across the country. According to a study, submitted by the British Horseracing Authority, the racing industry has direct revenues in excess of £1.47 billion and makes a total annual contribution to the UK economy, including induced effects, of £4.1 billion.

As the regulator for the sector, the Gambling Commission has a pivotal role to play in the implementation of reforms. Today the Gambling Commission published its decisions on four key measures from the White Paper: stronger age verification in premises, improving customer choice on direct marketing, safer remote game design, and financial risk checks. I am pleased to say that its plans for these measures remain entirely consistent with the objectives of our White Paper.

In its consultation response, the Gambling Commission set out its plans to implement a proportionate new system of frictionless financial risk checks. This system contains two different financial risk checks. The first are frictionless, light-touch vulnerability checks that will use publicly available data and do not require any information from punters.

The second are enhanced frictionless risk assessments. As set out in the Gambling Commission’s recent blog post on this issue, the consultation response makes clear that these enhanced risk assessments will only be introduced after a pilot period and at the point when we are certain they will be frictionless, meaning customers will no longer have to provide documents. The pilot will be used to test the best data to use and how operators and credit reference agencies will share this data. Credit reference agencies collect a range of data that could be used in an assessment, such as information on missed or late credit payments or how much credit is available. Gambling operators will never have access to raw account-level data so, for example, they would not be able to look at customers’ bank accounts and nor will the Government or Gambling Commission. The pilot will also assess the impact these risk assessments will have on the industry as well as consumers.

While this pilot is under way, an interim code will deliver progress on resolving the issue of existing ad hoc and onerous document checks. The Betting and Gaming Council has announced today its new industry code on consumer checks. For operators who adopt this interim solution, these measures will bring much-needed consistency across the regulated sector until the frictionless financial risk assessments can be developed, tested and fully implemented.

The interim code and the new system of frictionless checks are a major step towards transforming the current system of ad hoc and onerous document checks that are negatively impacting customers, the betting industry and horseracing. Even when this new system of frictionless checks is in place, we recognise that these measures are likely to have an impact on betting yield. The Government are working with racing, and refining estimates of this impact, and, as committed to in the gambling White Paper, we started a review of the horserace betting levy in May 2023 to ensure a suitable return to the sport for the future. This review has been taking into account the impact of the wider reforms in the White Paper on horseracing to ensure the proposed levy delivers an appropriate level of funding for the sector. We recognise the importance of the levy to the horseracing industry, and we have strongly encouraged racing and betting stakeholders to work together to come to a consensus in the best interests of the sport. We recognise that a huge amount of hard work has been undertaken over the course of the last year, but we are disappointed that this has not resulted in an agreement to date. I and the Minister for Sport are undertaking an intense period of engagement with all parties to resolve this issue, and we continue to encourage all parties to engage and come to an agreement voluntarily. As we have always said, if no agreement is reached we will consider legislative options. We will update the House on the progress on these talks on or before 22 May 2024.

[HCWS438]

Faith School Designation Reforms

Wednesday 1st May 2024 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Education (Gillian Keegan)]

Today, I wish to inform the House that we are consulting on faith designation reforms for new and existing free schools and special academies.

These reforms will build on our success in raising standards in our schools, with 90% of schools now rated “good” or “outstanding”, up from just 68% in 2010. A key driver of this progress has been our academies programme, which has put schools in the hands of education experts. Today, over half of state-funded schools are academies, totalling 10,839, compared with just 203 in 2010. High-quality multi-academy trusts are key to driving up education standards for pupils, teachers and leaders. The best trusts enable the most effective leaders to support a greater number of schools and deliver school improvement, by directing resources to where they are needed the most. This underpins our focus on continuing to improve standards in schools, providing the best education for children, including for those from disadvantaged backgrounds and those with special educational needs and disabilities.

The Church of England, the Catholic Church and other faith school providers are long-standing and valued partners of my Department and are a key part of our diverse school system, representing a third of all schools in England. Faith schools are judged “good” or “outstanding” at a higher rate than the national average and are, as a consequence, very popular with parents. Helping more faith schools to join academy trusts and removing barriers to the creation of more faith school places is a critical next step in the Government’s plan to give every child a world-class education.

At the moment, the Government require admission authorities for a mainstream free school designated with a religious character to allocate at least 50% of its available places without reference to faith-based admission criteria, when oversubscribed. The original aim of that restriction was to promote a more inclusive intake in those schools. However, the evidence suggests that the 50% faith admissions cap has not achieved inclusivity. It has also worked against creating more good school places because some faith bodies, such as the Catholic Church and its dioceses, have felt unable to establish new free schools on this basis.

Our proposals will remove the cap and, by doing so, increase the number of good school places where there is demand from communities, ensuring parents have more choice over where they send their child to school. The application process for new free schools will continue to require applicants to consider how the school will promote cohesion, integration and tolerance in the school community. As already set in regulations, all schools—including free schools designated with a religious character— must promote the fundamental British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance for those of different faiths and beliefs.

We are also consulting on changing our policy to allow special academies to be designated with a religious character. This will encourage high-quality faith school providers with a track record of high performance to consider applying to establish new special academies and free schools within their multi-academy trusts. This builds on our delivery of over 60,000 new places for children or young people with SEND or who require alternative provision, with a £2.6 billion package to improve SEND services between 2022 and 2025. Faith schools have a long and positive history of providing education and support to these children. There are 241 faith schools in England providing specialist units, which provide high-quality education and support for pupils with SEND. In addition, a number of faith providers have experience of delivering dedicated special schools in the independent sector, and through the provision of non-maintained special schools with a faith ethos and special academies with a faith ethos.

I think it is important to capitalise on all of the expertise in the special needs sector in order to meet the challenge of ensuring access to the right provision for every child. I want to ensure that all faith groups feel able to open special academies and provide high-quality places for pupils with complex special educational needs and disabilities, who would be admitted on the basis of their need, not their faith.

These proposals apply to England only and the consultation will run for seven weeks, closing on 20 June 2024. The consultation and the Government response will be published on gov.uk. We will also place a copy of the Government response in the Library of both Houses.

A consultation will allow my Department to capture and consider a wide range of views about how our proposals to change policy are likely to impact schools, local authorities, parents, children and young people. We will consider all responses to the consultation and use them to inform our proposals for better meeting the policy objectives of faith schools.

[HCWS437]