Written Statements

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Written Statements

Tuesday 17 December 2024

Kroll Investigation into Capture Software: Government Response

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Gareth Thomas)]

Network subsidy uplift and postmaster remuneration

The Government are committed to delivering the manifesto commitment to strengthen the post office network. To do this, we intend to take steps that will improve the culture, structure, and organisation of the company. I have announced that the Government will publish a Green Paper in the first half of next year to seek the public's views, insights and experiences to help shape the future of the Post Office. In the meantime, it is important to continue to support the post office network and the important services it provides across the country. I can therefore announce that the Government are providing a further £37.5 million of network subsidy this financial year.

Postmasters have raised concerns with me that their income has not kept up with inflation over the past decade. The Government therefore welcome that the Post Office is going to make a one-off payment to postmasters to increase their remuneration.

Government response to independent investigation into Capture software

I am today publishing the Government response to the independent report conducted by forensic accountant Kroll Associates, into the Post Office Capture software. This can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/independent-investigation-into-capture-government-response. I have also placed copies in the Libraries of both Houses.

Earlier this year, concerns were raised by parliamentarians and postmasters about the Capture software which was rolled out by the Post Office to some branches in the early 1990s and predated the Horizon IT system. The concerns were that the Capture software had bugs which may have caused shortfalls, leaving postmasters to pay the Post Office back, and that some postmasters may have been prosecuted as a consequence.

In responding to these concerns, the Government committed to publishing the conclusions of the Kroll report as quickly as possible after the investigation concluded. The report was published on 30 September 2024, and an addendum to the report containing additional evidence was published on 18 October 2024. The report concluded there was a reasonable likelihood that Capture could have created shortfalls for postmasters. The Government accept those findings.

This has come to light thanks to the hard work of postmasters, campaigners and parliamentarians and the Government are committed to moving swiftly on proposals for delivering redress.

After closely considering the findings and other evidence presented to the Government, including testimony from postmasters, the Government have concluded that postmasters who were adversely impacted by Capture should be offered redress.

The next step in this process will be to decide how and what form of redress should be offered in the context of Capture, which is distinct from Horizon due to the passage of time and the significant lack of contemporaneous records and evidence.

The Government will develop their proposals, engaging with postmasters and other key stakeholders over the coming months to determine the scope of the financial redress and the eligibility criteria. Financial redress will be offered to postmasters who do not have a criminal conviction or where a court has overturned their conviction.

The Kroll report does not make conclusions on whether Capture led to unsafe convictions. Therefore, the Government are continuing to work with the Criminal Cases Review Commission, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission and the Post Office on their ongoing investigations into the use of Capture in prosecutions.

I would like to thank postmasters that have come forward so far, and for those who have shared their initial suggestions for redress.

Lastly, I urge all postmasters who may have used Capture and may have experienced shortfalls related to Capture to come forward to the Government to make themselves known. Equally, we welcome family members of any postmasters who have sadly passed away, who believe their relative may have been affected, to come forward.

[HCWS318]

Progress Towards a Modern Industrial Strategy

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Jonathan Reynolds)]

I am delighted to confirm today that the Chancellor and I have appointed a diverse group of the UK’s top business leaders, policy experts and trade union leaders to the Industrial Strategy Advisory Council. The Chancellor and I will join the council for the first meeting later today. This is a key milestone on the path to delivering our new, modern industrial strategy—a key pillar in the growth mission of the Government. The Council will hardwire stability and long-termism into our plan from the start.

Members will use the first meeting to discuss investment, innovation and breaking down barriers to growth as well as emerging themes in response to the industrial strategy Green Paper. This comes shortly after the end of the industrial strategy consultation period, where we received responses from businesses, international investors, unions and others up and down the country to help shape the strategy.

The Government announced the appointment of Clare Barclay as chair of the Industrial Strategy Advisory Council on 13 October 2024. As the president, enterprise and industry, EMEA at Microsoft, Clare is well placed to lead the work of the council, bringing a wealth of leadership experience from the top flight of business.

The Chancellor and I are delighted that 15 of the UK’s business leaders, academics, policy experts and trade union leaders have joined the council to support Clare in this vital work. I have also asked Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell to be the deputy chair of the council. The interim chair of Skills England and the chair of the national wealth fund will be ex-officio members of the council, to ensure close working between these bodies.

The full list of Industrial Strategy Advisory Council members is:



Clare Barclay, President, Enterprise and Industry, EMEA, Microsoft (chair).

Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell DBE, former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Manchester (deputy chair).

Kate Bell, Assistant General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress.

Right hon. Greg Clark, former Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

Professor Dame Diane Coyle DBE, Bennett Professor of Public Policy, University of Cambridge.

Dame Anita Frew DBE, Chair, Rolls-Royce Holdings.

Greg Jackson CBE, CEO, Octopus Energy.

Sir John Kingman, Chair, Legal & General and Chair, Barclays UK.

Tunde Olanrewaju, Senior Partner, McKinsey.

Professor Henry Overman, Professor of Economic Geography, LSE.

Henrik L. Pedersen, CEO, Associated British Ports.

Aislinn Rice, Non-Executive Director of Analytics Engines.

Roy Rickhuss, General Secretary, Community.

Baroness Vadera (Shriti Vadera), Chair, Prudential pic and Chair of The Royal Shakespeare Company.

Chris Grigg CBE, Chair of the National Wealth Fund (ex-officio).

Richard Pennycook CBE, interim Chair of Skills England (ex-officio).

The council will make and publish recommendations on the development and implementation of the industrial strategy, a cross-Government strategy supported by engagement with stakeholders. This will include an annual report which will be laid before Parliament. My Cabinet colleagues and I will carefully consider these recommendations. Focusing on growth-driving sectors and how the pro-business environment can help them thrive, the Council will also monitor and evaluate the impact of policies, with data and analysis central to this mission.

The council will initially focus on supporting development of the industrial strategy, including proposals to break down barriers to growth. To achieve this, I have asked the Ccuncil to make initial recommendations for consideration by the Chancellor and me to inform discussions at the Growth Mission Board.

The Government have committed to work in partnership with the devolved governments to make this strategy a UK-wide effort.

To underline our commitment to build the long-term certainty and stability that businesses need to invest, we will legislate to place the Council on a statutory footing as soon as parliamentary time allows.

On 14 October, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and I published a consultation on our new, modern industrial strategy: a credible 10-year plan to deliver the certainty and stability businesses need to invest in the high-growth sectors that will drive our growth mission.

We also set out our vision to create a pro-business environment, support high-potential clusters across the country and deliver growth that is supportive of net zero, regional growth, and economic security and resilience. I continue to work closely with the Chancellor and my Cabinet colleagues to ensure we make it simpler and easier for business to invest, thrive and grow.

The consultation underscores our intention across Government, and through the council, to design and implement the strategy in lockstep with local leaders, mayors, and devolved leaders across all corners of the UK.

The consultation closed on 25 November 2024. The Department for Business and Trade and HM Treasury will now consider responses in partnership with teams across Government. The response to the consultation will be integrated into the final industrial strategy and growth-driving sector plans, to be published alongside the spending review in 2025.

[HCWS319]

Government Response to the Infected Blood Inquiry Recommendations: End-of-year Update

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Written Statements

[The Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office (Nick Thomas-Symonds)]

The infected blood inquiry’s final report was published on 20 May 2024 and made 12 recommendations. The recommendations made by Sir Brian Langstaff are wide-ranging, well considered, and necessarily complex.

In the months since the publication of the inquiry’s report, Parliament has come together a number of times to discuss the infected blood scandal. In the course of those debates, I committed to providing an update on the Government’s response to the recommendations by the end of this year. This update fulfils that commitment. Alongside this statement, I am publishing a Command Paper detailing the full update on www.gov.uk, and I have requested that copies be deposited in the Libraries of the Houses of Parliament.

The Government accept in full or accept in principle all of the recommendations made. Where recommendations are accepted in principle, we have sought to explain the rationale for doing so. Many of the recommendations are wide-reaching, and proper implementation needs time to be delivered effectively. The Government have worked to progress implementation and assess the deliverability of each of the recommendations. We are committed to making meaningful change. As per recommendation 12 of the infected blood inquiry, I will provide a further final update on the progress made on Inquiry’s recommendations by May 2025.

I am grateful to my ministerial colleagues for their co-operation, and in particular the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Gorton and Denton (Andrew Gwynne), for his leadership on the recommendations for which his Department is responsible. I am also grateful to Ministers in the devolved Governments, in particular the Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health in Scotland, the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care in Wales and the Minister of Health in Northern Ireland. Their engagement has been invaluable in ensuring that we have as consistent an approach as possible across the whole United Kingdom.

The victims of this scandal have suffered immeasurably. It is my utmost intention to deliver what justice and compensation the Government can as quickly as possible. This Government are taking concrete action to deliver on the compensation scheme. The Chancellor announced £11.8 billion of funding in the autumn Budget, and I am pleased to update that the Infected Blood Compensation Authority has been able to make the first payments to the victims of this scandal in the last few days.

Furthermore, I can also confirm today that the Government have extended their eligibility criteria for siblings for the infected blood compensation scheme to ensure that the scheme provides fair compensation to those who have been devastatingly impacted as a result of their sibling’s infection.

Under the new definition, siblings of infected people will be eligible if they, while under the age of 18, lived in the same household as an infected person for a period of at least two years after the onset of the infection, or would have been expected to live in the same household were it not for the impact of the infection. Siblings in this scenario will receive an injury impact award in line with the severity of the infection, and a social impact award of £12,000.

Alternatively, siblings will also be eligible as long as they cohabited, or were expected to cohabit with the infected person were it not for the impact of the infection, for at least two years while the affected sibling was under the age of 18. This is the case even if that period was prior to the infection, including if the infection happened during adulthood. Siblings in this scenario will receive an injury impact award in line with the severity of the infection, and a social impact award of £8,000. This mirrors the social impact award available to carers, parents, where the onset of a child’s infection began after age 18, and children, where the onset of a parent’s infection began after their child turned 18.

I hope that both these updates provide the infected blood community with some assurance that we are learning from and acting on the mistakes of the past.

[HCWS320]

Infected Blood Compensation Authority: Contingency Fund Advance

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Written Statements

[The Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office (Nick Thomas-Symonds)]

I hereby give notice of the Cabinet Office’s intention to seek a Contingencies Fund advance to make compensation payments to victims of the infected blood scandal.

The Cabinet Office’s capital annually managed expenditure estimate does not provide funding for compensation payments already approved by Parliament through the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024. This advance will be used to quickly compensate victims of the infected blood scandal. While this will be received through the supplementary estimate, this advance will enable compensation to be made ahead of Parliament formally approving the ambit and the associated expenditure through an estimate, in line with the Government’s commitment.

Parliamentary approval for additional capital of £272,000,000 for this capital will be sought in a supplementary estimate for the Infected Blood Compensation Authority. Pending that approval, urgent expenditure estimated at £272,000,000 will be met by repayable cash advances from the Contingencies Fund.

[HCWS321]

Review of Arts Council England: Lead Reviewer

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Lisa Nandy)]

Today I am announcing the appointment of the right hon. the Baroness Hodge of Barking DBE to lead an independent review into the Arts Council England. The review will commence in the new year.

This Government will ensure that the arts and culture will no longer be the preserve of a privileged few. We will also place arts and culture at the heart of our plan for change to deliver growth and break down the barriers to opportunity across the country. This review will ensure that Arts Council England is best positioned to help deliver this and successfully steward our cultural and creative sectors in every part of England, helping to rebuild Britain in a decade of national renewal.

Arts Council England is an executive non-departmental public body, and was established by Royal Charter in 1946. Arts Council England is one of the Government’s primary vehicles to support the arts in England; its role encompasses funding and investment, research, support and advice to the sector, and partnership promotion. It works in partnership with a broad range of individuals and organisations across artforms and at the local, regional and national levels. Arts Council England is also the national development agency for libraries and museums in England.

Now that Baroness Hodge has agreed to take on the review she will work with myself and Arts Council England to finalise the terms of reference which will be published in the new year. However, I expect the review to look at the following areas:

Exploring ACE’s role in supporting excellence across the country, ensuring that everyone is able to participate in and consume culture and creativity, regardless of their background or where they live;

Exploring how ACE engages with its partners and stakeholders at all levels to ensure that national and local priorities work harmoniously to benefit the public;

Evaluating ACE’s role in developing a strong and vibrant creative sector which supports both grassroots creativity and internationally renowned art;

Considering ACE’s role in the wider cultural funding ecosystem, and mechanisms to strengthen the role of local voices in decision making;

Examining how the arm’s length principle is working in relation to the funding of the arts to ensure decisions are taken at the appropriate level;

Assessing ACE’s mandate to ensure it is clear and appropriate for the 21st century able to deliver high-quality arts and culture on a national, regional and local level.

Baroness Hodge will be supported by an advisory panel of experts with a range of experiences. We are working to confirm the final list and this will be published in the new year alongside the terms of reference.

In conducting the review, she will be supported by a small team of officials. Together they will engage with a broad range of stakeholders in the arts and creative sectors across the UK. This will involve individual meetings, group discussions and a survey so that anyone who wants to contribute can do so.

The review will report to the Government in the autumn of 2025, and the Government will publish the conclusions of the review along with the Government’s response in early 2026.

[HCWS322]

Developments in Military Housing

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Defence (John Healey)]

I am pleased to confirm that today, the Ministry of Defence and Annington Property Ltd have formally agreed that the MOD will reacquire the 36,000 service family estate homes sold to Annington in 1996.

This agreement reverses one of the most notorious privatisations of the 1990s, with the balance of risk and reward skewed heavily against the public sector. The billions of pounds spent by the MOD on renting back these properties since 1996 could have been better spent on maintaining, improving or rebuilding service family homes.

Estimates suggest the 1996 deal has left the British taxpayer nearly £8 billion worse off—money that could have been used to deliver homes fit for our heroes. In addition to the billions of pounds paid in rent, billions of pounds-worth of empty properties have also been handed over to Annington Ltd.

The new deal is a decisive break with the failed approach of the past, which will save the public purse £230 million a year in rental costs—more than £600,000 a day. These important savings to defence pave the way for a substantial improvement and construction programme to provide high-quality homes for armed forces families. The deep-set problems with military housing will not be fixed overnight, but this is a major step forward and a demonstration of our Government’s intent.

This deal forms part of our growth mission to secure jobs, economic prosperity and house-building across the UK, and our commitment to renew the nation’s contract with those who serve—boosting morale, retention and recruitment across the armed forces.

The opportunity for this landmark deal was presented following a High Court ruling in MOD’s favour. This established MOD’s legal rights to repurchase the houses from Annington, providing a once-in-a-generation opportunity to fix the long-term decline in military housing and deliver homes fit for heroes.

The deal also represents excellent value for money. We are buying the estate for £6 billion, yet the properties are valued at £10.1 billion by Annington when not subject to leases. However, eliminating the liabilities associated with the leases creates budgetary headroom to partially fund this purchase, meaning that the public expenditure impact of this measure, and the impact on public sector net debt, is confined to £1.7 billion.

By contrast, failing to take advantage of this opportunity would have meant rising rental and maintenance costs on properties that, in many cases, have reached the end of their useful lives.

The taxpayer would have faced a further £5.9 billion costs over the next 10 years through ever-increasing rents. Homes with a value of £1.3 billion would also have been returned to a private company.

Problems with the existing deal were recognised by the last Government, in particular by the right hon. Member for Horsham at the time, Jeremy Quin, who had oversight of the initial core legal challenges. This Government have accelerated this work in recent months across the Ministry of Defence, UK Government Investments and His Majesty’s Treasury. We pay tribute to all those who have worked tirelessly to complete this deal.

This announcement comes as the Government start work on a new military housing strategy, to be published next year. The first steps in the strategy will include the rapid development of an action plan to deliver on the “once in a generation” opportunities unlocked by today’s deal. This work will involve independent experts, forces families and cross-Government input.

The strategy will help to deliver a generational renewal of military housing, new opportunities for forces homeownership, and better use of MOD land to support the delivery of affordable homes for families across Britain.

Our armed forces make extraordinary sacrifices to keep our country safe. Theirs is the ultimate public service. By ensuring that our personnel and their families have the homes they deserve, this work will support the Government’s plan for change, which is built on the foundation of strong national security, and it will help achieve the Government’s milestones on kick-starting economic growth and boosting house-building across the country.

Today’s announcement demonstrates how our Government are delivering for defence. This is a major step forward towards delivering military housing fit for our heroes.

[HCWS323]

Reserve Forces and Cadets Association External Scrutiny Report: Government Response

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Written Statements

[The Minister for Veterans and People (Al Carns)]

Led by Major General (Retired) Simon Lalor, the reserve forces and cadets associations external scrutiny team provides an independent assessment on the health of the reserve forces on behalf of the Department. I have today placed in the Library of the House a copy of the 2024 report, along with a copy of my response to this report. I am most grateful to the team for their work.

Attachments can be viewed online at:

http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-statement/Commons/2024-12-17/HCWS326/

[HCWS326]

Accelerating to Net Zero: CCC Progress Report and Clean Energy Superpower Mission

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Ed Miliband)]

Accelerating to net zero offers huge opportunities for Britain. This transition will be one of the economic opportunities of the century—a chance to create hundreds of thousands of good jobs, to drive investment into all parts of the UK and to protect the UK economy from future price shocks that reliance on fossil fuels creates. Beyond growth and energy security, the transition to a net zero economy can deliver a range of social and health benefits for people right across the UK. As we act on how we heat our homes and buildings, fuel our transport and protect our natural world, we can cut fuel poverty, clean up our air, increase access to nature and improve quality of life.

Looking beyond the UK, we also have an important role to play. For example, the UK was the first country to set legally binding carbon budgets and the first major economy to establish a net zero target in law. Now, more than 90% of the world’s economy is covered by a net zero commitment. The UK showed leadership again at COP29, where we announced that our 2035 nationally determined contribution (NDC) headline target will reduce all greenhouse gas emissions by at least 81% on 1990 levels, excluding international aviation and shipping emissions. This is an ambitious, economy-wide emissions reduction target that aligns with the recommendation of the Climate Change Committee (CCC) and the sixth carbon budget, set by the previous Government.

The CCC’s 2024 progress report to Parliament made clear the committee’s view that the previous Government were off track and urgent action is needed, and we take these findings seriously. That is why we are taking urgent and ambitious action, and why making Britain a clean energy superpower is one of this Government’s five missions.

In response to the CCC’s 2024 progress report, today’s publication highlights the achievements that this Government have overseen already and looks forward to upcoming actions that will be key in reducing our emissions and seizing the economic opportunities of net zero.

For example, in our first few months in office we have: lifted the de facto onshore wind ban; approved solar projects offering power of almost 2GW; launched Great British Energy; announced investments of over £20 billion in carbon capture, usage and storage, which is a new industry for Britain; delivered a record-breaking renewables auction; and set out plans to increase the energy efficiency of rented homes, in order to lift a million households out of fuel poverty.

The action taken so far and our future plans mean that this Government are acting or partially acting on all of the CCC’s 35 recommendations to the UK Government, with progress proactively being made on the CCC’s 35 recommendations for the devolved Governments.

This is just the beginning. Over the coming months we will set out the next steps for our mission, including publishing a Clean Power 2030 action plan, setting out a detailed updated plan to meet our carbon budgets, and setting the pathway to the seventh carbon budget by June 2026. These future moments will be key in delivering our pathway to net zero, bolstering growth and clean jobs, ensuring energy security, and delivering social and health benefits.

Through our mission-driven Government, we will act with much greater urgency and determination than the past. We will continue to work in partnership with businesses, trade unions, civil society and all levels of Government to seize the opportunities of action.

As required by the Climate Change Act 2008, I will place copies of today’s publication “Accelerating to Net Zero: Responding to the CCC Progress Report and delivering the Clean Energy Superpower Mission” in the Libraries of both Houses.

[HCWS328]

Healthcare Incidents: Suspected Criminal Activity Contributing to Death or Serious Harm

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Written Statements

[The Minister for Secondary Care (Karin Smyth)]

I am pleased to announce that the memorandum of understanding (MoU), “Investigating healthcare incidents where suspected criminal activity may have contributed to death or serious life-changing harm”, was published today on www.gov.uk.

This MoU was recommended by Professor Sir Norman Williams’ rapid policy review into gross negligence manslaughter in 2018. The Williams review was set up to look at the wider impact of concerns among healthcare professionals that simple errors could result in prosecution for gross negligence manslaughter, even if they happen in the context of broader organisation and system failings.

Following this recommendation, the Department of Health and Social Care consulted with regulatory, investigatory and prosecutorial bodies to develop the new MoU, “Investigating healthcare incidents where suspected criminal activity may have contributed to death or serious life-changing harm”.

The MoU applies in England and has been formally signed by:

NHS England

National Police Chiefs’ Council

Health and Safety Executive

Crown Prosecution Service

Care Quality Commission

General Medical Council

Nursing and Midwifery Council

General Dental Council

Health and Care Professions Council

General Pharmaceutical Council

General Optical Council

General Chiropractic Council

General Osteopathic Council

The MoU will be used by signatories to help deliver early, co-ordinated and effective action following incidents where there is reasonable suspicion that a patient/service user’s death or serious life-changing harm occurred as a result of suspected criminal activity in the course of healthcare delivery.

The MoU specifically delivers on the following recommendations from the Williams review:

Updates and replaces the previous MoU from 2006;

sets out the roles and responsibilities of the signatories providing a framework for how organisations should work together to ensure a co-ordinated approach;

provides advice on communication including liaising with families and the public; and

supports the development of a “just culture” in healthcare which recognises the impact of wider systems on the provision of clinical care or care decision making. This includes considering the wider systems in place at the time of the incident, to support a fair and consistent evaluation of the actions of individuals and ensuring expert witnesses consider the effects of the wider systems in place during an incident.

[HCWS330]

Preventing Radicalisation

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Yvette Cooper)]

Today I can update the House on the initial steps arising from the counter-extremism sprint initiated by the Government in July, designed to ensure that the UK’s strategies and systems to prevent radicalisation are functioning effectively, and addressing the full range of threats that we currently face as a country.

National security is one of the Government’s foundations and fundamental to our plan for change. We must therefore first and foremost recognise and applaud the continued excellent work carried out by counter-terrorism police, security and intelligence agencies, and other experts working on prevention across the country. Since March 2017, MI5 and the police have together disrupted 43 late-stage attack plots.

The UK’s counter-terrorism strategy, CONTEST, was established after the terrible attacks on 11 September 2001 and 7 July 2005. Made public in 2006, CONTEST has continued under successive Governments and evolved over years in line with the threat.

The four pillars of that strategy—prevent, pursue, protect and prepare—are of long standing and set the standard globally for a comprehensive counter-terror response, but the threats that the strategy is designed to tackle have also become more complex:

Islamist terrorism remains the primary threat, followed by extreme right-wing terrorism, and there is an increasing number of cases where the ideological driver is mixed or unclear;

The internet continues to act as a central enabler of radicalisation, facilitating increasingly easy access to extremist material and like-minded individuals;

While the majority of previous terrorist incidents have been perpetrated by adults, increasing numbers of young people are being drawn towards violent ideologies; and

Terrorist groups based overseas continue to present a significant threat to the UK, but the most common manifestation of terrorist risk in the UK in recent years has been cases involving individuals or small groups acting without direct support or instruction from a wider terrorist network. Additionally, the threat landscape is more interconnected and complex than at any time, with terrorist threats interacting with a state threat of unprecedented scale and severity and the challenge of organised crime.

This requires a response from Government agencies, law enforcement and the public that is informed, agile and integrated. As our first response to the Home Office’s counter-extremism sprint, I am today setting out action and next steps that will be taken in five key areas.

National security funding

First, in the light of these increasingly complex and rapidly changing threats, law enforcement partners and agencies need appropriate levels of resource. As announced in the provisional police funding settlement 2025-26, counter-terrorism police funding will increase next year by £140 million (14%) to £1,160 million, ensuring that counter-terrorism policing has the resources it needs to deal with the threats we face. Separately, the Chancellor confirmed in the autumn Budget on 13 October an additional £499 million funding for the single intelligence account, which includes MI5, SIS and GCHQ, showing our commitment to ensuring that our agencies are equipped to do the job.

Youth diversion orders

Secondly, we need new measures to address the growing proportion of young people who are featuring in counter-terrorism casework, as highlighted in the latest official statistics:

13% of all those being investigated by MI5 for involvement in UK terrorism are under 18, which is a threefold increase in the last three years;

Arrests of under-18s for terror offences have increased from just three in the year ending September 2010, to 32 in the year ending September 2024; and

11 to 15-year-olds now make up 40% of all referrals into Prevent, and half of all cases adopted by Channel where the age is known (up from a third in 2017).

These concerning trends have been flagged by Ken McCallum, the director general of MI5, who said they are

“seeing far too many cases where very young people are being drawn into poisonous online extremism”,

and by Jonathan Hall KC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, who has said that

“the profile of alleged terrorist offenders is getting younger, and includes children who may accurately be described as vulnerable”.

Most recently, on 5 December, UK counter-terrorism policing, working with Five Eyes counterparts, issued a joint call to action on youth radicalisation, stressing that they are

“increasingly concerned about the radicalisation of minors, and minors who support, plan or undertake terrorist activities”.

It is clear that while the UK has a robust counter-terrorism toolkit, including measures to prevent the escalation of terrorist risks, those tools are not currently well designed for intervention with young people.

The Government therefore intend to introduce youth diversion orders—a new counter-terrorism risk management tool specifically designed for young people, building on recommendations from Jonathan Hall KC.

Police will be able to apply to the courts for a youth diversion order, permitting them—in partnership with other agencies—to intervene earlier and to impose conditions such as engagement with Prevent interventions or restrictions on online activity. The courts must deem these conditions to be necessary and proportionate to mitigate terrorist risk.

Strengthening Prevent

Thirdly, we need reforms to strengthen the Prevent programme.

Prevent has been an integral part of our counter-terrorism machinery for the last 20 years, supporting nearly 5,000 people away from radicalisation since the introduction of the statutory Prevent duty in 2015. Over that period, dedicated counter-terrorism police and multi-agency partners have worked tirelessly and effectively day in, day out to divert individuals away from terrorism.

However, Prevent must continually adapt and improve to deal with challenges and keep pace with the changing nature of the threats that the programme is meant to tackle.

In particular, as backed up by recent reviews and statistics, it is not always clear to practitioners what kinds of cases should be dealt with under Prevent, which should be referred to other services, and what the responsibility of those services should be.

The reforms of recent years, including better training for frontline staff, updated guidance and a new Prevent assessment framework to strengthen decision making by police and Channel panels, have all sought to address this confusion, but more needs to be done.

Concerns over low numbers of referrals for Islamist extremism have still not been addressed, and at the same time a lack of clarity remains over whether Prevent should be confined to cases of clear ideology or should also be picking up cases where the ideology is less clear, or where there is a fixation with violence.

Therefore, the Home Office is taking forward work in a number of areas, including:

Conducting an end-to-end review of Prevent thresholds, updating policy and guidance, including on repeat referrals, to ensure that they reflect the full range of threats we see today;

Broadening the interventions available to people supported by the Channel early intervention programme. In addition to ideological mentoring, we will seek to reflect the diverse drivers of radicalisation, by exploring options to support at-risk individuals with cyber-skills, family interventions or practical mentoring, working to reduce the threat of radicalisation in the increasingly complex cases we see;

Undertaking a strategic policy review to identify and drive improvements in how individuals referred into Prevent who are neurodivergent or suffer from mental ill health are supported and managed; and

Strengthening our approach to the monitoring and oversight of referrals that do not meet Prevent thresholds, by launching a pilot in January to test new approaches to cases that are transferred to other services to ensure there is proper monitoring and requirements in place.

Creation of a Prevent commissioner role

Fourthly, we need to ensure that there is a means of regularly and robustly checking the effectiveness and quality of the programme in different parts of the country, in line with our wider programme of reform to drive up performance and standards in other areas.

I am therefore announcing today that we have begun a recruitment exercise to appoint an independent commissioner of Prevent, with a specific remit to review the programme’s effectiveness and identify gaps, so any problems can be fixed early. This will include ensuring that we have robustly implemented recommendations from previous reviews and overseeing delivery and evaluation on the steps I have set out above.

An interim appointment to this role will be announced shortly to enable swift work to begin, and an open and fair recruitment campaign will run in parallel to select a permanent Prevent commissioner.

Social media and radicalisation online

Finally, we need stronger action to tackle online radicalisation, in the face of growing evidence that the increasingly violent and extreme ideological material that young people in particular are accessing online is transforming the way in which they are radicalised.

In response, we are strengthening action to tackle this online radicalisation and protect our young people from harm. Yesterday, Ofcom published new codes of practice to drive implementation of the Online Safety Act 2023.

Next steps

In the new year, we will provide further updates on these measures and on action to counter terrorism and extremist radicalisation arising from the counter-extremism sprint and other work under way. We recognise the need for a whole-of-society approach to confront the threat from terrorism, and that everyone in our society should have the confidence and peace of mind to go about their lives freely and without fear. That requires greater vigilance than ever and stronger action than ever to identify, prevent and relentlessly pursue terrorism and violent extremism wherever it is found.

[HCWS327]

Provisional Police Grant Report (England and Wales) 2025-26

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Written Statements

[The Minister for Policing, Fire and Crime Prevention (Dame Diana Johnson)]

My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary (Yvette Cooper) has today published the Provisional Police Grant Report (England and Wales) 2025-26. A copy of the provisional report will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses and will be available on www.gov.uk. This provisional report sets out the Home Secretary’s determination for 2025-26 of the aggregate amounts of grants that she proposes to pay under section 46(2) of the Police Act 1996. The final report will be laid before the House in the new year following the period of consultation.

Today, the Government have set out the provisional police funding settlement in Parliament for the forthcoming financial year. I am pleased to announce that, for 2025-26, funding to police forces will total up to £17.4 billion, an increase of up to £986.9 million when compared to the 2024-25 police funding settlement—a significant increase, and more than the increase set out for 2024-25. This settlement represents a real terms increase in force funding of 3.5%, and a cash increase of 6%. The additional funding confirmed through this settlement will cover the costs of the police officer pay awards and fund the recruitment and redeployment of more neighbourhood police and PSCOs.

Overall funding for the policing system in England and Wales, including to police forces and wider system funding, will be up to £19.5 billion, an increase of up to £1 billion when compared to the 2024-25 funding settlement, representing a real terms funding increase of 3% and a cash increase of 5.5%. The investments announced today are in additional to the provision of one-off funding of £175 million we announced in July to support the costs of the 24-25 pay award. Taken together, this significant investment reflect this Government’s commitment to restoring confidence in policing and boosting neighbourhood policing, by providing them with the resources they need to invest in their frontline workforce.

Of the £986.9 million of additional funding for police forces, I can confirm that £657.1 million of this is an increase to Government grants, which includes an increase in the core grants of £339 million to ensure police forces are fully equipped to deliver our Safer Streets mission. This also includes £230.3 million to compensate territorial forces for the costs of the change to the employer national insurance contributions from 2025-26, and an additional £100 million to kick-start the first phase of 13,000 additional police officers, PCSOs and special constables into neighbourhood policing roles. This will provide policing with the funding required to tackle crime and keep communities safe.

As set out in the Local Government policy statement of 28 November, PCCs will have the flexibility to raise the police precept to £14 for a Band D property in 2025-26. This could generate up to £329.8 million of additional funding available to police forces compared with 2024-25. This strikes the balance between protecting taxpayers and providing funding for police forces.

We recognise that the Metropolitan Police Service faces increased demands on resources from policing the capital city. Despite this, the National and International Capital City grant has not increased in line with inflation for at least five years and there has been a substantial increase in protest activity in London in recent years. Therefore, as part of the 2025-26 police funding settlement, the Metropolitan Police and City of London Police forces will receive £255.2 million through the National and International Capital City grant; an increase of £65 million when compared to the 2024-25 settlement, equating to a 34.2% cash increase and 31.1% real terms increase.

Attached are accompanying tables that outline how we propose to allocate this funding settlement across various funding streams and local policing bodies for 2025-26.

Today, this Government have confirmed significant increase in funding for police forces. In return, we expect police forces to raise their ambition on efficiencies and drive forward improvements to productivity while helping us deliver on our mission to create safer streets. To enable this, we have launched the Commercial Efficiencies and Collaboration Programme which will initially focus on national buying and frameworks and cost recovery. We are determined to work with policing to maximise the potential of productivity and innovation, ensuring officers are equipped with the tools they need to keep our communities safe and to deliver our mission.

We expect policing to approach the 2025-26 financial year with a focus on delivering the Government’s priorities, as set out in the Prime Minister’s Plan for Change:

Increasing the number of officers, PCSOs and special constables in neighbourhood policing teams;

Tackling violence against women and girls;

Reducing knife crime;

Cracking down on antisocial behaviour;

And by doing these things, increasing public confidence in policing.

In 2025-26, we will be allocating £376.8 million to support forces to maintain officer numbers.

This Government are committed to increasing policing visibility to protect our communities and restore confidence in policing. To support delivery of our Safer Streets mission, our priority is to increase neighbourhood policing roles.

We are grateful to those forces who have gone above and beyond in recruiting additional officers to maximise the strength of their workforce. We expect that these forces prioritise maintaining these officer numbers and have provided funding to achieve this.

Police forces will still be expected to meet officer number targets in return for funding. However, the Home Office has listened to feedback from forces on the need for increased flexibility to help forces manage their finances. We have therefore rebalanced the funding available in core grant and the ringfence for the purpose of maintaining officers for 2025-26.

As well as investing in maintaining police officers, this Government are committed to going further. As part of our pledge to increase policing visibility, improve public perceptions of the police, and create safer streets for our communities, we are providing a £100 million investment for neighbourhood policing. This will fund the recruitment of additional and redeployed neighbourhood police officers, PCSOs and special constables in 25-26. This will form part of a multi-year programme, and kick-start the delivery in 2025-26 of these additional neighbourhood personnel over the course of this Parliament.

The increase in neighbourhood policing will be done in a way that prioritises forces’ operational flexibility. Forces will be allocated funding and propose a planned workforce increase and mix that works best for the communities that they serve. This funding will help forces deliver our neighbourhood policing guarantee, including the restoration of patrols to town centres giving every community a named officer to turn to, and introducing stronger tools for police to tackle persistent antisocial behaviour.

It is essential that we maximise the value of any new investment within policing. We are driving work to reduce inefficiencies and maximise productivity, freeing cashable savings and officer time to reinvest in frontline activities. We will require forces to participate in the recently announced commercial efficiencies and collaboration programme, starting by forces signing up to national approaches to buying energy, vehicles, fuel, temporary staff and software licences. We will work with policing to develop this programme, to unlock immediate cost savings and laying the foundations to deliver hundreds of millions of pounds of efficiency savings by the end of this Parliament.

The programme will initially target several priority areas. These include:

Fleet—Require better use of existing frameworks and working with policing to standardise requirements enabling better value and reducing full life costs.

Energy—working with the sector to ensure policing can harness wider purchasing power across Government and wider public sector.

ICT—ending the variation in prices for software contracts and then moving to smarter purchasing in other areas of technology.

We will build on the foundations of the policing productivity review to tackle bureaucracy, free up officer time for redeployment on to the frontline and improve outcomes. Such as working to eliminate any wasteful and unnecessary redaction of files passing between the police and the CPS or supporting the roll-out of enhanced and rapid video responses to improve response times and victim outcomes.

The review also highlighted that embedding productivity into the culture of policing can ensure that improvements are made to unlock non-cashable and cashable savings. The effective roll out of this technology is vital to achieve these benefits, and we will work closely with the College of Policing to provide implementation and business change support for forces to implement promising and proven technologies, provide a blueprint for measuring those benefits and demonstrate how to best reinvest time saved into delivery of the neighbourhood policing guarantee.

Firearms licensing fees have not increased since 2015 and are now significantly less than the cost of the service provided by police forces. This funding deficit is impacting the effectiveness of police firearms licensing controls and the crucial role they play in safeguarding the public. We therefore intend to lay a statutory instrument when parliamentary time allows to increase firearms licensing fees to provide full-cost recovery for police forces, in line with our manifesto commitment. The additional revenue raised will be retained by police forces to support the important improvements needed in firearms licensing.

In a written ministerial statement on 19 November, HCWS232, the Home Secretary set out some of the core components of our long-term plans for necessary and overdue police reforms. This will be a joint programme of work between Government and policing in recognition that the challenge of rebuilding confidence is a shared one, and we will work closely with policing over the coming months to develop the detail of the proposals. Working closely, and in partnership with, policing, we will publish a police reform White Paper in the spring, outlining our plans for bold and comprehensive reforms to the policing system. The funding set out today reflects Government’s investment in policing and commitment to ensuring forces have adequate resources to protect the public.

To drive excellence across policing, we will consult with police system leaders on plans for a new national centre of policing. While work is under way to determine the scope and scale of the unit, it is expected to include specialist and supportive functions like forensics, aviation and IT, which have become fragmented and underpowered over the last decade. National arrangements on procurement will also generate savings to reinvest into frontline policing.

To drive up performance and standards and ensure communities can have confidence in their local police force, a new performance unit will be established in the Home Office. The unit will harness national data to monitor performance and direct improvements, underpinned by a performance framework developed with the College of Policing, policing inspectorate, National Police Chiefs’ Council and PCCs.

This Government recognise that police forces must have the right systems, capabilities, and support in place to support us on meeting our mission. This settlement includes £914.3 million for the wider policing system, which:

Maintains the police settlement’s investment in tackling serious violence and county lines next year, ensuring the continuation of violence reduction units and supporting all forces in their ongoing work to close county lines.

Ensures the continuation of major law enforcement programmes which will modernise national mission-critical systems, without which policing cannot operate effectively, tackle a range of threats and make our streets safer.

Supports police efficiency and collaboration by investing in national policing capabilities. This funding establishes the new commercial efficiency and collaboration programme, maintains the digital routes through which members of the public can contact the police, and supports the implementation of digital evidence sharing across the criminal justice system.

Supports law enforcement in tackling serious and organised crime by investing in regional organised crime units, ensuring they are supported in tackling some of the highest harm threats.

This does not represent the Government’s total investment in the policing system and law enforcement. In 2025-26, funding for areas including arm’s length bodies, cyber-crime, forensics, fraud, police productivity and innovation, and tackling exploitation and abuse—including violence against women and girls—will be decided as part of the Home Office’s wider budget allocation process, with funding arrangements for specific programmes confirmed in due course.

Ensuring national security is the first duty of any Government. This Government will provide essential support for Counter Terrorism Policing, ensuring that they have the resources they need to deal with the threats we face. Funding for Counter Terrorism Policing will increase by £140 million to £1.2 billion, which includes funding to compensate for the cost of the employer national insurance contribution changes. PCCs will be notified separately of force-level funding allocations for CT policing, which will not be made public for security reasons.

The provisional funding allocations set out in today’s report reflect this Government’s commitment to working with policing and giving it the resources required to bridge the gap between policing and our communities. This is critical for restoring the public sense of safety on our streets.

We understand that funding certainty is crucial for effective financial planning across police forces. Funding for future years will be agreed in phase 2 of the forthcoming spending review. Police reform proposals will be developed alongside this.

Finally, I must use this opportunity to pay tribute to and thank our committed officers and police staff for the remarkable dedication, courage and resilience they show every day to keep this country safe. This investment today is an investment in these brave men and women. We look forward to working with officers and police staff across the country on our shared ambition to make our streets safer.

Attachments can be viewed online at:

http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-statement/Commons/2024-12-17/HCWS325/

[HCWS325]

AI and Copyright Consultation

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Written Statements

[The Minister for Creative Industries, Arts and Tourism (Chris Bryant)]

The fast-paced development of artificial intelligence (AI), and in particular the need for large volumes of data during training of large language models (LLMs), has led to increased scrutiny of the way that copyright law applies to such activity.

It has become clear that rights holders are finding it difficult to control the use of their works in the training of AI models and seek greater ability to control their use and/or be remunerated for it. AI developers are similarly finding it difficult to navigate copyright law in the UK, which affects investment in and adoption of AI technology.

AI technology has enormous potential to drive economic growth, through productivity improvements and technological innovation, and to stimulate more effective public service design and delivery. These are opportunities that the United Kingdom cannot afford to miss and that is why AI, alongside other technologies, will support the delivery of our five national missions.

The UK is also home to world-leading creative industries, which has been identified as a growth-driving sector in the Government’s industrial strategy. Supporting their continued success is vital to our national mission to grow our economy, as well as safeguarding our culture and identity.

At present, the application of UK copyright law to the training of AI models is disputed. This uncertainty is holding back innovation and undermining growth in our AI sector and creative industries.

We believe that action is needed now. That is why we are today publishing a consultation on how we can deliver a viable solution that achieves our key objectives for the AI and creative industry sectors. These are:

To support rights holders to continue to exercise control over use of their content and ability to seek remuneration for its use,

To promote greater trust and transparency between the sectors, and

To support the development of world-leading AI models in the UK by ensuring wide and lawful access to high-quality data.

The consultation published today jointly by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, sets out a package of interventions that we believe could address the needs of both sectors.

The proposals include a mechanism for rights holders to reserve their rights, enabling them to license and be paid for the use of their work in AI training. Alongside this, we propose an exception to support use at scale of a wide range of material by AI developers where rights have not been reserved. We are conscious that this combination will only work if a workable technical system of rights reservation can be brought in.

The consultation also includes proposals to support greater transparency from AI developers about what material they are using and how they acquire it, and measures to ensure that rights can be reserved easily, and right holders’ decisions can be enforced. It also considers several issues relating to the outputs of generative AI. These include questions about labelling of AI-created outputs and the extent to which they should be protected by copyright, as well as questions about digital replicas where AI is used to generate material that mimics the voice or appearance of existing performers.

Our aim is to find a balance that supports growth in both the AI and creative industries sector, by providing a clear and simple legal basis for access to large volumes of data for training purposes, while enabling rights holders to exert control and secure payment. Our hope is that the eventual solution will provide clear routes to licensing of intellectual property and legal certainty for all.

We very much welcome responses to the consultation from creators, copyright owners, AI developers and technology users. We look forward to receiving feedback through the consultation on whether the proposals achieve this balance.

[HCWS324]

Development Consent Order: London Luton Airport

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Transport (Heidi Alexander)]

This statement confirms that it has been necessary to extend the deadline for the decision for the London Luton Airport development consent order under the Planning Act 2008.

Under section 107(1) of the Planning Act 2008, a decision must be made within three months of receipt of the examining authority’s report unless the power under section 107(3) to extend the deadline is exercised and a statement is made to Parliament announcing the new deadline.

The examining authority’s report on the London Luton Airport development consent order application was received on 10 May 2024. The current deadline for a decision is 3 January 2025, having been extended by way of written ministerial statements from the original deadline of 10 August 2024. The deadline for the decision is to be further extended to 3 April 2025—an extension of three months. The reason for the extension is to allow the newly appointed Secretary of State appropriate time to fully consider this complex application before making a final determination. The Department will however endeavour to issue a decision ahead of the deadline above where possible.

The decision to set a new deadline is without prejudice to the final decision on whether to give development consent for the above application.

[HCWS329]

High Speed 2

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Transport (Heidi Alexander)]

I am today announcing the publication of the first report to Parliament on the progress of High Speed 2 from this Government.

This new Government are committed to transparency on HS2 and keeping parliamentarians informed of both the issues the programme is facing, the position we have inherited and its progress towards delivering rail capacity and passenger benefits between London and the west midlands (phase 1). Since coming into Government, we have announced urgent measures to get a grip on HS2’s costs and ensure taxpayers’ money is put to good use and we will be working closely with the new CEO, Mark Wild, to deliver the remaining work as cost-effectively as possible, including setting a realistic budget and schedule.

HS2 phase 1 is a vital part of the Government’s mission to rebuild Britain, and the Government have been clear that we need to deliver infrastructure that works for the whole country. Right now HS2 supports 31,000 jobs and when completed, it will give faster, more reliable and frequent rail services between the west midlands and London, promoting economic growth and opportunities for workers, releasing capacity to meet increasing demand on regional and local services, and stimulating new jobs and houses around its new stations in Birmingham, Solihull and London.

This report, which covers data reported by HS2 Ltd to the end of September 2024, provides information about the key decisions taken since the new Government were formed in July, and the progress made in delivering phase 1. The Government intend to publish these updates broadly every six months.

I will place a copy of the full report in the Libraries of both Houses. This will also be available on www.gov.uk.

[HCWS331]