Ministry of Defence Contingency Fund Advance: 2024-25
(1 day, 23 hours ago)
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The Secretary of State for Defence (John Healey)
The Ministry of Defence new cash requirement for the year exceeds that provided by the main estimate 2024-25. The supplementary estimate has not yet received Royal Assent.
The Contingencies Fund advance is required to meet commitments until the supplementary estimate receives Royal Assent, at which point the Ministry of Defence will be able to draw down the cash from the Consolidated Fund in the usual way, to repay the Contingencies Fund advance.
Parliamentary approval for additional resources of £250,000,000 and £250,000,000 of capital will be sought in a supplementary estimate for the Ministry of Defence. Pending that approval, urgent expenditure estimated at £500,000,000 will be met by repayable cash advances from the Contingencies Fund.
This is separate and additional to the advance sought on 6 January 2025 to fund the transaction to purchase 36,347 properties from Annington Property Ltd.
[HCWS468]
Service Police Complaints Commissioner Annual Report 2023
(1 day, 23 hours ago)
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The Minister for Veterans and People (Al Carns)
I am pleased to place in the Library of the House today the Ministry of Defence’s formal response to the Service Police Complaints Commissioner’s annual report for 2023.
The Commissioner’s inaugural report assesses the delivery of her functions and the work of her office in 2023. The response sets out the MOD’s comments on the report and approach to each of the three recommendations made by the Commissioner.
The MOD values the strong independent oversight that the Commissioner brings to the Service Police complaints process and is committed to having a system that our personnel can have trust and confidence in.
Attachments can be viewed online at: http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-statement/Commons/2025-02-25/HCWS467
[HCWS467]
NFU Conference: Farm Profitability
(1 day, 23 hours ago)
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The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Steve Reed)
Today at the NFU conference, I made several announcements to make farming more profitable:
Extending the Seasonal Worker visa route for five more years will give farms a pipeline of workers and certainty to grow their businesses. Annual quota reviews will ensure we strike the right balance—supporting farms while gradually reducing visa numbers as we develop alternative solutions.
Backing British produce: there are now requirements for Government catering contracts to favour high-quality, high-welfare products that local farms and producers are well placed to provide. The move marks a major leap in achieving the Government’s ambition for at least 50% of food supplied into the £5 billion public sector catering contracts to be from British producers or those certified to higher environmental standards.
Investment of £110 million in technology: the Farming Innovation Programme supports research and development of agri-technology for farmers, for example, the chemical-free cleaning for integrated milking equipment, which lowers energy costs and chemical use. The Farming Equipment and Technology Fund provides grants of up to £25,000 to buy new equipment such as electric weeders to reduce chemical use.
Protecting farmers in trade deals: the Government will uphold and protect our high environmental and animal welfare standards in future trade deals.
Strengthening Britain’s biosecurity: transforming the Animal and Plant Health Agency animal health facility at Weybridge into a National Biosecurity Centre, and investing £200 million to improve our resilience against animal disease to protect farmers and food producers.
As I said at the Oxford Farming Conference in January, more profitable, sustainable farm businesses will ensure our nation’s long-term food security. The Government have an important role in creating the conditions for growth and maintaining the resilient production of high-quality food the British public depends on.
[HCWS469]
Independent Reporting Commission: Seventh Report
(1 day, 23 hours ago)
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The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Hilary Benn)
Today I am laying before Parliament the seventh report from the Independent Reporting Commission (IRC).
The commission was established following the Fresh Start agreement in November 2015 to report on progress towards ending paramilitary activity. The agreement set out the Northern Ireland Executive’s commitments around tackling paramilitary activity and associated criminality, and led to a programme of work to deliver a Northern Ireland Executive action plan.
In the New Decade, New Approach agreement in January 2020, a commitment was made to continue this work, including through a second phase of the Northern Ireland Executive’s programme on paramilitarism, criminality and organised crime.
In this seventh report, which covers 2024, the commission notes that interventions through the Executive programme, alongside policing and criminal justice measures which work to tackle paramilitary criminality, are having a tangible effect on the communities where paramilitaries operate. But the IRC also notes significant concerns relating to continuing paramilitary-linked harms such as intimidation, coercive control, and threats.
The commission has set out a number of recommend-ations on how the effort to tackle paramilitarism and its continued impact in communities can be improved. It also asks the Northern Ireland Executive, the UK Government and the Government of Ireland to ensure that work to tackle paramilitarism remains a high priority beyond the lifetime of the Executive programme.
The commission has again suggested that the UK Government and the Government of Ireland should appoint an independent person to scope out the potential for, and explore what might be involved in, a process to end paramilitarism.
The UK Government and the Government of Ireland have been giving consideration to how progress could be made towards ending paramilitarism, and to the recommendations from the IRC and others, including the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee on this issue. In April 2024, the then UK Government and the Government of Ireland committed to taking forward further work.
The two Governments have agreed to jointly appoint, in the period ahead, within the existing IRC legislative framework, an independent expert to carry out a short scoping and engagement exercise to assess whether there is merit in, and support for, a formal process of engagement to bring about paramilitary group transition to disbandment. This will include examining what could be in the scope of such a formal process.
I want to be clear that this is not the start of a formal process itself. This scoping exercise is also not a part of, or an alternative to, the existing law enforcement and criminal justice measures and the wider effort through the Executive programme to tackle the ongoing violence and harm caused by paramilitary groups. I also want to be clear that no financial offer will be made to paramilitary groups or to the individuals involved in them in exchange for an end to violence and ongoing harms.
I will be writing to the Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee to set out more detail on this.
I would like to express my thanks to the commissioners and the secretariat for their continued work in reporting on progress towards ending paramilitarism.
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