Asked by: Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will hold discussions with Ofwat on the merits of commissioning an independent audit of Thames Water’s costs options for that company's draft Water Resources Management Plan 2019.
Answered by Thérèse Coffey
The Secretary of State will consider and make decisions on the draft water resources management plan, following both Thames Water’s consultation and advice from the Environment Agency (EA). Ofwat will also scrutinise Thames Water’s published proposals to make sure they offer customers value for money through the price review process.
Defra, Ofwat and the EA discussed with Thames Water the need for further consultation on its draft plan, following the previous consultation earlier this year. Thames Water has now published a statement of response, which explains the views expressed in its original consultation and the reasons for it deciding to carry out further consultation on its draft plan.
Asked by: Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of imposing a regulatory requirement on social media platforms to invest in preventative measures to identify online grooming on social networking sites.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
In September, the Home Secretary made a speech setting out clear asks of industry, including stopping online child grooming and he made it clear that industry needed to do much more to respond to this evolving threat.
We are already working with social media companies so we can protect users and change user behaviour online. While several of the tech giants have taken important and positive steps to make their platforms safer, the performance of internet companies overall has been very mixed.
Earlier this month, the Home Secretary co-hosted the Microsoft led Hackathon in America, where he met with leading industry stakeholders to identify robust ways to tackle and prevent child sexual abuse on the internet. It was a well attended and positive event which saw all areas of the technological industries coming together in cooperation with Government in seeking to build and implement tools to take charge against this threat. A prototype tool was developed at the Hackathon that can be used to automatically flag potential conversations taking place between child groomers and children, which will be licensed free of charge to smaller and medium-sized technology companies worldwide.
We have already committed to legislate and will set out our plans in the forthcoming Online Harms White Paper. How far we legislate will be informed by the industry response.This winter we will publish a White Paper, setting out new laws to tackle the full range of online harms and set clear responsibilities for tech companies to keep UK citizens safe. Until now, the Government has primarily encouraged internet companies to take action on a voluntary basis. There has been considerable progress through this approach, however, it has been slower in some areas than oth-ers and there is more to do. This is why we are now considering options around statutory intervention.
The Government has heard stakeholder calls for an Internet Regulator and we must carefully consider all the options to address existing and emerging issues relating to online safety, including what legislation will be necessary and whether a regulator is needed.
Asked by: Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of social media platforms approaches to tackling grooming and online sexual abuse.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
In September, the Home Secretary made a speech setting out clear asks of industry, including stopping online child grooming and he made it clear that industry needed to do much more to respond to this evolving threat.
We are already working with social media companies so we can protect users and change user behaviour online. While several of the tech giants have taken important and positive steps to make their platforms safer, the performance of internet companies overall has been very mixed.
Earlier this month, the Home Secretary co-hosted the Microsoft led Hackathon in America, where he met with leading industry stakeholders to identify robust ways to tackle and prevent child sexual abuse on the internet. It was a well attended and positive event which saw all areas of the technological industries coming together in cooperation with Government in seeking to build and implement tools to take charge against this threat. A prototype tool was developed at the Hackathon that can be used to automatically flag potential conversations taking place between child groomers and children, which will be licensed free of charge to smaller and medium-sized technology companies worldwide.
We have already committed to legislate and will set out our plans in the forthcoming Online Harms White Paper. How far we legislate will be informed by the industry response.This winter we will publish a White Paper, setting out new laws to tackle the full range of online harms and set clear responsibilities for tech companies to keep UK citizens safe. Until now, the Government has primarily encouraged internet companies to take action on a voluntary basis. There has been considerable progress through this approach, however, it has been slower in some areas than oth-ers and there is more to do. This is why we are now considering options around statutory intervention.
The Government has heard stakeholder calls for an Internet Regulator and we must carefully consider all the options to address existing and emerging issues relating to online safety, including what legislation will be necessary and whether a regulator is needed.
Asked by: Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he is taking to ensure that children are safe from online grooming.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
We have prioritised child sexual abuse as a national threat and are helping the police to respond to the changing demand with a £460 million increase in overall funding in 2018/19. This will help transform the law enforcement response and empower police forces to apply their best skills and expertise to tackle the problem. In September, the Home Secretary announced an additional £21 million increase over the next 18 months for law enforcement and the intelligence agencies which includes further funding of the Regional Organised Crime Units (ROCUs) to target online grooming of children.
The Government has also significantly increased resources to the National Crime Agency (NCA) leading to a near doubling of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Command (CEOP)investigative capability, and the Joint Operations Team, a collaborative venture between the NCA and GCHQ launched in 2015, which is targeting the most sophisticated online offenders.
The Home Secretary has made a call to industry to raise their response to the horrifying scale of online child sexual abuse; and made clear there would be no ‘no-go areas’ of inquiry into the offline grooming, abuse and exploitation of children.
In November, engineers from some of the world’s biggest tech firms, including Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Snap and Twitter, worked for 2 days at a Hackathon in the United States co-hosted by the Home Secretary and Microsoft, which tasked industry experts to come up with tools to identify online child grooming. A prototype tool has been developed that can be used to automatically flag potential conversations taking place between child groomers and children which will be licensed free of charge to smaller and medium-sized technology companies worldwide.
Collaborative working between Police forces and the NCA is resulting in around 400 arrests each month for online CSEA offences, and the safe-guarding of around 500 children each month.
Asked by: Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether he plans to bring forward legislative proposals to tackle unauthorised parking on private property; and what support is available to people who wish to remove unwanted vehicles parked on their property.
Answered by Rishi Sunak - Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, and Minister for the Union
The Government is currently supporting Sir Greg Knight’s Parking (Code of Practice) Bill that is seeking to create a code of practice for the private parking industry. There are, however, no current plans to further strengthen powers to tackle unauthorised parking on private property.
Landowners can manage parking on their land under the provisions of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. They may also employ a parking operator to undertake enforcement on their behalf.
Councils currently provide the support to remove unwanted vehicles. They have a statutory duty to remove vehicles that are abandoned on any land in the open air, including on private land such as car parks. There is no statutory definition of ‘abandoned’, and it is for councils to determine whether any particular vehicle has been abandoned. Council officers may legally enter private land in order to investigate and remove abandoned vehicles.
Asked by: Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he plans to consult specialist bereavement organisations on Government policy to support bereaved families in seeking legal aid.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
As part of its review of legal aid for inquests, over the summer my Department carried out a call for evidence exercise, conducted surveys of key stakeholders, and officials met bereaved people as well as groups which represent their interests.
The Department is now considering the responses and other feedback. Any significant changes to policy will be presented in a public consultation as part of the final report, in which anyone interested in this issue including members of the public and specialist bereavement organisations will be invited to respond to this consultation exercise. We intend to publish the final report by the end of the year.
Asked by: Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what estimate he has made of the value of digital design to (a) the UK economy and (b) UK exports.
Answered by Margot James
We recognise the significant contribution design makes to the UK economy,
particularly as a key factor in the production of services and goods across a wide range of sectors. According to DCMS economic estimates design and designer fashion exports in 2016 were £380m, a 9.6% increase from 2015.
The Design Council produced a report into the Design Economy in 2018 which estimates that in 2015 the total value of exports where design had made a key contribution was £48.4 billion. The report also found that gross value added generated by the design economy increased by 52% between 2009 and 2016, with over 1.69 million people employed in the design economy and over 78,000 design intensive firms operating in the UK in 2017.
Asked by: Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent assessment he has made of the contribution to the UK economy of (a) design and (b) design skills.
Answered by Margot James
We recognise the significant contribution design makes to the UK economy,
particularly as a key factor in the production of services and goods across a wide range of sectors. According to DCMS economic estimates design and designer fashion exports in 2016 were £380m, a 9.6% increase from 2015.
The Design Council produced a report into the Design Economy in 2018 which estimates that in 2015 the total value of exports where design had made a key contribution was £48.4 billion. The report also found that gross value added generated by the design economy increased by 52% between 2009 and 2016, with over 1.69 million people employed in the design economy and over 78,000 design intensive firms operating in the UK in 2017.
Asked by: Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, what assessment he has made of the economic contribution of (a) design and (b) design skills to UK exports.
Answered by Graham Stuart
The Government recognises and champions the significant contribution that design and design skills play within the UK economy, particularly as a key factor in the production of services and goods across a wide range of sectors.
The Design Council produced a report into the Design Economy in 2018 which estimated that in 2015 the total value of exports where design had made a key contribution was £48.4 billion. The report also found that gross value added generated by the design economy increased by 52% between 2009 and 2016, with over 1.69 million people employed in the design economy and over 78,000 design intensive firms operating in the UK in 2017.
DCMS estimates that the wider creative sector was worth £92bn in 2016 and is growing twice the rate of the economy as a whole. This was up from £85bn the previous year.
Asked by: Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans he has to promote and support the development of design skills as part of STEM education.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department has worked with organisations such as the James Dyson Foundation and the Royal Academy of Engineering to reform the design and technology (D&T) A level, GCSE and curriculum. The content emphasises the iterative design processes at the heart of modern industry practice. There is also more mathematical and science content that students must use and relate closely to D&T, and a much greater use of design equipment such as 3D printers and robotics. Under the new national curriculum, reformed in 2014, D&T remains a compulsory subject in all maintained schools from Key Stage 1 to 3. Maintained schools are also required to offer it as a subject at Key Stage 4. Academies can use the national curriculum as a benchmark for what they teach. The D&T GCSE counts towards the Progress 8 secondary accountability measure.
The new qualification will prepare students for further study and careers in design. To ensure the subject is taught well, the Department supports recruitment of D&T teachers through bursaries of up to £12,000 for eligible candidates.
For post-16 students, the Government is introducing T Levels, based on learning from the best international examples. Once fully introduced, many of the new T Level programmes will focus on core science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) occupations, including in the engineering and manufacturing sectors. Designed by employers, T Levels will give students access to high quality technical study programmes, which will prepare them for employment and higher level study in STEM occupations.