Lord Birt

The Prime Minister is committed to restoring confidence in government and ensuring ministers are held to the highest standards. Under his leadership, this Government will ensure the highest standards of integrity and honesty. When meeting with his new Cabinet for the first time, the Prime Minister was clear about the standards he expects of them and their ministerial teams.

He will issue a Ministerial Code in due course which will set out the standards of behaviour expected of ministers. As public office holders, ministers are also bound by the Nolan Principles. One such principle that applies is leadership, under which ministers are required to “treat others with respect”.

Ministers' special advisers are contractually required to abide by the standards set out in the Code of Conduct for Special Advisers, which includes the requirement to “establish mutual relationships of confidence and trust” with civil servants.

The Government is currently focused on looking forwards and resetting the relationship with our European friends. As such the Prime Minister hosted 45 leaders from across Europe to the European Political Community on Thursday 18 July, to enhance cooperation on European security and other shared challenges the continent faces. Publicly available research on the interactions between the UK-EU relationship and the UK economy is widely accessible.

The Government sets five-yearly carbon budgets which outline our pathway to net zero. To identify the optimum route, Government considers a range of factors including technical potential, impacts on growth, wider costs and benefits, as well as advice from our independent advisory body, the Climate Change Committee. We will publish an updated Carbon Budget Delivery Plan in Spring 2025 and set the Carbon Budget 7 target by June 2026, in line with statutory duties.

Heat pumps will play a pivotal role in the decarbonisation of heat in homes, and the Government is committed to supporting their adoption.

Support is available to help households to upgrade to a heat pump, through schemes like the Boiler Upgrade Scheme which provides grants of £7,500 towards the cost of installation. Current schemes, like the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund and the Home Upgrade Grant, also remain in place to provide financial support for installations in low-income households and social housing.

Our Warm Homes Plan will set out further Government support for investment in insulation and low-carbon heating, with the goal of upgrading five million homes over this Parliament. We will announce more details in due course.

The Government understands the important role our public service broadcasters (PSBs) play not only within the TV sector, but also in terms of their wider economic and democratic contribution in the United Kingdom.

We are committed to working constructively with our PSBs so that they can continue to inform, educate and entertain across the UK. More broadly, this Government will work towards opening up more opportunities for people in all parts of the UK to work in broadcast programming and we recognise the important role PSBs have in supporting this aim.

The Media Act – which received Royal Assent on 24 May 2024 – will give our PSBs greater flexibility in how they contribute to the remit, making it easier for them to make their content available on a wider range of free-to-air platforms, as well as ensuring PSB content remains easy to find as viewers increasingly shift online.

Ofcom, as the independent broadcasting regulator, is responsible for monitoring the performance of PSBs against their remit and obligations. It also has a statutory duty to undertake a review of the PSB system at least every five years under the Communications Act 2003 with a view to maintaining and strengthening the quality of public service television in the United Kingdom. We expect Ofcom to launch their PSB review in the coming months and look forward to receiving its report next year.

Companies are being held to strict requirements by the regulators, demanding significantly higher spend on environmental enhancement than in the previous price review.

On 11 July, the Secretary of State met with water company bosses to set out our expectations for the sector, just six days after my Cabinet appointment. Alongside this, this Government announced a series of initial steps towards ending the crisis in the water sector.

The Water (Special Measures) Bill will give Ofwat further powers to hold water companies to account where they do not deliver for customers and the environment.

This Bill is just the start of the fundamental and much broader transformation that this Government will lead for the water industry.

The Government will launch a review to shape further legislation that will fundamentally transform how our water system works and clean up our rivers, lakes and seas for good.

We recognise that it can be challenging to balance accessing care with other responsibilities. That’s why we have committed to modernising the general practice (GP) booking system, making it easier for patients to communicate with their practice, and why we will ensure that anyone who wants a face-to-face appointment can receive one.

Integrated care boards must ensure that out-of-hours appointments are available to patients to help them access care at convenient times, for example on weekends, evenings or bank holidays.

We will make sure the future of GPs is sustainable by training thousands more GPs across the country to take the pressure off those currently working within the system, ensure increased capacity across the National Health Service, and secure a future pipeline of GPs.

There is no current intention to review the UK-US Extradition Treaty. The UK-US Extradition Treaty continues to produce tangible results, bringing justice to victims in both the UK and US.

The Government works closely with the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for vehicle crime and the police-led National Vehicle Crime Working Group, which focuses on tackling vehicle crime. The working group which brings together representatives of the Government, policing, and vehicle manufacturers to address vulnerabilities in vehicles.

The Government keeps all legislation under review. We will be introducing a Crime and Policing Bill and will consider what measures are needed to support efforts to tackle and prevent vehicle crime.

The Government has committed to delivering 1.5 million homes this Parliament, delivering the biggest increase in social and affordable housing in a generation. We are proposing reforms to the National Planning Policy Framework that are designed to support the delivery of affordable housing, including ensuring that councils can prioritise the types of affordable homes their communities need. We have given councils greater flexibility to use their Right to Buy receipts to deliver replacement affordable housing (these flexibilities will be in place for an initial 24 months, subject to review). Further details will be announced in due course.

The Government has committed to delivering 1.5 million homes in this Parliament, delivering the biggest increase in social and affordable housing in a generation. We will work with councils and housing associations to build capacity and ensure we build the homes people need.

We will also introduce ‘golden rules’ in relation to grey and Green Belt release, to ensure development benefits communities and nature, including targeting the delivery of 50 per cent affordable housing on these sites.