Lord Morris of Aberavon

The state aid rules on giving operating, rescue and restructuring aid to steel companies are unambiguously clear and all such interventions are prohibited. This includes Government financial support for mothballing of steel plant. Given the lack of ambiguity there has been no need to discuss these matters with the European Commission.

We know that the SSI Redcar plan had made losses of over £600m in over three years. When the company went into liquidation, the Official Receiver bought supplies to keep certain operations such as the coke ovens going in the hope of funding a commercial buyout. Unfortunately no commercial buyer could be found to maintain operations at the plant. While this was deeply disappointing news, with such large losses and debts, and the price of steel produces expected to stay depressed for some considerable time, it was perhaps not surprising.

A key part the Attorney General’s role as head of the profession is meeting regularly with the leaders of the Professional bodies to discuss matters of relevance within the criminal justice system including the Chair of the Bar Council, the Chair of the Criminal Bar Association, the President of the Law Society and the Bar Circuit Leaders. These valuable and productive meetings enable the Law Officers to understand the issues affecting front-line practitioners, so that they are able to articulate their concerns to ministerial colleagues to ensure that in the development of government policy, the views of the profession are reflected and understood.

Agendas for these meetings are prepared so as to allow flexibility, in order to allow for discussion of topical issues. Such issues include the views of practitioners on the Crown Court backlog, government initiatives such as the roll out of s.28 and how we are working together to improve the system performance in relation to rape cases.

The regular monthly meetings of the Bar Council are attended either by the Attorney or the Solicitor General, so as to allow the Law Officers a full understanding of the issues that are affecting front-line practitioners.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) does not maintain a central record of defences relied on by defendants at trial. This information could only be obtained by an examination of CPS case files, which would incur disproportionate cost.

Rape and serious sexual offences are horrific crimes, which can have a significant and profound impact on victims. The CPS is a partner in the ongoing cross-Government review of the criminal justice response to rape, and is committed to addressing any issues the review highlights openly and honestly. Together with the police, the CPS is already developing a joint action plan, which will address issues raised in the recently published HMCPSI Rape Inspection 2019 report and – in due course – findings of the cross-Government review.

The digital evidence consent forms are overseen by the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the Crown Prosecution Service, and they will continue to engage with victims’ groups and the Information Commissioner’s Office to ensure that the right approach is being taken. A draft of the form was issued to a number of stakeholders during development, and this included the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners. The Attorney General will be issuing new Attorney General’s Guidelines on Disclosure in the winter. These Guidelines will assist prosecutors and investigators in ensuring that privacy and data protection considerations are properly considered in disclosure practice and procedure.

Prosecutors should identify and, where appropriate, seek to rectify evidential weaknesses in a case. However, they should stop cases which do not meet the evidential stage of the Full Code Test in the Code for Crown Prosecutors and which cannot be strengthened by further investigation, or where the public interest clearly does not require a prosecution. There is a continuing duty of review throughout the case.

Internal CPS case outcome recording data for 2015-17 shows that issues connected to the disclosure of unused material were recorded as the primary reason in 0.81% of all prosecutions that did not result in a conviction.

Other reasons prosecutions may be stopped include that new material reviewed during the case reveals evidence which undermines the prosecution case, key witnesses do not attend, key evidence is ruled inadmissible, or other circumstances change to the extent that a charge no longer meets the evidential stage of the Full Code Test.

The most frequent reason that a prosecution did not result in a conviction was that the defendant was acquitted after trial. This was the reason in 25% of such cases.

The Attorney General’s Office received a letter regarding disclosure in criminal proceedings from the Chairman of the Criminal Cases Review Commission on 7 July 2016. The text of the letter is published on their website ccrc.gov.uk. It highlighted that particular attention would be drawn to the issue in their annual report published later that month.

In April 2016 the Attorney General wrote to the Criminal Justice Joint Inspectorates supporting a proposal for a joint thematic inspection of disclosure as one of the most important issues in the trial process and a vital component of a fair trial.

The CCRC letter was drawn to the attention of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of the Crown Prosecution Service to assist preparation for the joint inspection of disclosure which was carried out between January and July 2017.

The final terms of reference for the UK COVID-19 inquiry were published on 28 June 2022. This followed a full and extensive public consultation process led by the inquiry’s independent chair, in addition to engagement with the devolved administrations as required by the Inquiries Act 2005.

Following the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions, civil servants have been increasingly returning to the office.

The Minister for Brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency has written to departments to underline the importance of workplace attendance and request that they review their existing guidance on the minimum number of days staff work in the office to ensure we are making efficient use of the government estate.

As part of the Government’s commitment to transparency, departments have published aggregated annual information on their bonus spend on their own websites since 2011. This promotes scrutiny of how taxpayers’ money is spent. The latest data, which covers the performance years 2019/20 and 2020/21, was published on Government Departments’ websites on 31 March 2022. This data includes information on total bonus spend, the number of civil servants receiving bonuses, and the size of payments.

Regarding the second question: executive agencies publish individualised data on payments received by their Board-level members in their Annual Accounts. This includes data on which executives receive bonuses, and the size of any payments. Since 2010, the Government has made bonuses across the Civil Service more tightly focussed on top performance; current spend on them is around 1 percent of the total Civil Service paybill.

As part of the Government’s commitment to transparency, departments have published aggregated annual information on their bonus spend on their own websites since 2011. This promotes scrutiny of how taxpayers’ money is spent. The latest data, which covers the performance years 2019/20 and 2020/21, was published on Government Departments’ websites on 31 March 2022. This data includes information on total bonus spend, the number of civil servants receiving bonuses, and the size of payments.

Regarding the second question: executive agencies publish individualised data on payments received by their Board-level members in their Annual Accounts. This includes data on which executives receive bonuses, and the size of any payments. Since 2010, the Government has made bonuses across the Civil Service more tightly focussed on top performance; current spend on them is around 1 percent of the total Civil Service paybill.

London weighting was removed as a prescribed central allowance in the 1990s. Civil Service pay arrangements have been delegated to individual departments for all grades below the Senior Civil Service, since 1996. London pay arrangements will therefore vary significantly between departments.

There is no central source of data that links those working from home to pay conditions.

Between 2005 and 2010, industrial electricity prices rose by 64 per cent. Including taxes, industrial electricity prices rose from 4.77 pence per kWh in 2005 to 7.84 pence per kWh in 2010.

The steel sector has received more than £295 million in compensation since 2013 to make energy costs more competitive, including over £53 million during 2018. In addition, between 2017 and 2019, the Government has introduced policies that provide eligible steel producers with an 85% reduction in renewable energy policy costs in their electricity bills. Last year we announced the Industrial Energy Transformation Fund worth up to £315 million to support businesses with high energy use to transition to a low carbon future and to cut their bills through increased energy efficiency.

Between 2010 and 2017, industrial electricity prices (including taxes) have risen from 7.84 to 9.79 pence per kWh, an increase of 25%.

The European Commission currently has 37 measures in place against steel products, 16 of which concern imports from China.

The government makes regular representations to the European Commission concerning allegations of dumping of steel. The government judges each anti-dumping investigation on its merits, based on the evidence presented by the Commission and on representations from interested parties, including producers, users and importers. We have supported industry calls for action in recent cases, for example in the reinforcing bar case we have raised the steel industry’s concerns that the provisional duties were too low with the Commission. My Rt Hon Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills spoke with Commissioner Malmström about this and received assurance that the Commission will reconsider this during the definitive stage of the investigation, if industry can provide the necessary evidence.

Given the current crisis in the steel industry, we continue to press the Commission for faster, more effective action to deal with dumping of steel.

The Student Loans Company (SLC) administers student loans on behalf of the UK government and devolved administrations with funding from Her Majesty’s Treasury. While the SLC itself pays nothing on this funding, the cost to the government of this capital is the same as that paid on its general borrowing.

The amounts paid out and the interest charged can be found in the published document titled ‘DfE consolidated annual report and accounts 2016-17’ on pages 152 to 158, attached.

The government does not make a profit on these loans, which is reflected through the impairment charge in note 14.3.3 on page 155 of the attachment. This shows the proportion of the loan outlay and interest that the department expects not to recover. Student loans are subsidised by the government as a deliberate investment in the skills base of the country, which delivers benefits for individual students and for society at large.

In the Agriculture Bill introduced in the previous session, broadly similar powers were conferred on the Welsh Ministers as on the Secretary of State for England. This was done at the request of the Welsh Ministers and included the powers in clause 11. This means that the Welsh Ministers would have powers to modify retained EU legislation relating to the financing, management and monitoring of Common Agricultural Policy schemes.

The Welsh Government have also announced that they will bring forward their own Agriculture Bill in the National Assembly at a later date. The Welsh Government have informed me that this will be preceded by a White Paper, intended to be brought forward during the current Assembly term.

Defra acknowledges the concerns raised by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. The department is considering all elements of the Committee’s Report and how these might be addressed. The Agriculture Bill is to be scheduled for Commons Report Stage in due course.

It is the Government’s intention to respond to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, before Commons Report stage, as indicated in our letter to the Committee dated 17 January.

As we have said previously, we are not going to provide a running commentary on every twist and turn of ongoing negotiations.

Recent negotiations have been building on the significant agreement reached in March. We’re continuing to make good progress and have reached agreement across the vast majority of the draft Withdrawal Agreement.

We are now focussed on negotiating the right future relationship and have been having regular discussions with the EU outlining our positions on a wide range of topics covering the future security partnership and the future economic partnership.

The information is not available in the format requested. The table below shows information on the percentage of Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency staff working from home on the first Monday (or subsequent working day) of each month.

The vast majority of staff responsible for processing the 60,000 items of mail the DVLA receives every day can only do their work effectively in the office as it involves the handling of sensitive original documentation, for example medical information, birth certificates and passports. These staff have to attend the workplace for their contracted working hours. Staff working from home are mainly in support areas, for example, policy, finance, HR and IT. These staff are doing their jobs fully effectively remotely.

The Welsh Government’s guidance, updated on 25 March, continues to ask those who can work from home to do so. The DVLA has opened up space for these staff to attend the office when they need to, such as for meetings or workshops and plans are in place to return staff to the office when restrictions lift further.

The safety of passengers is a priority, and measures are already in place to protect people’s health and safety when travelling by air.?All airports are asked to follow Public Health England guidance on preventing the spread of COVID-19. Public Health England has also provided specific guidance on health and safety for flight crews. The advice for travellers is the same as for the rest of the UK population.

The Government’s “stay at home” posters are on display at all UK airports and many airports have the messaging on digital screens as well. Airports and airlines have also been provided with Public Health England leaflets to give to passengers outlining the symptoms of COVID-19, current guidance, and general public health advice.

Our approach is being kept under review as the pandemic develops.

This may mean that measures and procedures change as we control the spread of, and understand more about, the virus. Any changes to our approach will be led by advice from SAGE and the Chief Medical Officer. Protecting the health of the UK public will always come first.

The Department is monitoring closely the measures being put in place in many countries, including all European countries. We continue to work closely with international partners to consider what measures are appropriate.

We are working closely with Welsh Government to divest the Core Valley Lines from Network Rail to Transport for Wales, which will give the Welsh Government ownership and responsibility for the infrastructure. Furthermore, the Williams Rail Review is exploring different industry structures including devolution and will produce a set of recommendations in autumn.

Lorry drivers from the Republic of Ireland pay for the HGV Levy in the same ways as users from other countries. The levy can be paid online, at a number of official Point of Sale (PoS) locations, at driver self-serve facilities offered by some operators and through a number of booking agents. The majority of levy purchases are via the HGV Levy website.

The overall compliance rate for foreign vehicles is high, according to figures collected by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency in Great Britain, at 95%. The Department for Transport has not produced equivalent compliance rates by country of origin, but there are indications that vehicles from Ireland in Great Britain have a very similar compliance rate compared to vehicles from other countries.

In 2017-18, HGV levy revenue from non-UK hauliers was £50m. Of this, approximately £4m was from vehicles registered in the Republic of Ireland, £45m was from vehicles registered in other EU Member States, and £1m was from vehicles registered elsewhere. There were vehicles from all EU Member States paying the HGV levy during 2017-18.

The HGV levy is enforced by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA). Vehicles are stopped at the roadside and, if they have not paid the right levy, the vehicle is held until a fine of £300 is paid. The DVSA targets vehicles that are known not to have paid the levy, and it also checks for levy compliance of vehicles that are stopped for other reasons.