Asked by: Lord Mott (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government when the UK Deep-Sea Mining Environmental Science Network last met.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The UK is a world leader on tackling climate change and an international advocate for the highest possible environmental standards. We recognise the growing pressure to extract deep-sea resources and are concerned about the potential impacts of mining activities on the fragile marine environment.
This is why the UK supports a moratorium on the granting of exploitation licenses for deep sea mining projects by the International Seabed Authority (ISA). We will not sponsor or support the issuing of any such exploitation licences for deep sea mining by the ISA until there is sufficient scientific evidence about the potential impact on deep sea ecosystems. This is why the UK has been driving the need for strong enforceable environmental regulations, standards and guidelines to be developed by the ISA and put in place before any mining commences.
To support this, the UK successfully launched a new multi-disciplinary UK deep sea mining environmental expert network to champion UK expertise in environmental sciences, leading on filling gaps in knowledge in order to provide sufficient scientific evidence to fully understand the potential environmental impacts of deep sea mining. The Network has gained 75 members who are multidisciplinary across environmental sciences, and plans are underway for the Networks inaugural meeting to take place early in 2025.
Asked by: Lord Mott (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether the Prime Minister's trade envoy programme will continue; and if so, when new trade envoys will be appointed.
Answered by Baroness Jones of Whitchurch - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The programme will continue. Ministers are considering carefully its scope and structure to ensure that it is set up for success. The House will of course be notified of any appointments in due course.
Asked by: Lord Mott (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the potential for adoption of artificial intelligence in the public sector.
Answered by Lord Vallance of Balham - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The government is committed to harnessing AI and other technologies to deliver the government’s five missions and improve citizens’ lives. Public sector adoption is a key part of the forthcoming AI Opportunities Action Plan. The plan will detail how we can reimagine our public services by ensuring the public sector takes advantage of the best emerging use-cases and tools.
Asked by: Lord Mott (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what guidance they have issued to schools relating to the safeguarding of the children of prisoners.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Education)
All children, from whatever background and no matter what challenges they face, deserve a safe environment in which they can learn. The department recognises the impact that a parent going to prison can have on a child’s learning, behaviour, mental health and wellbeing.
The government’s ‘Keeping children safe in education 2024’ statutory guidance for schools and colleges outlines specific guidance concerning children with a family member in prison or who are affected by parental offending. The guidance asks schools to consider the additional needs of these children and highlights the risk of poor outcomes including poverty, stigma, isolation and poor mental health. It also signposts staff to the National Information Centre on Children of Offenders (NICCO) website, which provides specialist advice and resources to support professionals working with offenders’ children and their families to help mitigate negative consequences for those children. The NICCO website can be accessed here: https://www.nicco.org.uk/.
The government is committed to identifying and better supporting children of prisoners. The department will be working closely with the Ministry of Justice to deliver on this commitment.
Asked by: Lord Mott (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government, following the recent early release of some prisoners, whether they carried out a risk assessment in relation to the families of those who were released.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
This Government inherited a prison system in crisis and was forced to implement SDS40 to avoid complete collapse of the Criminal Justice System, a risk that would greatly affect victims, families, and the country. In designing the measure, and with thorough consideration of the families of those who were being released, we took every possible step to mitigate risk, including an 8-week implementation period, offence exclusions, and a huge amount of collaboration with partners across the Criminal Justice System.
Exclusions include a series of offences (including stalking, coercive or controlling behaviour and non-fatal strangulation) related to domestic abuse, along with sex offences irrespective of sentence length and serious violent offences with a sentence of four years or more. Critically, the implementation period also gave Probation time to prepare properly and engage with key partners ahead of the initial releases, including informing eligible victims within the Victim Contact Scheme or Victim Notification Scheme and engaging with MAPPA and MARAC.
Once released, offenders will be closely monitored by probation and subject to strict licence conditions, which if breached could lead to their immediate recall to prison.
Asked by: Lord Mott (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they intend to make any changes to their policy regarding the permanent closure of sandeel fisheries in English waters of the North Sea.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Both the UK and Scottish Governments closed English Waters of the North Sea and all Scottish Waters to fishing for sandeel in March 2024. The closure is in place to shield sandeel as an essential food source for threatened seabird populations, commercially valuable fish and for marine mammals. The EU has raised a dispute that the UK’s decision to prohibit fishing for sandeel within UK waters is not compliant with the Trade and Cooperation agreement (TCA). The dispute proceedings are confidential therefore there is little more I can say at this time.
Asked by: Lord Mott (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government when they expect to make secondary legislation to implement the UK’s Forest Risk Commodity regime.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We recognise the need to take action to ensure that UK consumption of forest risk commodities is not driving deforestation, and we will set out our approach to addressing this in due course.
Asked by: Lord Mott (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to fulfil their commitment to identify the children of prisoners and break the cycle of crime.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Government recently published the first official statistics to estimate the number of children affected by parental imprisonment using administrative government data. It is estimated that between 1 October 2021 and 1 October 2022 there were around 193,000 children with a parent in prison. We recognise the importance of being able to identify children with a parent in prison to make sure they receive the support they need, which is why our Family Support Workers help to re-establish family ties where appropriate, and help to facilitate visits from prisoners’ children.
The Ministry of Justice is working closely with the Department for Education to determine how we can do more to effectively identify these children and provide support for both them and for the parent in prison. The support will be informed by learnings from previous interventions and pilots, and engagement both with those with lived experience and organisations from the Voluntary, Charity and Social Enterprise sector.
Asked by: Lord Mott (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to identify and support the children of prisoners.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Government recently published the first official statistics to estimate the number of children affected by parental imprisonment using administrative government data. It is estimated that between 1 October 2021 and 1 October 2022 there were around 193,000 children with a parent in prison. We recognise the importance of being able to identify children with a parent in prison to make sure they receive the support they need, which is why our Family Support Workers help to re-establish family ties where appropriate, and help to facilitate visits from prisoners’ children.
The Ministry of Justice is working closely with the Department for Education to determine how we can do more to effectively identify these children and provide support for both them and for the parent in prison. The support will be informed by learnings from previous interventions and pilots, and engagement both with those with lived experience and organisations from the Voluntary, Charity and Social Enterprise sector.
Asked by: Lord Mott (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many farm visits the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has undertaken in an official capacity since his appointment on 5 July.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Secretary of State attended the Great Yorkshire Agriculture Show on 10 July 2024 and visited a farm and met with local farmers in Essex on 25 September 2024.