Marquess of Lothian

Operational and editorial decisions are independent of Government and are a matter for the BBC.

DCMS Ministers met the BBC on 22 March to discuss a range of issues, including latest developments regarding the BBC’s classical music strategy, announced on 7 March.

The BBC has today announced that it will suspend the proposal to close the BBC Singers, and will continue to engage with the Musicians' Union and the other BBC Unions about its proposals regarding the BBC's English Orchestras.

It is already illegal for taxi and Private Hire Vehicle drivers to refuse to carry an assistance dog or to charge their owner more for a journey. Local licensing authorities should ensure that drivers are aware of their duties, and that appropriate action, including prosecution, is taken where non-compliance is identified.

There is also already a legal duty for service providers to provide reasonable adjustments to disabled people so that they are not put at a significant disadvantage compared to non-disabled people, which may include allowing access for assistance dogs where animals would not normally be permitted.

The Office for Disability Issues has been facilitating the assistance dog sector to work together to look at access and supply issues, with a view to creating an accredited UK standard. This work is ongoing but if a standard can be achieved this should reduce the likelihood of access refusals.

Proscription is an important means of disrupting terrorist organisations in the UK. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) also known as The Islamic State of Iraq al-Sham (ISIS) was proscribed as a terrorist organization in the UK with effect from 20 June 2014.

Section 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000 provides that a person commits an offence if he, in a public place, wears an item of clothing or wears, carries or displays article in such a way or in such circumstances as to arouse reasonable suspicion that he is a member or supporter of a proscribed organisation. Flags would come within the definition of “article”. This is a summary only offence carrying a maximum of six months imprisonment or a fine.

To date there have been no prosecutions in England and Wales as a result of displaying a flag in such a way or in such circumstances as to arouse reasonable suspicion that the person displaying it is a member or supporter of ISIL. A black flag of the type associated with ISIL has featured in a number of prosecutions of individuals for more serious terrorist offences.

The G7 is a critical forum for the UK to engage like-minded partners on complex global challenges and for delivering on the interests of the British people on the global stage.

At the 2024 G7 Leaders Summit, The Prime Minister will be focused on strengthening our collective security, including by maintaining unwavering G7 resolve to support Ukraine in the face of Russia’s illegal invasion, and aligning responses to ongoing geopolitical challenges, including in the Middle East. We will also look to work closely with the G7 to strengthen our economic security.

The UK will also ensure that the G7 can play its part in ensuring an effective response to the defining global challenges, including migration, climate change, development and the risks posed by emerging critical technologies such as frontier Artificial Intelligence.

The Prime Minister spoke to Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on 5 December 2023. A readout is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pm-call-with-prime-minister-netanyahu-of-israel-5-december-2023.

As the Prime Minister’s Statement to the House of Commons on 22 May set out at the G7 Summit in Hiroshima, the UK: led the way in supporting Ukraine for as long as it takes; took action on economic security and resilience; stood united with allies on China’s generational challenge; championed sustainable development; and secured commitments to collaborate on the challenge of illegal migration.

My Rt Hon Friend the Prime Minister has committed to write to the Liaison Committee on this and other matters raised with him during his appearance. A copy of that letter will be placed in the Library of the House.

The Fast Stream is a talent pipeline for government departments and professions. It is only right we pause bringing in candidates as departments set out how they might achieve the government’s commitment to return the Civil Service to the size it was in 2016.

Whilst we pause the Fast Stream for the 2023 intake, we will take the opportunity to further improve the Fast Stream offer. This reform will ensure that when the scheme reopens, it is focused on driving up specialist skills in the Civil Service, as well as improving the regional representation of the Fast Stream.

Information provided by departments to the Cabinet Office shows that as of 1st April 2021, 890 Senior Civil Servants were reported to have been successful in the central Fast Stream selection process. This represents 20% of all Senior Civil Servants (as a percentage of all members where information has been reported by the department as known).

We are monitoring the situation in Israel and Gaza very closely. All export licences are assessed against the Strategic Export Licensing Criteria and are kept under careful and continual review as standard.

As part of the Government’s robust arms export control regime we periodically review advice on Israel’s capability and overall commitment to comply with International Humanitarian Law, which includes a range of evidence. Ministers act in accordance with that advice.

In 2021/22, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) concluded over 2,800 minimum wage investigations and returned more than £16.3m in arrears to over 120,000 workers. HMRC issued 696 fines totalling £13.2m to businesses who had failed to pay the minimum wage. Where there has been an underpayment, HMRC will instruct the employer to pay workers the arrears owed, and a penalty of up to 200% of arrears.

HMRC’s Promote team issued 7.8 million advisory notices to workers, employers, and their agents increasing awareness of the rules. Since 2015, the Government has ordered employers to repay over £100 million to over 1 million workers.

The Government has not assessed this review, however, its findings are consistent with the existing scientific literature and conclusions of the Sixth Assessment Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This stated that the Arctic will likely be practically ice-free at least once before 2050 with more frequent occurrences under higher warming scenarios. The IPCC concluded that it is virtually certain the Arctic will continue to warm at least two times faster than the rest of the globe. Arctic sea ice retreat has and will lead to a range of impacts, including loss in biodiversity and coastal erosion.

On 12 December Minister Stuart returned to the UK to attend Parliament in his role as an MP. There continued to be full UK representation at the summit throughout, with my noble Friend Lord Benyon representing the UK at Ministerial level alongside UK officials.

Minister Stuart continued to be the lead UK Minister for negotiations and remained in constant contact with the UK Lead Climate Negotiator and my noble Friend Lord Benyon, with any final decisions agreed with him. Minister Stuart returned on 13 December for the final day of negotiations and attended the closing plenary.

Ministers across Government regularly meet with Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, John Kerry to discuss a range of climate change, energy and environment-related issues, including policy related to COP28.

The Foreign Secretary’s Special Representative for Climate Change finished in the role on 31 March 2023.

There are no plans to appoint a climate envoy. The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero leads on international climate change for the UK. The Minister of State for Energy Security and Net Zero represented the UK at the COP28 negotiations as Ministerial Head of Delegation.

The UK is driving global climate ambition through its leadership in the UNFCCC process, multilateral forums such as the G7 and G20, and through international climate finance commitments and diplomatic networks. The Government is committed to spending £11.6 billion on international climate finance and is delivering on that pledge.

COP28 will involve the first ever Global Stocktake of progress against the Paris Agreement. It must galvanise a step change in action and ambition from all involved.

The Government takes the issue of information threats to national security seriously, including the risk posed by state-sponsored disinformation to democracy. It recognises that some foreign states attempt to manipulate information online to undermine the UK’s interests and weaken the integrity of our democratic institutions. The UK has a strong record of working closely with a wide range of different partners to tackle these risks.

For example, our Defending Democracy Taskforce works to protect the democratic integrity of the UK from threats of foreign interference, by engaging across government and with Parliament, the UK’s intelligence community, the devolved administrations, local authorities, the private sector, and civil society.

More broadly, the Online Safety Act will address a range of online manipulation tactics which pose a threat to UK democratic integrity. The Foreign Interference Offence has been added as a priority offence in the Act and will require companies to take action against a wide range of state-sponsored disinformation and state-linked interference targeted at the UK. Platforms will be required to take steps to remove content which amounts to foreign interference - including where it is produced by AI bots - if they become aware of it on their services.

Finally, we are working in collaboration with international partners to tackle this shared challenge. The UK recently issued a joint statement alongside the US and Canada on our coordinated efforts to counter foreign state information manipulation and is engaging internationally to manage risks on AI-enabled foreign interference, including disinformation. Government is also working to increase cooperation between like-minded international partners and the tech industry to safeguard forthcoming elections from state manipulation, including through the AI Summit.

The Government recognises the challenges that digitally manipulated media and faked images can pose and the Government’s legislative response has been designed to tackle the most egregious forms of this content.

This content will fall in scope of the Online Safety Act where it constitutes illegal content, including illegal misinformation or disinformation, or content which is harmful to children. Where companies become aware of illegal content in scope of the Act, they will need to take steps to remove it. For example, the False Communications Offence, which commenced on 31 January 2024, captures manipulated and faked images where the sender of such content is aware it is untrue and intends to cause non-trivial psychological or physical harm to the recipient. The Foreign Interference Offence has also been added as a priority offence in the Act, forcing companies to remove a wide range of state-sponsored disinformation, including manipulated media and faked images.

The Online Safety Act has also introduced new intimate image abuse offences, which commenced on 31 January. These now mean it is illegal to share without consent or threaten to share intimate images, including AI created or manipulated intimate images.

The Government is committed to closing the digital divide and meeting the commitment that nobody should be left behind in the digital age. The Government is working to remove barriers and ensure that online services are as inclusive as possible by making public sector websites accessible to as many people as possible.

The accessibility regulations ensure that websites and mobile apps are designed to be perceivable, operable, understandable and robust. Furthermore, assisted digital support services aim to increase digital inclusion for those online users who lack digital confidence, digital skills or access to the internet.

The Government also understands the impact of poorly designed apps and websites, which do not take people with disabilities into account. That is why the Cabinet Office’s Central Digital and Data Office regularly monitors compliance with the regulations for the accessibility of public sector websites.

Training is available for elderly people wishing to acquire essential digital skills. The Government has introduced a digital entitlement for adults with no or low digital skills to undertake specified digital qualifications, up to level 1, free of charge. Essential Digital Skills Qualifications (EDSQs), introduced alongside the digital entitlement, are based on new national standards which set out the digital skills people need to get on in life and work. We also support the provision of essential digital skills training in community settings through the Adult Education Budget.

We also recognise that ongoing support is essential to overcome barriers of access. Through DCMS, our network of 2,900 public libraries across England provide a trusted network of accessible locations with staff, volunteers, free wifi, public PCs, and assisted digital access to a wide range of digital services. Charities such as Age UK and AbilityNet play an important role in assisting people with access to technology and the internet. The Government welcomes Age UK’s continued efforts to bridge the digital divide, especially with regards to the vulnerable and elderly.

The 2014 Digital Inclusion Strategy, and the four pillars it sets out, remains as relevant today as it was when published. These principles were further echoed in the Government’s UK Digital Strategy published in 2022, and our vision to enable everyone from across the UK to benefit from all that digital innovation can offer.

The Department has noted the recommendations made in the House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee’s report on digital exclusion and cost of living and will formally respond this month.

The Government is moving forward with discussions on the UK’s involvement in Horizon Europe and hope these will be successful. That is the UK’s preference. While the Government hopes negotiations will be successful, participation must work for UK researchers, businesses and taxpayers.

Talks are ongoing and therefore a deal has not yet been agreed. A deadline for these talks has not been set but to provide the industry with certainty, the UK must come to a resolution as quickly as possible. The Government has set out Pioneer, the UK’s bold alternative, which we are ready to implement if association cannot be secured.

The Online Safety Bill includes strong safeguards for users’ privacy and does not require, or allow Ofcom to require, the routine scanning of all private messages.

However, as a last resort and when there is no alternative measure that would be equally effective, Ofcom can require platforms to use highly accurate technology to identify and remove illegal Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (CSEA) content only. Where no suitable technology is available, Ofcom can require a platform to use their best endeavours to develop or source new technology to tackle CSEA instead.

The UK stands ready to formalise our association to Horizon Europe at the earliest opportunity. The Government continues to do everything it can to complete this process swiftly, but disappointingly there have been persistent delays from the EU.

In order to provide reassurance to the sector, the UK Government has guaranteed funding for the first and second waves of eligible successful applicants to Horizon Europe who expect to sign agreements by December 2022 and who have been unable to sign grant agreements with the EU. If the UK is unable to associate to Horizon Europe, we will be ready to introduce a comprehensive alternative programme of international science, research and innovation collaborations.

I refer my noble Friend to the reply given by my hon. Friend the Minister for Science, Research and Innovation to the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central on 27 April 2022 to Question 156445.

Royal Mail is aware of the theft of post boxes in parts of East Anglia and is working closely with law enforcement agencies and deploying preventative measures to deter theft.

The Government is not involved in the replacement of post boxes which is an operational matter for Royal Mail.

The UK is always seeking to discuss issues with our international partners where appropriate opportunities arise. This is no exception and there is a strong international community involved in monitoring and discussing the risk around the Thwaites Glacier.

In 2018, the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) funded the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration, a five-year £20million Antarctic research programme and the largest joint project undertaken by the two nations in Antarctica for more than 70 years. This project is aimed at collecting instrument data throughout the glacier and the adjacent ocean, and modelling ice flow and the future of the ice sheet. The collaboration involves around 100 scientists from world-leading research institutes in both the US and UK alongside researchers from South Korea, Germany, Sweden, New Zealand and Finland, who will contribute to the various projects.

The changes that may occur in the vicinity of the grounding line of the Thwaites Glacier in the next decade will not, of themselves, result in a significant change in global sea level. While some computer models predict that such changes may lead to a wider loss of ice to the ocean, these are processes occurring on century timescales. For this reason, the NERC and BAS priority at present is to continue to monitor the Thwaites Glacier with satellite and ground observations, as they are presently undertaking in collaboration with the US.

The Government actively monitors the UK labour market. The latest ONS statistics suggest that, between March and May 2021, there were 758,000 vacancies in the economy, only 27,000 below the pre-pandemic level.

We are actively supporting the hospitality sector on its road to recovery. We are offering generous incentives to employers to recruit staff, with hundreds of young people starting work every day through the Kickstart Scheme. We are providing employers with a hiring incentive for each new apprentice they hire and have increased the payment to £3,000 for each newly hired apprentice of any age, helping more people to kick start or upskill their career across a broad range of industries. We are also investing £126 million in additional support to help create 40,000 more traineeships in England, funding high-quality work placements and training for 16-24-year olds in 2021-22.

The digital transformation is driving rises in the number of tech and digital jobs advertised, providing an opportunity to get people into good quality work. According to Adzuna estimates, there were 132,000 tech job vacancies in the UK in May, making up 12% of all open vacancies. There are nearly three million jobs in the digital tech economy, more than either Construction (1.9m) or Financial Services (1.2m) and the sector accounts for 9% of the UK’s workforce.

The 10 Tech Priorities, launched by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) in March, includes ‘’building a tech savvy nation’’. Our apprenticeships and digital bootcamps will help set people up for highly skilled, highly paid roles of the future.

Encouraging many more skilled people to enter digital roles is vital if the UK is to have the digital skills it requires. In order to coordinate industry support for the teaching of computing in English schools, DCMS created the Digital Skills Partnership Schools group. In order to raise the awareness of interesting digital roles and routes into them, the Digital Skills Partnership Schools Group is working with industry to test how best to do this. The pilot, funded by DCMS, is being run by the South West Local Digital Skills Partnership.