Andrea Leadsom

There is planned activity for over 23 projects in the Palace of Westminster during the Summer recess, and there will also be planned maintenance and reactive maintenance work. Many activities will continue in the Conference recess.

Teams will carry out surveys prior to and during the Summer and Conference recesses; surveys are required before any work can commence.

Surveys will range from visual checking of spaces (for example, identifying cable routes, or taking audits of equipment/assets) to more intrusive work, such as digging as part of ground investigations, or putting up scaffold to conduct a stonework survey.

Survey work for the recesses is still being finalised, and individual projects might identify the need for more surveys after work commences. For this reason, it would be difficult to put a figure on the number of surveys in the Palace over the Summer and Conference recesses, but it is likely to be over a hundred.

Under the Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Act 2019, it is for the Parliamentary Works Sponsor Body to task the Delivery Authority.

Following the meetings of the two Houses’ Commissions in February, the Sponsor Body provided the Delivery Authority with new instructions in the form of a Task Brief which embodies the relevant decisions of the Commissions. The Task Brief addressed: stopping or completing activities that were no longer relevant; continuing activities that would be relevant for any future programme of works; and continuing necessary corporate functions.

The Delivery Authority continues to undertake or has commenced other work including essential surveys and gathering of information about the condition of the Palace.

Work is continuing, at the direction of the Commissions, on preparing for changes to the Restoration and Renewal Programme. As noted in the Commissions’ joint statement of 18 March 2022, an independent panel of experts has been convened at the request of the Commissions to provide advice on changes to the sponsorship function and assurance on a new approach to the works. The panel’s work will inform the Commissions’ deliberations and the recommendations which they will propose to the two Houses on a revised mandate for the works and changes to the sponsorship function. This is currently planned to take place before the summer recess. Any changes will ultimately be a matter for the two Houses.

An R&R transition programme which brings together officials from the two Houses, the Sponsor Body and the Delivery Authority has been established to support the Commissions in their work.

The UK spends a huge sum on public procurement each year. Now that we have left the EU transition period, we aim to make it simpler, quicker and cheaper for SMEs and social enterprises to bid for government contracts, building on work that my Rt Hon Friend pursued at the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy including to support SMEs in our wider economy.

Further details of our approach are set out in our Procurement Green Paper.

We have already introduced a policy which will allow below threshold contracts to be reserved for smaller UK suppliers.

In addition, our new approach to social value will secure wider public benefit, by allowing us to contract with firms that deliver more apprenticeships, local growth opportunities and environmental benefits.

A lift is being installed in the Elizabeth Tower as part of the Elizabeth Tower refurbishment project. The majority of the lift infrastructure has now been installed and is currently being tested and commissioned by the contractor.

At present there is only a single spiral staircase with 334 steps. The lift is being installed into an existing ventilation shaft to improve safety and to help reduce the time it would take to evacuate a person from the Tower in the event of a medical emergency. The lift will also improve both security and access to the Great Clock for maintenance purposes.

The maximum size of the lift is constrained by the Tower’s original design. The restricted dimensions of the ventilation shaft mean that it is not possible to install a lift that is fully compliant with the relevant legislation. In the New Year teams from across the House will be evaluating how to improve disabled access to the Elizabeth Tower. This work will include exploring how visitors with different access requirements can find out more about the Elizabeth Tower and learn about its history. Making sure as many people as possible are able to learn about and visit the Tower is a key objective.

When energy suppliers install smart meters in a household, they are required to offer the customer an In-Home Display (IHD). They are also obligated to provide support for IHDs, including repair or replacement where necessary, within the first year of installation. The Government does not hold data on the number of households experiencing problems with IHDs.

Research shows the majority of smart metered consumers use IHDs as their primary method of monitoring energy use, and that this feedback is supporting consumers in managing their usage and reducing consumption.

Ofgem is responsible for regulating suppliers against their licence obligations.

The Government endorses the considerate use of fireworks. We recognise that people want to enjoy fireworks while reducing the risks and disturbances to individuals, animals, and property.

Existing legislation controls the sale, availability, and use of fireworks. The Government has no current plans to change the law, however, we continue to engage with a wide range of stakeholders, including animal welfare organisations such as the RSPCA, to listen to and understand their views.

Energy suppliers are delivering the Energy Bill Support Scheme (EBSS) to households with a domestic electricity contract in monthly instalments over six months from October. The Energy Prices Act 2022 includes provisions to require landlords and other intermediaries to pass this to end users. In addition, Alternative Funding will provide equivalent support for the small percentage of households who are not reached through the main EBSS fund. This includes those who do not have a direct relationship with an electricity supplier. Further details on this will be announced in the coming weeks.

The Government has announced an unprecedented package of support to help households with the cost of living crisis, including support of £400 for energy bills for those who do not have a domestic electricity meter or a direct relationship with an energy supplier, such as heat network consumers on a private wire system.

The Government is working with a range of organisations to finalise the details of the Alternative Funding and have the process up and running for applications this winter.

Households reliant on oil to heat their homes will receive the Alternative Fuel Payment (AFP).

Households eligible for these payments in Great Britain will receive £100 as a credit on their electricity bill this winter. Households who are eligible but do not have a relationship with an electricity supplier will receive the £100 via the AFP Alternative Fund. These payments will limit the average user's heating cost increase to a similar percentage to those using on grid gas.

Small businesses who have energy supply contracts with a fixed-rate (agreed on or after 1 April 2022 irrespective if the contract has commenced before 1st October 2022) or a standard variable rate will receive support through the government’s Energy Bill Relief Scheme. Charges for switching tariffs are a commercial matter between suppliers and their business customers.

We are making an unprecedented investment of £1.57 billion in the UK’s cultural sector through the Culture Recovery Fund. To date over £500 million of the Fund has been announced to organisations across England, a fifth of which has gone to the music sector. These funds will provide valuable support for live music venues and festivals to continue operating and stage activity.

We have held back £258 million from the Culture Recovery Fund to enable us to respond to the emerging public health picture, and provide additional support to the sector when needed throughout the rest of the financial year.

From 2 December, in Tier 1 and 2 areas, socially distanced indoor audiences are permitted provided capacity in a venue is maintained at maximum 50% capacity or 1000 people, whichever is lower. Outdoor events can take place in line with Covid secure guidance with a capacity limit of the lower of 50% or 4000 in Tier 1 and 50% or 2000 in Tier 2.

DCMS has established a Venues Steering Group and a sector-led sub-group on Outdoor Events and Festivals looking at how music venues and festivals can reopen safely. We are committed to continue working with music venues and festivals to understand the challenges they face and to enable events to take place in line with the latest regulations and guidance.

We continue to engage with stakeholders, including through the Tourism Industry Council and the Events Industry Senior Leaders Advisory Panel, to assess how we can best support the sector’s safe reopening. The business events pilots we carried out in September will ensure that the correct advice and guidance is put in place to help larger events reopen when it is safe to do so.

Officials at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy are continuing to engage with the wedding industry to understand the challenges being faced by wedding venues. These businesses are able to take advantage of a number of business support measures, such as government-backed loans and access to the extended Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.

We are aware that the events industry and its supply chain has been severely impacted by Covid-19 and ongoing restrictions.

Wedding fayre organisers and other events businesses can continue to make use of the broader support package available to them. This includes the Bounce Back Loans scheme, the Self-Employed Income Support Scheme and the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.

From November, the Jobs Support Scheme will provide further support to returning workers, while the extended Self-Employed Income Support Scheme will aid the self-employed who are currently actively trading but are facing reduced demand.

We are also offering affected businesses generous terms for the repayment of deferred taxes and government-backed loans, as well as extending the application window of the government-backed loan schemes.

Meetings of up to 30 can still take place in permitted venues, as per the Covid-19 Secure guidance for the visitor economy. Since 11 July, a range of outdoor events have been able to take place. As with all aspects of the Government’s response to Covid-19, our decisions have been and will continue to be based on scientific evidence and public health assessments.

The department is delivering several skills offers, such as Skills Bootcamps and Free Courses for Jobs, that can help upskill employed learners to access further opportunities. These are supported by an investment of £1.6 billion through the National Skills Fund across 2022 to 2025, which includes investment of up to £550 million to significantly expand Skills Bootcamps, and investment to expand the eligibility for delivery of the Free Courses for Jobs offer, which is now open to more adults.

Skills Bootcamps are free, flexible courses of up to 16 weeks, available to adults in England, including employed learners aged 60 and over, giving people the opportunity to build up sector-specific skills, with an offer of a job interview on completion.  There are now more than 900 Skills Bootcamps available across the country, offering training in digital, technical (including engineering and manufacturing), construction, logistics (HGV driving), and skills that support the green economy (including heat pump engineering, electric vehicle maintenance and repair, and zero carbon construction).

The department also funds Free Courses for Jobs offer of over 400 Level 3 qualifications in sector subject areas such as engineering, social care and accounting, for adults in England including employed learners aged 60 and over. Adults are eligible if they do not hold an existing full level 3 qualification, if they are unemployed, or if they earn under the National Living Wage.

Supporting pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) continues to be a priority for this government, and their wellbeing has been central to our response throughout the COVID-19 outbreak.

The department has not received any specific representations from headteachers, regarding their students being unable to access educational psychology assessments, due to educational professionals working from home, during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Educational specialists, including educational psychologists, have continued to provide services during the COVID-19 outbreak and we have been clear that children and young people with SEND should still be receiving the therapeutic and specialist interventions they need.

Schools should keep a record of all visitors with sufficient detail to support rapid contact tracing if required by NHS Test and Trace and those individuals will be expected to comply with the school’s arrangements for managing and minimising risk. This includes taking particular care to maintain distance from staff and pupils. Schools will also have the discretion to require face coverings for visitors where social distancing cannot be safely managed.

The local restriction tiers have introduced limits on people gathering indoors or outdoors. However, there are exceptions to enable people to meet, including for contact between parents and children where children do not live in the same household as both parents. Parents can, therefore, visit their children in residential provision such as children’s homes and residential schools that are registered as children’s homes.

It continues to be our aim that all pupils, in all year groups, remain in school full time. Returning to school full time has been vital for children’s education and for their wellbeing. Time out of school is detrimental for children’s cognitive and academic development, particularly for disadvantaged children. This impact can affect both current levels of education and children’s future ability to learn.

As set out in the Government’s COVID-19 Winter Plan, nurseries, schools and colleges should not change their Christmas holidays or close early this term. Parents should continue to send their children to school during term time. The leaders and staff of nurseries, schools and colleges have been doing an extraordinary job to remain open, keep settings safe and provide education.

Schools have implemented a range of protective measures to minimise risk of transmission. The risk to children themselves of becoming severely ill from COVID-19 is low and there are negative health impacts of being out of school. Senior clinicians, including the Chief Medical Officers of all four nations, still advise that school is the very best place for children to be.

If parents have concerns about their child attending school because they consider they or members of their household may have particular risk factors, they should discuss these with their school.

Schools continue to remain open for all children and young people as they have since the start of the autumn term. Being at school is vital for children’s education and their wellbeing. It continues to be the aim that all pupils, in all year groups, remain in school full-time.

The Department does not currently anticipate that children in Reception or any other year group will need to repeat a school year as a consequence of the COVID-19 outbreak. It is important for parents to remember that all children in any year group will be in the same position. Schools have planned carefully to take this into account in their teaching and support for pupils.

The Department has announced a package of support worth £1 billion to ensure that schools have the support they need to help pupils make up for lost teaching time in the last school year. This package of measures comprises a £650 million universal catch up premium for schools to help them make up for lost teaching time, and a new £350 million National Tutoring Programme for disadvantaged pupils.

Once a child has been admitted to a school, it is for the head teacher to decide how best to educate them. It remains possible for head teachers to agree for an individual child to retake a year, if they think it is appropriate.

As set out in our manifesto, we will introduce Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging (EPR) in 2024, which will move the full cost of dealing with packaging waste produced by households to the packaging producers (applying the 'polluter-pays principle'). This places responsibility on producers for the cost of managing their packaging once it reaches its end of life and will encourage businesses to reduce how much packaging they use, to design and use packaging that is easily recyclable, and encourage use of reusable and refillable packaging, as a large proportion of plastic packaging is single use.

Businesses may import birds of prey into Great Britain under The Import of, and Trade in, Animals and Animal Products (Miscellaneous Amendments) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020 (Statutory Instrument 2020/1462).

The Official Controls (Animals, Feed and Food, Plant Health etc.) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020 (Statutory Instrument 2020/1481) regulates official controls that are carried out on third country imports subject to sanitary and phytosanitary requirements, including birds of prey.

These regulations came into force on 1 January 2021.

Green jobs form a key element of the Government’s approach to our economic recovery, in which this department is closely involved. The Government’s Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution will support up to 250,000 jobs. As part of this, Defra will support thousands of nature jobs through the £80 million Green Recovery Challenge Fund; and deliver up to 20,000 jobs through our investment in flood defences to support 2,000 flood schemes across England.

We have now successfully negotiated a Free Trade Agreement with the EU and we will therefore not see tariff-based increases to food prices for consumers for agri-food imports from the EU which meet the Rules of Origin. Non-tariff measures could result in limited impacts. The factors which will continue to affect consumer food prices include agri-food import prices, domestic manufacturing costs and currency exchange rates.

This is an operational matter for Forestry England. Forestry England is making plans to restore the Tree Tops Walk at Salcey Forest once the financial impact of Covid-19 restrictions has been mitigated and subject to obtaining any necessary local planning consents.

Following the Prime Minister’s announcement of the cancellation of the second phase of HS2, my Department is working through the detailed implications of this decision on the London to West Midlands section of the railway, including an assessment of the scope of the railway. The proposal for a station at Silverstone will form part of that assessment.

On 4 October, the Prime Minister outlined plans for using funds released by the cancellation of the HS2 Phase 2a, HS2 Phase 2b Western Leg and HS2 East. Further details can be found in the published document “Network North: Transforming British Transport”. This includes a commitment to reallocate funding to deliver long-term settlements for 13 local authorities in the Midlands, including West Northamptonshire, which will help deliver a range of transport investments in these areas.

Government recently published a plan for drivers which included support for further Lane Rental schemes, which reduce roadworks by incentivising utilities to avoid the busiest roads at the busiest times helping to reduce inconvenience for residents. The Department is to consult on requiring local authorities with Lane Rental schemes to use at least 50% of any surplus on pothole repairs or resurfacing poor quality roads and encourages all local transport authorities to get a Lane Rental Scheme if they don’t already.

The efficient co-ordination of street and road works is one of the most important aspects of street works legislation. Section 60 of the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991 (NRSWA) sets a duty on utility companies to use their best endeavours to minimise inconvenience to residents when carrying out street works. In 2020 the Department launched the digital service Street Manager for highway authorities and utility companies within England to plan and manage street works. To further help utility companies fulfil their duty to co-operate in this process, a substantial update to the code of practice for coordination of street works was published earlier this year.

An update to the ‘Specification of the reinstatement of openings in highways’ (SROH) was also published in 2020, outlining the standards for reinstating streets after completing street works. Utility companies must reinstate the street once the work is finished, in-line with these standards. We introduced new regulations in April 2023 that introduced performance-based inspections of reinstatement to improve quality and compliance.

I have written a response to the Right Honourable Lady, the Member for South Northamptonshire, which she has now received, with an update on the matters raised during the visit to her constituency and in a subsequent communication from her.

The information requested is not held.