Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee

The Government is committed to ensuring the smooth flow of trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Charging arrangements for Irish operators using the red lane are not currently in place, the new Government are looking into this matter and will provide an update in due course.

The right of self-determination applies to all peoples under international law, including those of the British Overseas Territories. The British Indian Ocean territory has no permanent population and has never been self-governing. The bilateral agreement reached between the UK and Mauritius on the exercise of sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago reflects this context and has absolutely no bearing on the wider UK government policy regarding our other Overseas Territories.

The Minister for the Overseas Territories has met with members of the Chagossian community twice since the election, including a number of Chagossians who live in the United Kingdom. Ministers and Officials will continue to regularly engage with members of the Chagossian community in the UK and internationally on a range of issues.

The National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA) will have a role in relation to non-devolved UK government infrastructure responsibilities in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. NISTA will engage closely with Devolved Administrations and bodies under their jurisdictions as appropriate, particularly on matters where the respective infrastructure policy responsibilities of the UK government and devolved administrations interact.

As announced by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury on 10 October NISTA will combine the functions of the National Infrastructure Commission and Infrastructure and Projects Authority. NISTA will drive effective delivery of infrastructure across the country.

VAT is a reserved tax and the VAT changes will apply uniformly across the UK. Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 is not engaged by this policy.

The Ministry of Justice publishes data on prosecutions and convictions at criminal courts in England and Wales in the Outcomes by Offences data tool, including under section 1 of the Terrorism Act 2006. They can be downloaded from the Criminal Justice Statistics landing page here: Criminal Justice Statistics, using HO offence code 06653.

The following table provides the number of prosecutions and convictions from 2015 to 30 June 2024 (latest available data) for ‘Publishing or causing another to publish a statement intending or recklessly encouraging terrorism’:

Source: Court Proceeding Database

Notes:

1. Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by the courts. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used.

2. These figures are presented on a principal offence basis - i.e. reporting information relating to the most serious offence that a defendant was dealt with for. When a defendant has been found guilty of two or more offences it is the offence for which the heaviest penalty is imposed. Where the same disposal is imposed for two or more offences, the offence selected is the offence for which the statutory maximum penalty is the most severe.

3. Offences dealt with at magistrates’ court and subsequently committed to the Crown Court for trial or sentence are counted separately at each stage of the process, based on the year in which they receive an outcome at each respective court. For example, an offence committed from the magistrates’ court in 2022 may not receive a final outcome at the Crown Court until a subsequent year, meaning the prosecution and conviction are counted separately in different years. As a result, the number of convictions (or other outcomes) in a given year may exceed the number of prosecutions. Similarly, an offence convicted in one year may be sentenced the following year, meaning that the number of sentences issued may not match the number of convictions in any given year.

4. Additionally, more offences can be added to the indictment at the Crown Court after committal, meaning the number of outcomes at Crown Court for a given offence could exceed those at magistrates' court. A defendant may also be dealt with for a different offence at the Crown Court than for which they were originally proceeded against at magistrates’ court. For example, an individual initially prosecuted for murder may be convicted at Crown Court for manslaughter. This could also result in the total outcomes for a given offence exceeding the original number of prosecutions.

5. It is not advised to use this data to calculate conviction rate (the number of convictions as a proportion of the number of prosecutions). This is due to the Court Proceedings Database counting two separate records at two separate stages (one for prosecution, one for conviction). We cannot track the defendant throughout their court journey and an individual may appear at each court in separate years, or for a different principal offence at different stages. As a result, this rate is not an accurate measure of the proportion of prosecutions that result in a conviction.

The Government is committed to taking all necessary steps to protect the UK internal market while implementing the Windsor Framework in good faith, including having regard to all aspects of the Northern Ireland economy.

Section 10(1)(b) refers to the Joint Report between the UK and EU negotiators of October 2017, which makes reference, among other things, to the all-island economy. The all-island economy is a fact and greatly to the benefit of businesses and people in Northern Ireland, as is Northern Ireland’s trade within the UK internal market.

The Government is committed to taking all necessary steps to protect the UK internal market while implementing the Windsor Framework in good faith, including having regard to all aspects of the Northern Ireland economy, and taking forward policies in the Safeguarding the Union Command paper.

The Government has no current plans to repeal section 10(1)(b) of the EU (Withdrawal) Act 2018.

As set out in the third written ministerial update on New Decade, New Approach, tabled by the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland on 26 April 2023, the previous Government concluded that there was no viable delivery route for the Homecoming programme that met key requirements of regularity, propriety, value for money and feasibility.

The Identity and Language (Northern Ireland) Act 2022 recognises Northern Ireland's rich diversity of identity and language, and benefits both Irish language speakers and those from the Ulster Scots and Ulster British tradition. The Government continues to work with the Executive on the implementation of the Act.