Ben Everitt

Under the child safety duties in the Bill, services which are likely to be accessed by children will only be required to protect children from content and activity that meets the Bill’s definition of content that is harmful to children. This is content of a kind which presents a material risk of significant harm to an appreciable number of children in the UK. This would not include content that is designed to educate and inform children, such as content on sexual health and LGBT+ educational resources.

In addition, content will only meet the definition of pornographic content in the Bill if it is produced solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal. Part 5 of the Bill, which imposes restrictions for children in relation to pornographic content published or displayed by online providers, will not require providers to block children’s access to content where it is reasonable to assume that the content was created principally for educational reasons.

Online intermediaries are protected from liability for illegal content they host, unless it is flagged and not removed. These protections support digital innovation in the UK.

Recognising that technology is fundamental to how companies protect users, the Online Safety Bill will empower Ofcom to be able to require technology companies to use automated technology that identifies and tackles illegal content and protects children.

The regulatory framework set out in the Online Safety Bill is designed to ensure that regulatory expectations on services are reasonable and proportionate to the severity of the potential harm posed and the resources available to the service.

In 2018, the government published the Future Telecoms Infrastructure Review (FTIR), which set out our strategy to deliver nationwide gigabit-capable broadband. Central to this strategy is our desire to see a regulatory system which incentivises competition and investment in UK fixed telecoms. In this document, DCMS called for regulation that is limited to where it is necessary, and provides the longer-term stability and predictability that investors need.

We followed this with our 2019 Statement of Strategic Priorities for Ofcom. This document implemented the regulatory strategy we established in the FTIR, including through extending market review periods to at least five years.

In 2021, Ofcom published its Wholesale Fixed Telecoms Market Review (WFTMR) which set out Ofcom’s decisions for regulation of the fixed telecoms markets until 2026. The WFTMR makes explicit mention of the government’s desire for regulatory stability and certainty set out in the Statement of Strategic Priorities.

This approach is working; thanks to our stable regulatory environment, there are now over 80 companies investing over £35bn to connect premises all over the UK, and gigabit coverage has increased to over 70%, rising from just 6% in 2019.

My Department has been working closely with stakeholders within the private and public sector since the 2017 reforms to the Electronic Communications Code (“the Code”) came into effect to support their implementation and to understand their impact on this important sector.

We are keen to ensure that the Code is fully fit for purpose and intend to consult on whether further reforms are necessary to support investment in digital networks.

Public sector landlords play a critical role in facilitating the delivery of greater mobile connectivity. We are keen to ensure that the public sector leads by example and that public property is readily available for digital infrastructure deployment.

My Department’s Barrier Busting Task Force regularly engages with local authorities across the country to advise on the deployment of mobile infrastructure. This includes the publication of guidance, for example on access to assets and valuation, and working directly with councils to encourage greater collaboration with the mobile sector and develop understanding of the Electronic Communications Code, which underpins rights to install digital communications apparatus. My officials spoke with Buckinghamshire County Council in December last year, and are planning to meet with Milton Keynes Council in the near future.

In addition to our work with local authorities, both we and the Office of Government Property are continuing to engage with government departments and arm’s length bodies in order to provide them with training and guidance on access to public sector land.

I refer my hon. Friend, the Member for Milton Keynes North, to the answer of 12 February 2024 to Question 13186.

The department’s national kinship strategy, Championing Kinship Care, which was published in December 2023, has allocated £20 million in the next financial year to prioritise kinship care.

One of the commitments in Championing Kinship Care is to deliver a package of training and support that all kinship carers across England can access from this spring.

All training and information will be accessible via the supplier Kinship’s website, and the department currently has no plans to assess the merits of a centralised portal.

The government has set up two schemes to support those fleeing the war: the Ukraine Family Scheme and Homes for Ukraine. All children and young people arriving under the Ukraine Family Scheme and Homes for Ukraine have the right to access state education whilst in the UK. Attending school is vital in helping children integrate into the communities in which they are living.

Ukrainian parents will apply for a school place through the in-year admissions process. The department is working with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities on developing a welcome pack for Ukrainian migrants. This will include details of the education offer and guidance on navigating the education system. General advice on school admissions can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/schools-admissions.

Local authorities will work with families to enable all children to attend school in the local area as soon as possible, even if these places are not in the immediate vicinity of their accommodation. The department understands the challenge of finding suitable school places for new arrivals and will work with local authorities where helpful to make this as smooth as possible.

To support schools’ efforts, Oak National Academy have rolled out an auto-translate function across all 10,000 of its online lessons. This means Ukrainian children can access education in their native language.

The department has ensured Ukrainians have access, if they need it, to the same childcare entitlements, as well as university and college courses as a UK citizen.

Schools are responsible for ensuring that all their pupils, including refugees and migrants who have a first language other than English, develop the English language skills they need to access the curriculum and achieve their potential.

Ukrainians aged 19+ and their family members settled under the Ukraine Family Scheme and the Homes for Ukraine in the UK, can access training to gain the skills they need to move on with their lives. This includes provision funded through the adult education budget, including English for speakers of other languages, and Level 3 free courses for job offer.

The number of degree entrants in English higher education (HE) providers in the last 3 academic years are shown in the table below:

Level 6 and 7 apprenticeships starts for England, along with figures for those where there is a mandatory degree component required, are shown in the following table:

The table below provides an 'indicative' percentage of level 6 apprenticeships with mandatory degrees as a ratio of all HE entrants for first degrees.

The indicative percentage is based on the data in the above tables that are drawn from 2 different sources having different coverage. The percentages are therefore indicative rather than precise and are comparing domiciled workers doing apprenticeships with a degree component versus all domiciled and non-domiciled HE entrants doing their first degree in England only.

Notes:

1) The data sources are the Individualised Learner Record (ILR) for apprenticeship starts and Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) for degree entrants.

2) The HESA figures include all students entering English higher education institutions for academic year August to July each year.

3) Overall degree entrants exclude a minority of entrants who started degrees in further education and alternative providers.

4) Apprenticeship starts are counted for the full, final academic year August to July each year and include all funded and unfunded learners recorded on the ILR.

5) Apprenticeship volumes are rounded to the nearest ten starts.

6) Not all level 6 and level 7 apprenticeships have a mandatory degree element. Mandatory degrees can be included in apprenticeships at either level 6 or level 7.

7) Where a level 6 or 7 apprenticeship does not contain a mandatory degree element, an employer or training provider can choose to use a degree or other qualification voluntarily as part of an apprenticeship standard. This would not attract additional funding. These apprenticeships are therefore not recorded as an apprenticeship start that includes a degree component.

Between January 2019 to December 2019, there have been 13,796 level 7 apprenticeship starts reported to date in England, which was 3.7% of all starts in this period.

The attached table shows the number of level 7 starts, the number of all apprenticeship starts, and the proportion of level 7 starts per month. This is the latest monthly data available.

The Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE) is responsible for working with employer trailblazer groups to design and approve apprenticeships standards. This includes deciding which qualifications may be included in apprenticeship standards and whether those qualifications should be funded by government as part of the apprenticeship.

To ensure that high-quality apprenticeships are available to learners, the IfATE reviews standards on an ongoing basis. It is currently reviewing the level 7 Senior Leader standard, which may include a MBA qualification, to ensure that it meets the current policy intent and provides value for money.

The Government supports the Horticulture Industry with its Water Management Grant, under the Farming Investment Fund which offers grants of between £35,000-£500,000 towards capital items to improve farm productivity through more efficient use of water for irrigation, and to secure water supplies for crop irrigation by constructing on-farm reservoirs and adopting best practice irrigation application. It is open to arable and horticultural businesses growing, or intending to grow, irrigated food crops, ornamentals or forestry nurseries. We have launched two rounds of the scheme at a budget of £10 million each; £7 million of applications have been approved to date.

We recognise that many businesses have changed to peat free operations already. For those who are finding the transition difficult we will be exploring what support might be made available as we move to phasing out the use of peat by 2030.

The Government’s 2018 Resources & Waste Strategy for England identified textiles, which includes waste generated by the consumption of fast fashion, as a priority sector for action. Our ambitions to minimise textile waste will be outlined in the upcoming document Maximising Resources, Minimising Waste, which constitutes a new Waste Prevention Programme for England. We expect to publish this in summer 2023.

Businesses have been clear that adding glass to a deposit return scheme will add fundamental complexity for our pubs and restaurants, increase burdens on small businesses, whilst creating greater inconvenience for consumers. We recognise that some sectors are concerned about potential for material switching. However, there are many market forces acting in this space - predicting impacts is very hard. Importantly glass will be included in Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging where obligated producers will be responsible for the disposal costs of their packaging so there will be some balancing of incentives.

We are working on the recycling targets for each packaging material as part of work to finalise our plans for Extended Producer Responsibility. The individual recycling targets for each material will be set to achieve our environmental ambitions taking into account the specific issues and challenges associated with each material.

In England and Northern Ireland glass drinks bottles will remain in scope of the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for packaging scheme as will all other types of glass packaging placed on the market in all nations. EPR will place recycling targets on producers in relation to glass packaging and require relevant obligated producers to cover the costs of collecting and managing glass packaging arising in household waste and discarded in street bins managed by local authorities.

In our 2022 response to the 2021 EPR consultation the Government set out recycling targets for 2025 and 2030, including glass. These included glass drinks containers in England and Northern Ireland.