Brandon Lewis

The Government does not currently require departments to publish the average time taken to pay invoices to SMEs. However, departments do publish information on the overall percentage of invoices paid within 5 to 30 days. As of the end of the last financial year, 13 out of 16 departments were paying over 85% of all invoices within 5 days, and 14 of 16 departments were paying in excess of 95% of their invoices within 30 days.

The Procurement Bill currently progressing through the Commons contains a Clause (68) that will require all contracting authorities to publish specified information relating to invoice payments. It is intended that the average time taken to pay an invoice will be one of those specified pieces of information.

The Government is committed to providing full compensation to all those affected by the Horizon scandal.

Postmasters who paid shortfalls which were recorded in Horizon to the Post Office are paid those amounts back in their compensation claims, as well as any other financial and personal damage which they have suffered as a consequence of the IT system.

The full 2,417 postmasters who claimed through the original Horizon Shortfall Scheme have now all had offers of compensation. Offers have totalled over £107m and over £93 million has been paid out in this scheme, with Post Office now dealing with late applications and with those cases where the initial offer was not accepted.

Heat networks are a key technology for meeting our net zero target. The Government is developing the following through the Heat Network Transformation Programme:

• Accelerating deployment of low carbon technologies for new and existing heat networks through the Green Heat Network Fund, which was recently allocated an additional £485m to 2027/28
• Improving the performance of heat networks through £77m of funding for the Heat Networks Efficiency Scheme
• Introducing heat network zoning in England in 2025 to boost sector growth
• Building skills to encourage investment and jobs growth through the Heat Training Grant
• Introducing regulated consumer protections by 2025

HM Land Registry’s latest processing times are published on GOV.UK here.

Over 90% of information requests are delivered instantly via digital services, with the remainder within three days. The average waiting time for all other applications was two weeks in December, although more complex applications can take longer.

Customers can request fast-tracking at no extra cost if an application becomes urgent. HMLR processes over 1000 of these every day, with 95% completed within 10 working days.

No such assessment has been made. However, the Government remains committed to supporting business with the rise in energy costs through the Energy Bill Relief Scheme which will provide a price reduction to all eligible businesses and other non-domestic customers. The price reduction will run from October 2022 until March 2023.

From April 2023 the Energy Bills Discount Scheme will support UK businesses, charities and public sector with energy bills. The Scheme will provide a discount on high energy costs. Businesses in sectors with particularly high levels of energy use and trade intensity will receive a higher level of support.

Strike action by its very nature is disruptive to the economy. That is why it should always be a last resort and the Government always encourages unions and employers to seek a resolution of disputes before strike action takes place.

While the Government recognises the importance of the right to strike, we need to balance this against the need to protect the public and keep them safe. The Government is therefore reviewing our industrial relations legal framework to ensure that it gets this balance right. More details will be given in due course.

It is estimated that the Energy Bills Support Scheme Alternative Funding will provide support to around 900,000 households across the UK who do not qualify for the Energy Bills Support Scheme because they do not have a direct relationship with an energy supplier. Of these, it is estimated that up to 125,000 households may be in park homes. The Government has not made estimates of the figures for Great Yarmouth or Norfolk.

The Government has no current plans to change the statutory minimum requirements of the universal postal service which are set out in the Postal Services Act 2011.

Ofcom, the statutory regulator for postal services, conducted a user needs review in 2020 which included consultation with businesses and domestic consumers. It concluded that 97% of Small and Medium sized enterprises, and residential consumers combined felt that 5 days of letter delivery was sufficient for their needs.

Arts Council England (ACE), which distributes public funding at arm’s length from the Government, is committed to supporting arts and culture across the whole country, including coastal communities. To this end, ACE has recently announced the outcome of its 2023–26 Investment Programme, which will be investing £446 million each year in arts and culture across England. Organisations right across the country are facing challenges, and it is right that support from the taxpayer is fairly distributed. This funding will now support 990 organisations – a record number – across the whole of England and will give people across the country, including those in coastal communities, more opportunities to access high-quality culture on their doorstep.

ACE and DCMS jointly identified 109 Levelling Up for Culture Places – places which historically have had low investment in arts and culture or lower levels of participation – which will be targeted for additional Arts Council England investment. These places include a number of coastal communities such as the Isle of Wight, Great Yarmouth, Torbay, and Barrow-in-Furness.

Between 2020 and 2023, across all programmes Arts Council England has allocated almost £2.3 million of lottery and exchequer funding to Great Yarmouth – including support for The Seachange Trust. Arts Council England recently announced that The Seachange Trust in Great Yarmouth will now receive an increased level of funding, totalling over £1.7 million over the next three years as part of the 2023–26 Investment Programme.

DCMS has closely monitored the impact of the pandemic using a mix of external data sources, as well as commissioning independent assessments and forecasts. This includes analysis of regional-level differences as well as national impact.

VisitBritain calculated that, on a national level, the estimated combined loss to the UK economy in 2020 & 2021 was £147 billion, of which inbound loss was £50 billion and UK-wide domestic loss was £97 billion.

Identifying that tourism was one of the sectors of the economy hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic, the UK was one of the first countries to set out a post-Covid Tourism Recovery Plan in summer 2021 and to remove the barriers to both domestic and international visitors. The Department will continue to monitor impact as part of assessing progress against its objectives set out in the Tourism Recovery Plan.

The Department has recently completed the collection of data on the number of children who are electively home educated. This data is being prepared for publication in due course.

Data has been collected at Local Authority level and so data relating to individual constituencies is not held.

Financial education supports young people to manage their money well, make sound financial decisions, and know where to seek further information when needed.

Financial education is included in the National Curriculum at Key Stages 3 and 4 but can be taught by all schools at all Key Stages. Pupils should be taught the functions and uses of money, the importance of personal budgeting, money management, and managing financial risk. At secondary school, pupils should be educated on income and expenditure, credit and debt, insurance, savings and pensions, financial products and services, and the need to understand financial risk, including any emerging financial trends.

The mathematics curriculum includes an emphasis on the essential arithmetic that primary pupils should be taught. A grasp of mathematics underpins pupils’ ability to manage budgets and money. This includes, for example, using percentages. The secondary mathematics curriculum develops pupils’ understanding in relation to more complex personal finance issues, such as calculating loan repayments, interest rates, and compound interest.

In November 2021, the Money and Pensions Service published financial education guidance for primary and secondary schools in England to support head teachers. The guidance is available at: https://maps.org.uk/2021/11/11/financial-education-guidance-for-primary-and-secondary-schools-in-england/.

The Department and the Money and Pensions Service are planning a series of joint financial education webinars during this academic year. These are aimed at promoting the importance of financial education, improving pupils’ understanding, and improving teachers' confidence.

Coastal erosion is a longstanding process which is the natural way in which coasts evolve over time. There is no right to compensation for damage from flooding or coastal erosion since these are natural processes. The Coastal Erosion Assistance Grant (CEAG) provides £6,000 per property to assist local authorities with the demolition and removal costs associated with homes at imminent risk from coastal erosion. The Environment Agency administer the CEAG on behalf of Defra.

Our £5.2 billion programme includes £1.3bn in defences for the coast between April 2021 and March 2027. This is subject to ongoing discussions between Ministers and the EA regarding the revised programme.

It is not always sustainable or affordable to defend every part of our coastline in the face of a changing climate which is enhancing the coastal erosion process. This is why we have allocated £36m over 6 years, for the ‘Coastal Transition Accelerator Programme’ (CTAP) to support communities in coastal areas at significant risk of coastal erosion. This will explore approaches to enabling transition and adaptation in our changing climate. North Norfolk is part of this programme as they have proportionally the highest number of properties at risk from coastal erosion in England. Learning from this programme will help inform and prepare other coastal communities and risk management authorities for flooding and coastal change in the future.

As part of CTAP, local areas will be exploring the availability and role of financial products or services that can help people or businesses in communities most at risk of coastal erosion.

The majority of the Broadland rivers are tidal and are dredged for navigational purposes by the Broads Authority. For flood management purposes, any silt removed by dredging would be replaced by sea water on the next tidal cycle. This is unlikely to have significant impact on draining freshwater through the system and there would therefore only be a negligible impact on overall water levels.

To help communities adapt to the challenges of coastal erosion, the Government has made a record investment of £5.2 billion which includes defences for the coast where it is sustainable and affordable to defend the coastline. Around one in six of the projects in the £5.2 billion 2021-27 programme aims to better protect coastal communities.

In addition to the £5.2 billion flood and coastal defence programme, the Government is investing £200 million in the Flood and Coastal Resilience Innovation Programme (FCRIP) to support local places including coastal communities. This includes the £36 million coastal transition accelerators programme which will support communities in areas at significant risk of coastal erosion to transition and adapt to a changing climate.

The coastal transition accelerator programme will be a catalyst for strategic long-term planning, and test out innovative practical actions to support the coastal communities at risk from coastal erosion. East Riding of Yorkshire and North Norfolk have been identified as the areas to lead off the programme, as they have proportionally the highest number of properties at risk from coastal erosion in England and are facing the greatest challenges from erosion and loss of coastline. Their experience and their learning will be shared nationally.

East Suffolk Council is leading a project as part of the Government’s FCRIP. This £8 million Resilient Coasts Project will work with affected coastal communities in four core locations across the East Suffolk and Great Yarmouth frontage. This will enable the people, economies and environment of the Great Yarmouth and Suffolk coastal frontages to live and work with a climate resilient coast.

Local authorities have a wide range of powers under the Coastal Protection Act (1949) to carry out their role as coastal protection authorities and as coastal erosion risk management authorities, including powers to raise levies on those with an interest in land that will benefit from any coastal protection works. The Act also makes the Environment Agency a relevant authority for the coast protection along with coastal protection authorities. This means the Environment Agency has discretionary powers to direct an owner or occupier of land to undertake coast protection works where they have a historical obligation to maintain defences.

The Rt Hon Member's continued support to the Great Yarmouth Borough Council and Coast Parentship East helps to fully engage the local community and relevant landowners, as they take decisions and actions along this part of our coast.

To assess the economic impact of coastal erosion, Defra complies with the methodology used by government which is set out in the green book and is in line with the most advanced knowledge in the field. We are committed to maintain this high standard as new data becomes available and we are building evidence about climate change and sea level rise. Our methodology for appraising coastal erosion projects, for grant in aid, already includes benefits that come from extending the life of properties or any other asset at risk of being lost to the sea because of coastal erosion.

The Government is investing £5.2 billion over six years in flood and coastal erosion schemes to better protect communities across England. Around 1in 6 of the projects in the £5.2bn 2021-27 programme aim to better protect coastal communities.

Train operators are responsible for deciding how to ensure sufficient access to ticketing services at their stations, including at those in coastal towns or other popular tourist areas. Train operators have chosen to do this in different ways, or example, some operators have proposed to retain ticket offices at the largest stations, whereas others have proposed to provide new mobile equipment to station staff so that they can sell tickets as required.

Together with industry, we want to improve and modernise the passenger experience by moving staff out from ticket offices to provide more help and advice in customer focused roles. No currently staffed station will be unstaffed as a result of industry changes, and train operators will ensure staff are well located to meet passenger needs in future.

The A47 in East Anglia has and continues to receive significant investment as part of the first and second Road Investment Strategies. National Highways is finalising its route strategies that will inform the third Road Investment Strategy beyond 2025. Further investment along this corridor will be considered principally within the East of England route strategy. The route strategies for RIS3 will be published in early 2023.

The Department was made aware of a short-term supply issue with Creon 25000 gastro-resistant capsules, in September and November 2023. The supplier has since confirmed that it is back in stock, and we are not aware of any further issues with supply of Creon.

The Department has well-established processes for managing and mitigating medicine supply issues, which involve working with the pharmaceutical industry, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, NHS England, the devolved governments, and others operating in the supply chain to help ensure patients have access to the treatments they need.

Specialised dental services are in place to provide dental treatment in several settings including care homes. The frequency of dental checks will be determined by dentists on an individual basis.

NHS England is responsible for commissioning primary care dental services, including domiciliary care. Many of the dentistry commissioning functions undertaken by NHS England transferred to integrated care boards (ICBs) in April 2023. ICBs are responsible for meeting the needs of their local population by working with patient groups. Domiciliary care may be delivered by any dentist holding a contract to deliver general dental services or it may be specifically commissioned locally as an additional service. NHS England is working very closely with stakeholders, inclusive of the Care Quality Commission and Healthwatch England, to ensure that patients receive the appropriate care within the appropriate setting.

Patients in England are not registered with a National Health Service dental practice, although many of these practices do tend to see patients regularly. NHS dental practices are contracted to deliver activity and to deliver a course of treatment to an individual irrelevant of where they live, rather than to provide ongoing regular care. This means that there is no geographical restriction on which practice a patient may attend, allowing patients the choice of where they would like to receive a course of treatment.

The Department announced a package of improvements to the NHS dental system in July 2022 and detailed in ‘Our plan for patients’. These changes make it a legal requirement for dentists to update their information on the NHS website to improve information available to patients. The regulations came into effect in November 2022.

The latest NHS Dental Statistics for England show that 6.4 million children were seen by an NHS dentist in the 12 months up to 30 June 2023, an increase of 800,000 or 14% when compared to the previous year.

Dental practices are also being supported to adhere more closely to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidance on recall intervals which indicate that a healthy adult with good oral health need only see a dentist every two years and a child every year.

In circumstances where parents are unable to access an urgent dental appointment for their child directly through a NHS dental practice, they should contact NHS 111 for assistance.

NHS England publishes the Integrated Urgent Care Aggregate Data Collection monthly which is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/iucadc-new-from-april-2021/

This includes data on the number of callers to NHS 111 who were recommended to contact or speak to a dental practitioner. In June 2023, the latest data available, 85,593 callers to 111, 6.6% of all callers, were recommended to contact or speak to a dental practitioner.

No specific assessment has been made. However, NHS England asked dental practices to return to full delivery of contracted activity from July 2022, including in Great Yarmouth. In September, we announced ‘Our plan for patients’, which outlines how we will meet oral health needs and increase access to dental care, including in Great Yarmouth.

The plan includes improvements to ensure dentists are renumerated fairly for more complex work, allowing greater flexibility to reallocate resources and to utilise dentists with greater capacity to deliver National Health Service treatment, whilst enabling full use of the dental team. The plan also includes streamlining processes for overseas dentists and holding the local NHS to account for dentistry provision. In addition, Health Education England is also reforming dental education to improve the recruitment and retention of dental professionals.

From January 2023, a temporary new 45 per cent tax will be levied on extraordinary returns being realised from non-carbon electricity generators. It will raise around £14.2 billion over the scorecard, helping to fund support for households and businesses with their energy bills as well as vital public services.

The levy will only be applied to extraordinary returns defined as returns from selling electricity for a period at an average price of more than £75/MWh. This is approximately 1.5 times the average price of electricity over the last decade. The Government considers this to be a proportionate approach to recovering a share of the extraordinary profits certain electricity generators are receiving.

The enduring solution to this challenge is to stop the illegal, dangerous and unnecessary small boat crossings that are overwhelming our asylum system. Not only is every crossing attempt a potential tragedy, as we have seen far too often, but the people arriving via these small boats have travelled through, and have left, safe countries with fully functioning asylum systems to reach the UK.

We are taking a range of steps to reduce our dependency on hotels to support those already in the asylum system. All local authority areas in England, Scotland and Wales became an asylum dispersal area by default in April 2022. This is increasing the number of suitable properties that can be procured for destitute asylum seekers across the UK, ensuring a fair spread across the country and reducing our reliance on hotels. We also intend to bring forward a range of alternative sites, such as disused holiday parks, former student halls, and surplus military sites, to add thousands of places at half the cost of hotels.

The Home Office is tackling the asylum legacy caseload so that people can exit the system, either by returning to their home country, or granting them asylum so they can begin to make a contribution to the UK. The Home Office has already increased the number of its asylum caseworkers from 597 in 2019/20 to more than 1,000 today, and we are on course to add a further 500 caseworkers by March 2023. We are also improving the productivity of these decision-makers by re-engineering the caseworking process from top to bottom. This includes conducting more focused interviews and streamlining and digitising the caseworking process.

These reforms will speed up decision making, reduce the number of asylum seekers who are awaiting a decision and ease the pressure on local authorities by reducing our dependency on hotels and the number of asylum seekers accommodated in them.

The Minister for Immigration set out in his recent “Dear Colleague” letter we are committed to engaging in advance with Local Authorities when we need to set up a contingency accommodation

Our Providers work with a number of providers of accommodation and discussions in relation to the provision of accommodation, including price, would be commercially sensitive. We would therefore be unable to disclose the details of such discussions.

The Home Office has a statutory obligation to provide accommodation and other support to asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute while their application for asylum is being considered.

The significant increase in dangerous journeys across the Channel is placing unprecedented strain on our asylum system and it has made it necessary to continue to use hotels to accommodate some asylum seekers. The use of hotels is a short-term solution and we are working hard with local authorities to find appropriate accommodation.

Community cohesion is an important aspect of using sites successfully and we would like to work with the Council and relevant stakeholders to understand and act to your concerns as appropriate. I would advise that the next multi agency meeting is used to raise these concerns and we can understand how to work collaboratively in managing this situation.

The Home Office has a statutory obligation to provide accommodation and other support to asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute while their application for asylum is being considered.

The significant increase in dangerous journeys across the Channel is placing unprecedented strain on our asylum system and it has made it necessary to continue to use hotels to accommodate some asylum seekers. The use of hotels is a short-term solution and we are working hard with local authorities to find appropriate accommodation.

Community cohesion is an important aspect of using sites successfully and we would like to work with the Council and relevant stakeholders to understand and act to your concerns as appropriate. I would advise that the next multi agency meeting is used to raise these concerns and we can understand how to work collaboratively in managing this situation.

The Home Office has a statutory obligation to provide accommodation and other support to asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute while their application for asylum is being considered.

The significant increase in dangerous journeys across the Channel is placing unprecedented strain on our asylum system and it has made it necessary to continue to use hotels to accommodate some asylum seekers. The use of hotels is a short-term solution and we are working hard with local authorities to find appropriate accommodation.

Community cohesion is an important aspect of using sites successfully and we would like to work with the Council and relevant stakeholders to understand and act to your concerns as appropriate. I would advise that the next multi agency meeting is used to raise these concerns and we can understand how to work collaboratively in managing this situation.

Government is committed to delivering a devolution deal to every area which wants one by 2030 – because we know how transformative empowered local leadership can be.

We have been working closely with leaders in Norfolk since the signing of the £600 million Norfolk County Deal. I would like to take this opportunity to commend Council Leader Kay Mason Billig for her continued efforts to secure the best possible deal for Norfolk and its residents.

I refer my Rt. Hon. Friend to the answer I gave to Question UIN 114795 on 13 January 2023.

The Government strongly encourages the re-use of brownfield land. National policy already sets out that planning policies and decisions should make efficient use of land and give substantial weight to the value of using suitable brownfield land.

The Government has already introduced a range of policy and funding incentives to support the development of brownfield land and the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill will further empower local leaders to regenerate towns and cities by strengthening and adding to existing measures. For example, it will provide:

• the new Infrastructure Levy which will be set locally by local planning authorities. They will be able to set different Levy rates in different areas, for example lower rates on brownfield over greenfield to increase the potential for brownfield development. That will allow them to reflect national policy, which delivers our brownfield first pledge by giving substantial weight to the value of using brownfield land;
• local authorities with the power to fill vacant commercial property, such as shops, through high street rental auctions;
• a power for local authorities to be able to double the standard council tax rate on any home left empty for longer than a year, rather than two, encouraging more empty homes back into productive use.

Further to this, we have committed to launching a review to identify further measures that would prioritise the use of brownfield land.

Great Yarmouth is one of many places around the country that is benefitting from our mission to level up the UK. The Norfolk Devolution Deal, signed on 8 December, will provide £600 million over 30 years, allowing Norfolk to invest in its local residents’ and businesses’ priorities. Further to this, Great Yarmouth has received funding through the Levelling Up Parks Fund, the Towns Fund, and the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, which will help create new or refurbished green spaces where they are needed most in the area, catalyse wider investment to support regeneration, recovery, jobs, and growth, and identify the area’s own needs and capitalise on its strengths to build pride in places and improve life prospects.

Following the bid deadline on 2nd August, all bids submitted to the second round of the Levelling Up Fund are being assessed in line with our published guidance. I look forward to the Government announcing the successful bids before the end of the year.