Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 14 November 2024 to Question 13473 on London North Eastern Railway: WiFi, what period the most recent report covers; and whether that report is publicly available.
Answered by Mike Kane - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Office of Rail and Road publishes complaints data on a quarterly basis for all rail operators. London North Eastern Railway also undertakes its own research to understand and respond to passenger needs. The latest Office of Rail and Road passenger complaints data is available on its website at the following link:
https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/statistics/passenger-experience/passenger-rail-service-complaints
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, with reference to his Department's publication entitled Assuring a Responsible Future for AI, published on 6 November 2024, what assessment he has made of the role of legislation in driving the AI assurance market.
Answered by Feryal Clark - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
AI assurance supports organisations to demonstrate their compliance with existing – and future – standards and regulations. To complement the existing focus on proportionate, sector-specific regulation, the UK Government remains focused on its intention to introduce binding requirements on the handful of companies developing the most powerful AI systems, as announced in the King’s Speech. These proposals will build on the voluntary commitments already secured at the Seoul and Bletchley AI Safety Summits and build on the government’s ongoing commitment to ensure that the UK’s regulators have the expertise and resources to effectively regulate AI in each of their respective domains.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the Shared Rural Network.
Answered by Chris Bryant - Minister of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Shared Rural Network (SRN) has already delivered substantial improvements to outdoor 4G mobile coverage across the UK. 4G coverage from at least one mobile network operator has increased from 91% when the programme was agreed in March 2020 to 94.9% according to Ofcom coverage reporting. This progress includes upgrading and activating Emergency Services Network (ESN) masts which are delivering new 4G coverage in the harder to reach areas across Britain and building new masts in areas that currently have no signal at all to having coverage from all four mobile network operators.
Ofcom recently assessed that all four mobile network operators had met their 88% coverage obligation for completion of the partial not-spot programme. This part of the SRN targets areas where there is currently coverage from at least one but not all four mobile network operators.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, with reference to paragraph 4.94 of the Autumn Budget 2024, published on 30 October 2024, HC 295, how much he plans to spend over what time period on an extension of the Innovation Accelerators programme to continue to bolster high-potential innovation clusters in the Glasgow City Region, Greater Manchester and the West Midlands; and whether the programme will be extended to other places.
Answered by Feryal Clark - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Government will extend the Innovation Accelerators pilot for a year to continue to bolster high-potential innovation clusters in the Glasgow City Region, Greater Manchester and the West Midlands. We will announce further details on the allocation of the R&D budget in due course.
Any future extension of the programme to other places will be subject to decisions taken through the second phase of the Spending Review.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, with reference to paragraph 4.99 of the Autumn Budget 2024, published on 30 October 2024, HC 295, over what period will £80 million be invested in corporate services across Government; and whether this investment will be in (a) IT, (b) human resources and (c) training.
Answered by Feryal Clark - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The multi-year investment relates to the Matrix Shared Services Transformation programme, which plays an important part in driving a modern digital government, giving people a more satisfying experience and their time back in nine government departments. The £80m investment will take place in the year from April 25 to March 26 inclusive with the programme running through to FY27/28. The scope of the investment covers the implementation of a new system, the associated service transformation and the staff costs to prepare for and enact the changes for the first tranche of departments. With this investment we'll move closer to reaching our overall ambition - to transform shared services and technology to enable civil servants to focus on what they value most, serving the public.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, with reference to paragraph 4.94 of the Autumn Budget 2024, published on 30 October 2024, HC 295, by what process the figure of £37 million for the Made Smarter programme was arrived at; how many firms that figure is planned to cover; and what the expected return is.
Answered by Feryal Clark - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
We will announce further details on the allocation of the R&D budget in 2025/26 in due course. We will ensure we continue to build on the success of the Made Smarter Innovation Challenge, which has supported more than 400 organisations, of which over half are SMEs.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, with reference to paragraph 4.94 of the Autumn Budget 2024, published on 30 October 2024, HC 295, by what process the support for the commercialisation of university research will be allocated; and what the expected return is.
Answered by Feryal Clark - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
DSIT and UK Research and Innovation are designing a new process to allocate this funding. This will build on engagement earlier in the year with the university sector on how to design proof-of-concept funding. While the benefits realised will depend on the precise design, evaluations of existing UKRI programmes show strong benefits. For example, the Medical Research Council’s evaluation of their developmental pathway funding scheme found that spin-outs from those awarded funding raised on average £4 million, whereas most spin-outs from projects marginally rejected for funding raised very little, or nothing.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the answer of 4 November 2024 to Question 11881 on Research Finance, if her Department will publish a tabular summary of Capital DEL allocated in the Budget to research and development by Department for 2024-25.
Answered by Darren Jones - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
The departmental research and development (R&D) allocations for 2024-25 are set out in the table below. The numbers represent departmental plans as of Autumn Budget 2024, which reflect underspends identified through the Public Spending Audit 2024-25, including as a result of lower Horizon association costs than previously budgeted for.
In 2025-26, the government has allocated £20.4 billion for investment in R&D – more than ever before which reflects its focus on growth. This includes the protection of £6.1 billion for core research.
Department | 24-25 R&D (£m) |
DSIT | £ 12,500m* |
DHSC | £ 2,000m* |
MOD | £ 1,800m* |
DESNZ | £ 1,000m* |
DEFRA | £ 400m* |
SIA | £ 400m* |
FCDO | £ 500m* |
DBT | £ 300m* |
DfT | £ 300m* |
DCMS | £ 50m** |
DfE | £ 50m** |
HO | £ 30m** |
DWP | £ 40m** |
MHCLG | £ <10m |
FSA | £ <10m |
MOJ | £ <10m |
HMRC | £ <10m |
HMT | £ <10m |
TOTAL | £ 19,524m |
*rounded to nearest £100m
**rounded to nearest £10m
Individual departments have been rounded to reflect the possibility that allocations can change as a result of in-year inter-department budget transfers.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether she has made an assessment of the quality of wifi on London North Eastern Railway services; and if she will have discussions with that company on improving that wifi.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department is working closely with London North Eastern Railway (LNER) to ensure all aspects of onboard experience, including WiFi, meet customers’ expectations.
LNER reports on customer satisfaction to the Department every rail period and their most recent report indicates that Wifi is not a significant cause of customer dissatisfaction.
We remain open to new innovations which improve the provision of onboard Wi-Fi and LNER and NR are leading a project to improve Wi-Fi connectivity on the approach to Kings Cross.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 8 November 2024 to Question 12054 on Department for Business and Trade: Finance, whether the figures referenced are included in the £20.4 billion mentioned on page 65 of the Autumn Budget 2024, published on 30 October.
Answered by Tulip Siddiq - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
The £20.4bn referenced on page 65 of the Budget document refers to all departmental research and development budgets for 2025/2026.
This includes a research and development allocation for the Department for Business and Trade for 2025/2026 of £329m. This includes part of the over £2bn for the automotive sector and £975m for the aerospace sector announced over the next 5 years to 2029/2030 at Budget. The £520m announced for life sciences is not included in the overall figure as it is not research and development.
The overall allocations for the automotive and aerospace sectors in the Budget are multi-year commitments, with detail to be agreed through the second phase of the Spending Review. This multi-year allocation includes R&D and Capital funding.