Clive Jones

As well as meeting our statutory obligations under CRaG, the Government will continue to provide additional information and time to support parliamentary scrutiny of FTAs. This includes running a call for evidence on proposed new negotiations, publishing negotiating objectives and publishing regular updates throughout negotiations. Following signature of a new FTA, the Government will publish the full treaty text along with an Impact Assessment and explanatory memorandum and allow a reasonable period of time for Parliament to consider the agreement before commencing the formal CRaG scrutiny period.

As recently outlined in the Chancellors budget, we intend to publish the Trade Strategy in the Spring.

The Government will protect our labour standards in new trade agreements. To date, we have secured chapters on labour in FTAs with Australia and New Zealand, and within CPTPP. The UK also has labour provisions in a range of other agreements.  We will continue to work internationally to strengthen workers’ rights and enhance labour standards globally.

The UK remains committed to eradicating forced labour in global supply chains, in line with Sustainable Development Goal 8.7, and commitments made through the G7. No company should have forced labour in its supply chains.

Trade deals like the UK-GCC FTA will be aligned with the trade and industrial strategies. This Government is committed to working with international partners to ensure global supply chains are free from human and labour rights abuses.

The Government will continue to fulfil commitments set out under the current scrutiny framework for free trade agreements (FTAs).

The Department does not hold this data.

Ofgem’s Standard Licence Condition 21B.8 explicitly states that “the licensee must not make a specific charge for the provision of a Bill or statement of account or for access in an appropriate way to the consumption data used to calculate that Bill or statement of account. This paragraph does not apply in respect of providing additional copies of a Bill or statement of account to a Customer.”

The Government is aware that not everyone can manage their account online and will continue to work with Ofgem and suppliers to understand where improvements are needed, and to ensure all consumers, including the elderly and vulnerable, receive the standard of service they deserve.

Our ambition is for all populated areas to have higher-quality standalone 5G by 2030, and 95% 4G geographic coverage by the end of 2025. We are committed to ensuring we have the right policy and regulatory framework to support investment and competition, alongside improving mobile connectivity for rail passengers.

Although I am conscious that reports of mobile coverage often do not accurately represent people’s lived experience and have written to Ofcom to urge them to review their reporting, they state that 98% of the Wokingham constituency area has 4G geographic coverage from all four mobile operators, and 93% of all roads have in-vehicle 4G coverage from all four operators. Also according to Ofcom, basic (non-standalone) 5G is available from at least one mobile operator outside 91% of premises. Ofcom does not currently publish data on 5G in-vehicle coverage, or coverage data for the rail network, but my own anecdotal experience suggests that 5G coverage along inter city routes is intermittent, poor and at times nonexistent.

The Shared Rural Network programme will improve mobile connectivity on an additional 16,000 kilometres of roads across the UK.

This government is committed to supporting the telecommunications industry.

We aim to deliver nationwide gigabit connectivity by 2030 and foster a competitive and business-friendly environment. Today, 85% of UK premises and over 90% of premises in Berkshire can access gigabit-capable networks. Our ambition is for all populated areas to have high-quality standalone 5G by 2030. We are committed to ensuring we have the right policy and regulatory framework to support investment and competition. We have invested £36 million to establish 5G Innovation Regions to drive adoption and investment.

Up to £100 million in funding is being provided for future telecoms technologies.

The government has supported Lonza’s plans to relocate and expand their Centre of Excellence for biologic molecules to Thames Valley Park, Berkshire. More broadly the government has published Invest 2035: the UK’s modern industrial strategy to drive long-term sustainable, inclusive and secure growth – securing investment into crucial sectors of the economy including life sciences. By ensuring the NHS works hand-in-hand with life sciences companies and research institutions, we will drive the development of new treatments and help grow our industries across every region of the UK.

Our creative industries showcase the best of our creativity and culture to the world and drive both regional and national growth. They employ over 2 million people, are worth over £124 billion to the UK economy and have seen GVA growth twice that of the national rate. We will ensure that the sector can continue to drive growth, boost opportunities and help people to fulfil their creative potential across the UK, including in Berkshire. Our support includes:

• almost doubling studio capacity through funding for the British Film Commission of £6million over four years, which includes support for Shinfield and Bray studios in Berkshire;
• expanding the global reach of independent content through the £28 million UK Global Screen Fund;
• the screen sector tax relief (for film, high-end TV, animation, children’s TV, and video games) which has supported over £9.5 million of production for over 1000 projects; and
• £13.4 million funding between 2022 and 2025 for the UK Games Fund to support independent video games studios and graduate talent.

We’re also supporting the next generation of indie films with the introduction of the Independent Film Tax Credit, which will allow eligible films to apply for tax reliefs of 53% on qualifying expenditure up to £15 million, creating jobs and growth.

Opportunities to drive growth exist across the whole of the UK and in places such as Berkshire, which has benefited from the £56 million Creative Industries Clusters programme. This funded the StoryFutures Cluster bringing together creative businesses and universities to provide a research platform to develop cutting edge technologies. We will be launching the next wave of the Clusters programme next year.

Finally, the British Film Institute has committed £34.2 million National Lottery funding over 2023-2026 for education and skills programmes. This includes £8.1 million to develop skills clusters, one of which has been set up in Berkshire, led by Resource Productions, the University of Reading, and Shinfield Studios.

Under the School Food Standards, schools must ensure milk is available to all pupils who want it during school hours. Section 512ZB (3) of the Education Act 1996 sets out the requirement that milk must be provided free of charge to pupils eligible for free school meals.

Compliance with the School Food Standards is mandatory for all maintained schools, academies and free schools. Governors have a responsibility to ensure compliance and should appropriately challenge the headteacher and senior leadership team to ensure the school is meeting its obligations.

This Government cares deeply about the cost of living and food security; therefore, it closely monitors factors impacting food prices. Defra modelling shows that consumer food prices are driven by farmgate prices, import prices, exchange rates, labour costs in food manufacturing and non-labour costs in food manufacturing.

We are working to reset our relationship with our European friends to strengthen ties and tackle barriers to boost UK-EU trade. We will seek to negotiate a veterinary/SPS agreement to boost trade and deliver benefits to businesses and consumers in the UK and the EU. We have been clear that we are ambitious to improve our trading relationship but we are not rejoining the single market or customs union, and we will not return to freedom of movement.

The Government recognises farmers’ concerns about imports produced using methods not permitted in the UK. We have been clear that we will use our Trade Strategy to promote the highest food production standards.

Data relating to farmers are regularly published. Agriculture in the UK 2023 was published in June 2024. Farming evidence packs have been recently updated including key statistics and farm performance Farming statistics evidence packs - GOV.UK. These set out an extensive range of data to provide an overview of agriculture in the UK, and the contribution of Direct Payments to farm incomes, including analysis by sector, location in England and type of land tenure.

We publish regular statistics on farm income, agricultural productivity and food production, including data earlier this year looking at how farm business income has changed since the start of the agricultural transition.

Monitoring the agricultural transition period in England, 2022/23 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

We will continue to carry out appropriate and timely assessments of our interventions to inform policy development.

Further information on the charge and the operating costs at Sevington will be made available in due course.

Operating costs for the Government-run Sevington border control post are designed to be recovered by the Common User Charge (CUC)

The Government will keep the CUC rates under review and will continue to consider the impact of the charge on businesses of all sizes across all sectors. Regular reviews will be undertaken to monitor levels of payment compliance and import flows through the short straits.

Further information on the charge and the operating costs at Sevington will be made available in due course.

Accessibility is a priority for this Government. In order to reduce pavement clutter and ensure that footways are accessible to everyone, there are requirements on telecom operators and other operators to share apparatus and to use underground lines where practicable. There are regulations in place to support this and the Cabinet Siting and Pole Siting Code of Practice 2016 also includes guidance on how telegraph poles should be sited to account for health and safety and access concerns.

The Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) requires public authorities to have due regard to certain equality considerations when making decisions on matters of this sort. This is to ensure that they consider how their policies, programmes, and services, including, for example, decisions on the siting of apparatus of this sort, will affect people with different protected characteristics. Public authorities are also required to monitor the impact of their decisions on those with protected characteristics.

Given the complex issues, my officials have worked closely with Network Rail to ensure a clear and helpful response, which I understand has been sent to the Hon. member today.

We have announced our intention to conduct a thorough review of the previous government's transport plans to ensure that our transport infrastructure portfolio drives economic growth and delivers value for money for taxpayers. Decisions about individual projects will be informed by the review process and confirmed in due course.

The Department for Transport contributes towards policy development on the UK Emissions Trading Scheme on transport related matters. Under the terms of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA), the UK Government and EU agreed to consider linking our respective carbon pricing schemes and to cooperate on carbon pricing.

The Government is considering its position on future rail investment in the context of our critical missions and the availability of public finances.

The Department does not hold data on the number of men who live in areas without universally accessible and fully National Health Service funded vasectomy services.

NHS vasectomy services in England are commissioned locally by integrated care boards. In most parts of the country, vasectomy is available free of charge from the NHS.

There is currently no national prostate cancer screening programme. This is because it is not recommended by the UK National Screening Committees (UK NSC) due to the inaccuracy of the current best test, called the Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA). A PSA-based screening programme could harm some men, as many would be diagnosed with a cancer that would not have caused them problems during their life. This would lead to additional tests and treatments which can also have harmful side effects, for instance sexual dysfunction and incontinence.

The UK NSC is carrying out an evidence review for prostate cancer screening, which includes different potential ways of screening the whole population from 40 years of age onwards, and targeted screening programmes aimed at groups of men identified as being at higher-than-average risk, such as those with a family history, carriers of the BRCA2 gene mutation, and based on ethnicity.

Prostate cancer patients are waiting too long for a diagnosis and treatment. We will improve cancer survival rates and hit all National Health Service cancer waiting time targets so no patient waits longer than they should.

We will find the best way to screen for prostate cancer. The Department is investing £16 million towards the Prostate Cancer UK-led TRANSFORM screening trial seeking to find ways to catch prostate cancer in men as early as possible.

Furthermore, we will support the NHS to transform diagnostic services by providing approximately £1.5 billion of capital funding in 2025/26 for new surgical hubs and diagnostic scanners, to build capacity for over 30,000 more procedures and 1.25 million diagnostic tests. £70 million will be invested on new radiotherapy machines, to improve cancer treatment.