Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what steps his Department is taking to provide transition pathways for oil and gas workers.

Answered by Michael Shanks - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)

The Clean Energy Mission will create hundreds of thousands of jobs across the country. The UK has a highly skilled oil and gas workforce, with high transferability of skills to these new roles.

The Office for Clean Energy Jobs (OCEJ) has been created to ensure that clean energy jobs are abundant, high quality, paid fairly, and have favourable terms and good working conditions.

The OCEJ will also set out targeted interventions to support specific skills needs in the clean energy workforce. It recently announced support for the Energy Skills Passport to support oil and gas workers into new roles in the clean energy sector.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the Youth Guarantee on young people in Liverpool Walton constituency.

Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

In the Get Britain Working White Paper, the Government announced £45 million of funding for eight trailblazers in England to test delivery of the Youth Guarantee. Liverpool City Region are one of the eight areas set to receive a proportion of this funding to support 18-21 year olds access education, training and employment opportunities in their area.

Working closely on the detail of the design and delivery in the Liverpool City Region, we will be able to maximise the difference it makes to young people’s lives locally. Further analysis will be available through the course of the trailblazer.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the Get Britain Working White Paper on the services provided by Jobcentres in Liverpool Walton constituency.

Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The reforms to Jobcentres across Great Britain that we have announced in the recent Get Britain Working White Paper will be transformative.

Key to the White Paper’s successful delivery will be ensuring it is locally responsive and engaged. This will mean it will operate differently in different areas to reflect local systems and needs.

We will work closely with key partners, including Mayoral Combined Authorities, as we design, develop and test the new service into the next year. These tests will help us discover how we can shape a local service, while the UK Government maintains overall accountability for it.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to increase uptake of Pension Credit in winter 2024-25.

Answered by Emma Reynolds - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)

The Department’s campaign to promote Pension Credit has been running across Great Britain since September. The latest phase of the campaign, which launched on 8 November, is aimed at friends and family - especially adult children of eligible pensioners - asking them to tell people they know about Pension Credit, encourage them to check their eligibility, as well as help them make a claim. It is running on TV, radio, social media such as Facebook and Instagram, on YouTube and on advertising screens, including on GP and Post Office screens.

The Department’s ‘Invitation to Claim’ initiative was launched on 30 October. Since then, we have written to around 120,000 pensioner households across Great Britain who are in receipt of Housing Benefit but not Pension Credit. The letter and accompanying leaflet urge these households to claim Pension Credit by the 21 December, which is the latest date for making a successful backdated Pension Credit claim and qualify for a Winter Fuel Payment in winter 2024/25.

Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if she will have discussions with the Electoral Commission on the potential implications for (a) her and (b) the Commission's policies of Transparency International's position paper entitled Cheques and balances: Countering the influence of big money in UK politics, published in December 2024.

Answered by Rushanara Ali - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)

Effective regulation and enforcement of political finance are crucial for maintaining public trust in our electoral systems. The Government is committed to strengthening our democracy and upholding the integrity of elections and, as stated in our manifesto, we intend to strengthen the rules around donations to political parties to protect our democracy. My department is working closely with the Electoral Commission on developing proposals to give effect to this commitment. We are also seeking, and remaining open to, evidence from key stakeholders, particularly in relation to threats to our democracy.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate she has made of the number of young people out of (a) work, (b) education and (c) training in Liverpool Walton constituency.

Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

The department publishes national statistics on those not in education, employment or training (NEET) for England from the labour force survey for young people aged 16 to 24. However, these are only published at national and regional level due to limitations with sample sizes for lower-level geographies. Therefore, NEET rates for young people aged 16 to 24 cannot be provided for the area requested. The available statistics can be found at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/neet-statistics-annual-brief.

Local authorities are required to encourage, enable or assist young people’s participation in education or training and return management information for young people aged 16 and 17. This data shows that of the 10,372 young people aged 16 and 17-years-old who were known to Liverpool local authority around the end of 2022 (average of December 2022, January 2023 and February 2023), 885 were NEET or their activity was not known (530 known to be NEET and 355 young people whom the local authority could not confirm their activity). This data is published here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/neet-and-participation-local-authority-figures. These are not national statistics but published as transparency data so some caution should be taken if using these figures. Data is not available for Liverpool, Walton constituency.

In addition, 16 to 18 destination measures are published. These official statistics show the percentage of pupils not continuing to a sustained education, apprenticeship or employment destination in the year after completing 16 to 18 study, that is 6 months of continual activity. This can be used as a proxy for NEET at age 18. Data for Liverpool Walton is available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/55eab43f-7467-408e-90c8-08dd184e91f8. This shows that out of 357 pupils completing 16 to 18 study in the 2021/22 academic year in Liverpool Walton, 39 pupils were not recorded as having a sustained destination in the 2022/23, and 23 pupils did not have their activity captured.

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to the Government's consultation on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, published 17 December 2024, what assessment has she made of the potential impact on the UK's creative industries of the proposals included in that consultation.

Answered by Chris Bryant - Minister of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)

The government’s consultation on Copyright and AI, launched 17 December and closing 25 February, was published alongside an accompanying options assessment. One of the main reasons for the consultation is to gather further evidence on the potential impact on the creative industries of any change to the copyright regime in the context of AI training.

Following the consultation, if legislative changes are needed to bring clarity to the UK copyright regime, a full economic impact assessment will be undertaken.

Found: Watch the meeting Members present: Emily Thornberry (Chair); Aphra Brandreth; Dan Carden; Uma Kumaran

Found: Watch the meeting Members present: Emily Thornberry (Chair); Aphra Brandreth; Dan Carden; Uma Kumaran

Found: Watch the meeting Members present: Emily Thornberry (Chair); Aphra Brandreth; Dan Carden; Uma Kumaran

Found: Democratic Republic of Congo: Internally Displaced People 15 Jan 2024 | 8104 Asked by: Dan Carden

No description available

This inquiry will explore the extent and effectiveness of the UK’s soft power in what is an increasingly challenging global environment. The inquiry will consider the UK’s unique soft power strengths and ask how the UK might best measure and actualise the benefits it accrues from its soft power. This inquiry will also scrutinise the work of the Government’s new Soft Power Council and any subsequent strategy to strengthen UK soft power.

Submit Evidence (by 24 Feb 2025)

Misinformation and disinformation campaigns are increasingly weaponised by hostile state and non-state actors and this inquiry will seek to understand which actors are primarily responsible, and which channels and technologies are being used. It will seek to map motivations, sources and locations of the most pressing disinformation threats to democracy, and to understand the impact of artificial intelligence. The inquiry will examine how the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) can work with allies and multilateral organisations to combat the spread of disinformation that seeks to undermine democratic values and institutions. The inquiry will also ask how the Government can coordinate its counter-disinformation work across departments and best work with private organisations. This inquiry will take a regional approach by examining disinformation campaigns within Europe, the Americas, Indo-Pacific and Africa, to understand how the UK can better counter disinformation from malign actors.