Gary Streeter

Under the current system, local authorities are responsible for their borrowing and investment decisions as they are best able to understand local needs. Where an authority borrows from the Public Works Loan Board, they must satisfy themselves that all borrowing is affordable and is compliant with HM Treasury’s lending terms and conditions, which do not permit borrowing if the authority intends to make investments primarily for yield. The authority remains accountable to their electorate for individual investment decisions, including those for the purposes of regeneration.

Authorities may borrow without prior government consent, except for smaller authorities such as parish and town councils which require the government’s approval to borrow for capital purposes. The government reviews all applications before issuing approval. As part of this process, applicants must satisfy the Department’s assessment criteria, which includes providing evidence that the council has considered local support for the capital plans.

Under the current system, local authorities are responsible for their borrowing and investment decisions as they are best able to understand local needs. Where an authority borrows from the Public Works Loan Board, they must satisfy themselves that all borrowing is affordable and is compliant with HM Treasury’s lending terms and conditions, which do not permit borrowing if the authority intends to make investments primarily for yield. The authority remains accountable to their electorate for individual investment decisions, including those for the purposes of regeneration.

Authorities may borrow without prior government consent, except for smaller authorities such as parish and town councils which require the government’s approval to borrow for capital purposes. The government reviews all applications before issuing approval. As part of this process, applicants must satisfy the Department’s assessment criteria, which includes providing evidence that the council has considered local support for the capital plans.

The Government has commissioned several comparative assessments of nuclear energy technologies over the last decade, many of which have included consideration of Molten Salt technologies.

The outputs of these assessments were considered, alongside other evidence sources, in the development of the “Advanced modular reactors (AMRs): technical assessment” published in July 2021 as part of the decision on the technology choice for the Advanced Modular Reactor (AMR) Research, Development & Demonstration (RD&D) programme. This can be found here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/advanced-modular-reactors-amrs-technical-assessment.

Electricity network capacity and accommodating new connections are both the responsibility of the licensed electricity network companies overseen by Ofgem, as the independent energy regulator. Generation up to 3.68kW per phase may connect to the network without prior approval. For larger microgeneration projects a connection application would need to be made to the relevant distribution network operator (DNO). The DNO assesses the impact on its network and issues a connection offer, including any necessary network capacity requirements.

There are no plans to assess the potential effect of the fall in oil prices on the Renewable Heat Incentive. The number of heat pump accreditations onto the domestic Renewable Heat Incentive scheme had recovered to pre-Covid 19 volumes by December 2020, and the price of oil may rise again as the world economy recovers from the Covid 19 pandemic. The domestic Renewable Heat Incentive is due to close to new applications in March 2022.

The Government takes the role heat pumps can have in driving down carbon emissions very seriously and has set an ambitious target of 600,000 heat pump installations a year by 2028. BEIS are currently supporting heat pump deployment via both the Domestic and Non-Domestic Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI). As per November 2020 the total number of Non-Domestic RHI accredited applications for heat pump based installations was 2,500 and 62,492 in the Domestic RHI.

BEIS are also providing support via the Future Homes Standard, which will ensure that new homes are built zero carbon-ready without the need for costly retrofitting, a new market-based policy which puts industry at the heart of efforts to develop the heat pump market, our commitment to phase out the installation of high-carbon fossil-fuel heating off the gas grid through targeted regulation, and a range of other policies such as the Home Upgrade Grant and Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund. We are planning to publish consultations on the market mechanism and off-gas-grid regulations in due course, alongside the forthcoming Heat and Buildings Strategy.

As part of the £1.5 billion Green Homes Grant (GHG) scheme, the government will fund up to two-thirds of the cost of installing low-carbon heat (including air source, ground source and hybrid heat pumps) and energy efficiency measures in homes. Under the scheme, the government aims to retrofit 600,000 homes in England and to date, over 60,000 applications have been received.

The Government is committed to pan-regional partnerships, as part of our commitment to further devolution and level up the country. These non-statutory partnerships will need to operate at scale, driving greater levels of foreign investment into the UK, and capitalising on major economic opportunities over a pan-regional geography.

I am grateful to the Counties of Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, and Dorset for their proposals as presented in the Great South West prospectus and we will be setting out further detail through the Devolution White Paper.

We are considering a range of options to tackle the drain blockages and fatbergs caused by wet wipes and are working to assess the effects of wet wipes containing plastic on sewers to identify possible solutions. In general, we prefer to help people and companies make the right choice, rather than banning items outright. Alongside our upcoming consultation on single-use plastic items, we will be asking some questions about wet wipes to help us build our evidence base, inform our policy approach and take appropriate action.

The Defra guidance on making an environmental claim has been updated recently to include the Competition Markets Authority’s published guidance available here: Make an environmental claim for your product, service or organisation - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). This guidance aims to help businesses understand and comply with their existing obligations under consumer protection law when making any environmental claims.

We will continue to encourage the water industry and wet wipe manufacturers to work together to raise consumer awareness about the appropriate disposal of wet wipes and other non-flushable products, and to ensure that the labelling is clear. This will be crucial for generating meaningful behavioural change with consumers.

We are considering a range of options to tackle the drain blockages and fatbergs caused by wet wipes and are working to assess the effects of wet wipes containing plastic on sewers to identify possible solutions. In general, we prefer to help people and companies make the right choice, rather than banning items outright. Alongside our upcoming consultation on single-use plastic items, we will be asking some questions about wet wipes to help us build our evidence base, inform our policy approach and take appropriate action.

The Defra guidance on making an environmental claim has been updated recently to include the Competition Markets Authority’s published guidance available here: Make an environmental claim for your product, service or organisation - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). This guidance aims to help businesses understand and comply with their existing obligations under consumer protection law when making any environmental claims.

We will continue to encourage the water industry and wet wipe manufacturers to work together to raise consumer awareness about the appropriate disposal of wet wipes and other non-flushable products, and to ensure that the labelling is clear. This will be crucial for generating meaningful behavioural change with consumers.

We are considering a range of options to tackle the drain blockages and fatbergs caused by wet wipes and are working to assess the effects of wet wipes containing plastic on sewers to identify possible solutions. In general, we prefer to help people and companies make the right choice, rather than banning items outright. Alongside our upcoming consultation on single-use plastic items, we will be asking some questions about wet wipes to help us build our evidence base, inform our policy approach and take appropriate action.

The Defra guidance on making an environmental claim has been updated recently to include the Competition Markets Authority’s published guidance available here: Make an environmental claim for your product, service or organisation - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). This guidance aims to help businesses understand and comply with their existing obligations under consumer protection law when making any environmental claims.

We will continue to encourage the water industry and wet wipe manufacturers to work together to raise consumer awareness about the appropriate disposal of wet wipes and other non-flushable products, and to ensure that the labelling is clear. This will be crucial for generating meaningful behavioural change with consumers.

The Government is taking a number of steps to encourage and ensure public access to parks, and green spaces more generally, now and more so in the future, to enhance health and wellbeing.

Over the summer we worked with stakeholders to plan and problem solve the easing of restrictions and funded a bespoke multi-media campaign that encouraged access to the outdoors and in a safe and responsible manner. This period saw a significant rise in visitor numbers to green and blue spaces as well as to membership of outdoor activities’ organisations.

We are working to complete the England Coast Path and to support our network of National Trails, and intend to create a new National Trail across the North of England. We are ensuring that rights of way are recorded and protected, as well as developing ways to support access through the Environmental Land Management (ELM) scheme.

Highway England’s delivery plan to be published later this year will contain details of the schemes which will contribute to provision of a high quality dual carriageway link between the London and the South East and the South West.

NHS England and NHS Improvement’s data shows that to 3 November 2021 the average number of staff in National Health Service trusts absent due to sickness or self-isolation in the preceding week was 72,355 per day, of which 14,316 staff were absent for COVID-19 related reasons. This compares to a peak of over 155,000 absences per day in April 2020 and almost 100,000 absences per day in January 2021.

Prevention of ill-health remains a top priority. In July 2020, Environment Secretary George Eustice announced a £4.27 million investment for a cross-government project aimed at preventing and tackling mental ill health through green social prescribing.

The Government will continue its focus on health improvement and preventing ill-health, with support from the expert teams who currently sit in PHE, who will continue with their excellent work. We will be consulting with staff and engaging with an external stakeholder advisory group on where PHE’s health improvement functions would be best placed in order to support the public health system in our aim to increase healthy life expectancy.

The Government wants people to remain fit and active at all times. The Chief Medical Officer is clear that being physically active is important to long-term health and crucial for keeping people healthy during the ongoing pandemic. Evidence suggests that regular physical activity can promote good physical health and help manage stress and anxiety.

Throughout the pandemic, parks and outdoor green spaces have remained open. People are able to go outdoors for a walk, run, cycle or any other independent way they normally get active. The Government has published detailed guidance for members of the public on how they can exercise outdoors and for outdoor facilities on re-opening.

The discount is not intended to replace the deposit on a home but will make it significantly cheaper. We expect mortgage companies to be able to offer high loan-to-value mortgages on the discounted price of a First Home which, combined with the reduced cost of the home itself, could mean deposits are thousands of pounds cheaper than purchasing the same home on the open market.

We do not anticipate a lack of demand for First Homes - we are already receiving a very high level of interest in these homes since the launch of the first site in Bolsover, Derbyshire on 4 June.

However, our guidance for First Homes, published alongside the written ministerial statement on 24 May 2021, recommends that if a home remains unsold after a total of 6 months of marketing, despite making every reasonable effort to ensure the home is sold to a suitable person, the developer should be able to release the home onto the open market and pay the local authority a percentage of the sale price equal to the proposed percentage discount. This will ensure that home do not remain unsold long term, whilst also ensuring developers still make the contributions required of them under the conditions of their planning permission.

The Government is committed to delivering home ownership to more people including those who currently cannot access it. That's why on 17 October, the government announced a new Right to Shared Ownership for Housing Association tenants.

The Right to Shared Ownership will apply to all new rental homes delivered through Government grant funding where perpetuity provisions do not apply. A Right to Shared Ownership sale will result in Government subsidy being recycled to support the delivery of future affordable homes to help meet the need of future generations.

We highly value our hardworking prison staff and offer access to medical professionals and an employee assistance programme to ensure continued physical and mental wellbeing. There are currently no plans to review the retirement age of prison officers.

The level of violence in prisons is high and any assault against our hardworking prison staff is unacceptable. We are addressing this by giving all staff the tools and training they need to help reduce violence.

While violence fell in 2012, the year after the Hutton report, this steadily rose until 2019, but has now begin to level off – with a decrease by 15% in the last four quarters.

The causes of violence are complicated. The increase in the use of psychoactive substances in prisons since 2013 has been a significant factor in the previous increase in violence.

We have made significant investment to boost staff numbers and recruited more than 4,000 additional prison officers between October 2016 and December 2019. This has given us the capacity to implement the key worker role, allowing staff dedicated time to provide support to individual prisoners, helping us to deal with emerging threats and improve safety.

We work closely with the police and Crown Prosecution Service to bring those guilty of assaulting staff to justice. Additionally, as outlined in our Sentencing White Paper we will double the maximum sentence for assaulting an emergency worker from 12 months to two years.

We are also giving officers PAVA pepper spray and body-worn cameras to make their jobs safer and are spending £100 million to bolster prison security, clamping down on the weapons, drugs and mobile phones that fuel violence and crime behind bars. This will fund tough new measures including x-ray body scanners, baggage scanners and phone-blocking technology.