Greg Smith

Almost 93% of the UK benefits from good quality 4G coverage from at least one mobile network operator, but we know more needs to be done in rural areas.

Our £1bn Shared Rural Network agreement with industry, will increase coverage to 95% by the end of 2025, supporting rural businesses and communities.

Ofcom is also looking at the accuracy of coverage reporting to ensure it better reflects people’s experiences over coverage.

The Government has invested £4.12m in the National Space Propulsion Test Facility to support innovation in small satellite propulsion technologies; building on significant existing facilities and expertise at Westcott, Buckinghamshire. This facility will enable leading edge research and promote the development of an innovation community across the UK around space propulsion that stimulates R&D, facilitates the transfer of ideas between the research community and industry, and develops a pool of skilled people appropriate to the future needs of the industry and the sector. The facility can then enable UK Space companies to maintain and grow their competitive edge internationally through a world-leading facility that is attractive to foreign direct investment and one that will also allow universities to take on cutting-edge propulsion research topics. This environment will promote effective work between the research community and the commercial sector which will accelerate: innovation, knowledge exchange and commercial exploitation of propulsion and engineering research. These steps to support innovation will also help develop sovereign small satellite launch capability and the participation in international launcher R&D programmes.

The Government believes that the Space Sector offers opportunities to drive economic growth across the country.

In order to better understand the pipeline of space research, development & innovation infrastructure proposals, which could be funded through a number of routes, the UK Space Agency has initiated a space infrastructure road mapping exercise and has been in touch with Buckinghamshire Local Enterprise Partnership to seek further details of this proposal for a Disruptive Innovation in Space Centre.

We wish to see growth of our world class space sector benefitting the whole of the UK. The UK Space Agency, working with partners including the Satellite Applications Catapult, is currently supporting three Centres of Excellence in Satellite Applications (in the North East, South West and the South Coast of England). In November 2020 we announced £0.5m funding to support the development of new space hubs, bringing together local partners, expertise and businesses to create strategies for how their area can take maximum advantage of the commercial space race and align the space sector within their local industrial strategies.

We have also provided Buckinghamshire Local Enterprise Partnership with £7.7m from the Getting Building Fund, of which I understand they intend to invest £2m into the initial phase of their Westcott Disruptive Innovation Space Centre. In addition, specific work is currently being funded by the UK Space Agency to bring together the significant space interests across the Oxford to Cambridge Arc – including the exciting developments at Westcott - and to put together an action plan for the development of the Arc Space Sector.

Through the UK Space Agency, the Government continues to invest in supporting research & development. Increasingly, this is aimed at fostering innovation in the manufacture of small satellites and associated ground systems to support this growing market. Initiatives are underway to support Earth observation, satellite telecommunications, exploration and science, ranging from providing low cost access to space to enable a wider range of small and medium enterprises and academia to use space, to setting up a commercial lunar data relay service using small satellites.

The UK Space Agency has also supported UK small satellite manufacturers and their UK supply chains to industrialise production of their satellites to meet an increase in demand and exploit emerging technologies.

It is clear, there is growing interest in the Hydrogen sector and we are in regular discussions with businesses about their investment plans for hydrogen projects. The Government is currently investing up to £121 million in hydrogen innovation, supporting a range of projects exploring the potential of low carbon hydrogen across the value chain. Alongside our innovation activity, we are developing sustainable business models to support hydrogen production and will be engaging with Industry on the £100m Low Carbon Hydrogen Fund later this year. We are undertaking extensive stakeholder engagement as we develop new policy to help bring forward the technologies and supply chains, we will need to grow the UK hydrogen economy. As part of this we are looking to formalise regular engagement between Government and industry to discuss and drive development of the UK hydrogen economy. This will consider how we can best work together to encourage increased private sector investment in hydrogen projects, growing the hydrogen supply chain and providing clean growth and new jobs across the UK.

The Government welcomes the moves of the motorsport sector, including Formula 1, to develop, and make widely available, more advanced sustainable fuels. Formula 1 and the British motorsport industry has a great history of technological innovations which can have an enormous impact beyond the racetrack. Motorsport’s work to develop 100% sustainable fuels stands to benefit the global transport sector, and help our drive towards net zero.

The Government recognises the impact that sport and physical activity has on physical and mental health, and the importance of welfare and wellbeing for everyone participating in sport at all levels.

The Government's role in the support of bidding for and hosting major sporting events is set out in the Gold Framework. The Gratitude Games do not meet the criteria as set out in the Gold Framework and therefore would not be within scope for support. We encourage all organisations to continue to work together to support mental health through sport and physical activity.

The Government recognises the impact that sport and physical activity has on physical and mental health, and the importance of welfare and wellbeing for everyone participating in sport at all levels.

The Government's role in the support of bidding for and hosting major sporting events is set out in the Gold Framework. The Gratitude Games do not meet the criteria as set out in the Gold Framework and therefore would not be within scope for support. We encourage all organisations to continue to work together to support mental health through sport and physical activity.

In light of the changing needs of young people and due to the pandemic, DCMS reviewed its programmes and funding for out-of-school provision to ensure it achieves maximum impact and levelling up opportunities. As a result, at the 2021 Spending Review, the government decided that DCMS should continue to focus on domestic youth provision through a National Youth Guarantee for young people and DfE will continue to offer the Turing Scheme, an international educational exchange scheme that has a genuinely global reach and increases social mobility.

The Turing scheme is backed by £110 million, providing funding for over 41,000 overseas placements for students in universities, colleges and schools, starting in September 2021.

48% of the overseas placements receiving Turing Scheme funding are for participants from disadvantaged backgrounds and areas which did not previously have many students benefiting from Erasmus+, making life-changing opportunities accessible to everyone across the country. The second year of the Turing Scheme will open for applications shortly, at which point youth organisations will be able to review the eligibility criteria when considering applying for funding.

The government is focused on improving digital infrastructure and connectivity in rural areas, with our £5bn Project Gigabit and £1bn Shared Rural Network. As such, the government recently announced more details about our procurement pipeline, specifically, for the 2.2 million hard to reach premises in England in Phases 1 and 2 of the delivery plan.

Alongside Project Gigabit and the Shared Rural Network, we are continuing with our strategy to reduce barriers and to promote competition and investment.

The data on requests and issuing of education, health and care plans (EHCPs) are not collected by parliamentary constituency, or by who the requestor is for the plan. The answer provided is based on all requests made to the Buckinghamshire local authority. The number of requests received, and plans issued by Buckinghamshire local authority, are detailed below.

The tables below show the number of permanent exclusions and suspensions for pupils with and without special educational needs (SEN) in Buckingham constituency between the 2015/16 and 2019/20 academic years.

Permanent Exclusions

Suspensions

The data on requests and issuing of education, health and care plans (EHCPs) are not collected by parliamentary constituency, or by who the requestor is for the plan. The answer provided is based on all requests made to the Buckinghamshire local authority. The number of requests received, and plans issued by Buckinghamshire local authority, are detailed below.

The tables below show the number of permanent exclusions and suspensions for pupils with and without special educational needs (SEN) in Buckingham constituency between the 2015/16 and 2019/20 academic years.

Permanent Exclusions

Suspensions

Currently, any parent or carer of a child or a young person, including those with cerebral palsy, may request a personal budget as part of their education, health and care (EHC) plan as a means of delivering the outcomes specified in the plan. The scope of that budget will vary depending on the needs of the individual, the eligibility criteria for the different components and the mechanism for delivery. This means that decisions need to be taken on an individual basis, including for children with cerebral palsy. Decisions about the provision of personal budgets and other operational matters are for local authorities. Local authorities and their health partners remain responsible for securing the provision specified in an EHC plan, funded where necessary through joint commissioning arrangements.

More broadly, a review regarding special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) was announced in September 2019. The SEND review is looking at ways of making sure that the SEND system is consistent, high-quality and integrated across education, health and care. It is also considering measures to make sure that money is being spent fairly, efficiently and effectively, and that the support available to children and young people is sustainable in the future.

We recently published the White Paper, Skills for Jobs: Lifelong Learning for Opportunity and Growth. This is focused on giving people the skills they need, in a way that suits them, so they can get great jobs in sectors the economy needs and boost this country’s productivity.

A key focus of the White Paper is making the skills systems more responsive to employer skill needs both locally and nationally. Building on the success of our flagship apprenticeships programme, we are putting employers at the heart of the system so education and training meets their needs. Through employer engagement, we have transformed apprenticeships from a second-rate option to a prestigious opportunity to train with leading employers and get a well-paid job. Our new apprenticeships system includes a Space Engineering Technician apprenticeship that covers the design and manufacture of satellites and the components and subsystems they comprise, along with production, operation and maintenance of the highly specialised ground support equipment used to support development and testing of satellites before launch. It has been developed by employers including Airbus Defence & Space, BAE Systems, Thales Alenia Space UK Ltd, Nammo Westcott Ltd, Reaction Engines Ltd, Oxford Space Systems, Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd and several others.

Alongside apprenticeships, by 2030, almost all technical courses will be based on employer-led standards, ensuring that the education and training people receive are directly linked to the skills needed for jobs.

A key part of our plans is to provide the advanced technical and higher technical skills the nation needs including, for example, in satellite production. We are doing this by expanding our flagship Institutes of Technology programme to every part of the country by the end of this Parliament to spearhead the increase in higher-level technical skills in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths. We will also continue to roll out T Levels, which prepare students for entry into skilled employment or higher levels of technical study, including apprenticeships. We are reforming higher technical education with a new approval system based on employer-led standards and are creating clear progression routes for students towards the higher-level technical qualifications that employers need.

We are also funding the High-Value Manufacturing Catapult’s ‘Skills Value Chain’. This process assesses future skills needs in advanced manufacturing, develops courses to meet these needs, and makes those courses widely available through high-quality providers such as Institutes of Technology. It will support Small and Medium Enterprises to work with emerging technologies in the manufacturing sector, such as electrification, additive manufacturing, and metrology. We will then explore whether this Skills Value Chain approach can be used in other emerging skills areas and to support government priorities such as net zero.

Our ambition is for every child, no matter what challenges they face, to have access to a world-class education that sets them up for life.

The statutory guidance to support pupils at school with medical conditions are designed to help schools ensure that they are meeting their legal responsibilities by taking reasonable action to support children with medical conditions and to give parents confidence that the right support will be put in place. The guidance is available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/supporting-pupils-at-school-with-medical-conditions--3.

The guidance covers a range of areas including the preparation and implementation of school policies for supporting pupils with medical conditions, the use of individual healthcare plans, staff training, medicines administration, roles and responsibilities, consulting with parents and collaborative working with healthcare professionals. It was developed based on good practice in schools.

We will continue to work with organisations such as the Health Conditions in Schools Alliance to help raise further awareness of the duty on schools. Collaborative working between local authorities, health bodies, schools and school governing bodies is vital to ensure that pupils with medical needs are appropriately supported in school.

The overall aims of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for packaging are to reduce the amount of unnecessary packaging that is produced, and to increase the proportion of this packaging that is recycled or reused. Our analysis estimates that, with the introduction of EPR in 2024 and a Deposit Return Scheme for drinks containers in 2025, overall recycling rates will increase from 63.2% in 2021 to 76% by 2033. This is an important step towards meeting our 25 Year Environment Plan commitment to eliminate avoidable waste by 2050.

These measures will also help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 2.2 million tonnes by 2033 as the creation of new packaging using virgin materials is reduced. This will contribute to climate change mitigation, in line with our commitment to decarbonise all sectors of the UK economy and achieve net zero by 2050.

This will be achieved by making producers pay for the waste management costs associated with the packaging that they place on the market. The EPR fees that producers will pay will also be varied (modulated) based on the type of packaging produced, with less easily recyclable packaging incurring a higher cost. This will place a strong financial incentive on producers to reduce the overall amount of packaging they use, and to design and use packaging that is easily reusable or recyclable.

Defra’s intention is that the regulations to introduce Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging will be introduced at the end of 2023. These regulations will reflect the policy set out in the Government response to the 2021 consultation, which was published in March 2022.

In parallel with drafting these regulations, the department is continuing to work with stakeholders to develop a future vision for our waste reforms programme over the longer term. As part of this work, we have recently embarked on an eight-week series of industry-wide Sprint events bringing together key stakeholders to obtain their input. Outputs from this process will need due consideration and may include subsequent amendments to the regulatory framework.

Producers will need to start reporting data on the packaging they place on the market from October 2023. We have published guidance and an obligation checker to help packaging producers to prepare for Extended Producer Responsibility on the gov.uk website, including outlining what data producers will need to start collecting and reporting. This guidance will be continually updated with more detailed information.

The payments that producers will be required to pay to local authorities will be determined from April 2024. These payments will cover the costs for improved management of household packaging when it becomes waste, and provide for the collection of additional packaging materials for recycling such as plastic films and flexible packaging. This, together with higher recycling targets for packaging waste, will result in less packaging waste being sent to landfill and incinerators.

The policy objectives of the Sprints are to build a shared vision on the landscape around packaging reforms in 10 years' time. This includes a shared strategic roadmap detailing a UK Government and industry agreed view of how the benefits will be realised over time. The overall objective is to build a multi-stakeholder view and recommendation to policy on how to incorporate EPR policies in a way that best realises the shared benefits and vision. Representatives from the Devolved Assemblies were invited to nominate attendees, ensuring all UK nations guide common future packaging reform policy.

We continually engage with industry on the EPR packaging requirements and are providing guidance and support to ensure a smooth transition. Feedback from industry has been encouraging and having dedicated forums for industry has been well received.