Ian Roome

As announced by the Prime Minister, a new national security strategy will be published in June, ahead of the NATO Summit.

There are several reviews and strategies being developed across government that will be taken into consideration. This includes the Strategic Defence Review, Defence Industrial Strategy, AUKUS Review, Industrial Strategy, and Trade Strategy. The Strategy will also take into account other ongoing national security policy development.

The Government set out clear priorities for the reset with the EU in the manifesto. There are no plans for a Youth Mobility Scheme.

The Civil Contingencies Act and accompanying non-legislative measures deliver a single framework for civil protection in the UK.

The Government has a legal obligation to review the Act every five years. The most recent Review was published in March 2022 and concluded that the Act continues to achieve its stated objectives but also set out recommendations to strengthen the system. The review found no evidence to recommend a statutory duty for community resilience.

Several of the mandatory requirements of the Civil Contingencies Act already support community resilience building, including the publication of risk and emergency management information, warning and informing the public about emergencies, and providing business continuity advice for private and voluntary organisations. The National Resilience Standards and the Community Resilience Development Framework set out good practice for Local Resilience Forums to build community resilience.

However, in light of the recent Inquires including COVID and Grenfell, it is right that we seek to continue to improve resilience across the whole of the UK to ensure it meets the needs of the evolving risk landscape. Through the resilience review announced by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in July, we are considering a range of options for how we can help Local Resilience Forums build resilience throughout their communities.

The government recognises the significant role of healthy competition in markets in giving consumers access to services and products of high quality, supporting business growth and the wider economy. Responsibility for investigating individual and market-wide competition concerns falls to the Competition Markets Authority (“CMA”), the UK’s independent competition authority. The government has ensured that the CMA has significant powers to investigate and act to ensure markets remain competitive, and consumers are protected from unfair or exploitative market practices.

The Government aims to boost all businesses, across key policy areas to build business capabilities, and a strong business environment. The Government works closely with the British Business Bank to enhance small business's access to finance through targeted interventions. Under the umbrella of the Export Academy, UK Export Finance and the newly announced Business Growth Service, businesses can access support, information, training, events, and expert support from business and International Trade advisors to overcome trading and export barriers.

The UK follows the agreed international approach for estimating and reporting greenhouse gas emissions, under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement, which is for countries to report emissions produced within their territories. On this basis, emissions savings generated by the use of British-manufactured electric vehicles overseas do not count towards the UK’s reported emissions.

Last week, the Prime Minister announced an initial £300 million investment through Great British Energy to accelerate domestic offshore wind supply chains to boost domestic jobs, mobilise private investment, and secure manufacturing facilities for critical clean energy supply chains.

The Government’s Clean Industry Bonus rewards fixed and floating offshore wind developers who choose to invest in the UK’s poorest communities, or in cleaner manufacturing.

The Government will be publishing its Industrial Strategy in spring and will set out its approach to driving investment and growth in the highest potential sectors, including Clean Energy Industries, creating good jobs.

All installations under government scheme, including the Green Homes Grant Scheme must be installed by Trustmark registered installers. If the installation has met the standards required, it is not expected removal will be required.

Where measures have not been installed correctly, homeowners can use the TrustMark dispute resolution process to seek remediation or redress. If the installer is no longer trading, they should contact the guarantee provider.

The Government has also consulted the insulation, lending and surveying communities and published an inspection protocol that surveyors can use to appropriately assess spray foam installations (https://www.property-care.org/resources/spray-foam-insulation-inspections). It is important a surveyor with appropriate knowledge of spray foam and the protocol is used to give an accurate assessment.

The UK follows the agreed international approach for setting targets, and reporting greenhouse gas emissions, which is for countries to report the emissions produced within their territories.

However, consumption-based emissions, which factor in overseas emissions associated with imports, are reported by Defra (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uks-carbon-footprint ) and considered in policy making where relevant and material.

DESNZ also publish conversion factors for company reporting which include well-to-tank emissions factors for LNG (https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/government-conversion-factors-for-company-reporting). The latest published factors are based on 2022 data but the values are updated annually, allowing for changes in the sources of imported gas, particularly LNG, to be reflected.

The Government is continuing to deliver the Warm Home Discount which provides an annual £150 rebate off energy bills for eligible low-income households.

In November Energy UK, in collaboration with the Government, published a Winter 2024 Commitment which promises £500m of industry support to billpayers this winter. It also outlines how 15 energy suppliers representing almost the entire market will continue to provide a range of financial support tailored to the needs of their customers.

The Labour Manifesto commits to “partner with scientists, industry, and civil society as we work towards the phasing out of animal testing”. The Government will publish a strategy to support the development, validation and uptake of alternative methods later this year. To support this Minister Vallance hosted a roundtable on 14.05.25 with representatives from animal welfare organisations. He also met with the Chair of All-Party Parliamentary Group on phasing out animal experiments in medical research and representatives from Animal Free Research on 01.04.25, and with representatives from Lush UK on 15.05.25. There have been additional meetings before 01.01.25.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) is developing a Civil Society Covenant which will be published in the Summer. The Covenant will act as a foundation for resetting the relationship between government and civil society, symbolising recognition of the sector as a trusted and independent partner. DCMS is working closely with departments across government, including the Cabinet Office, to ensure the Covenant is developed and implemented effectively. DCMS has also worked closely with civil society organisations, including NCVO and ACEVO, from the beginning of the process and has conducted a significant period of engagement across the civil society sector to inform the development of the Covenant. The feedback and recommendations in the NCVO and ACEVO report titled ‘A New Partnership’ are being carefully considered as the Covenant develops.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) is developing a Civil Society Covenant which will be published in the Summer. The Covenant will act as a foundation for resetting the relationship between government and civil society, symbolising recognition of the sector as a trusted and independent partner. DCMS is working closely with departments across government, including the Cabinet Office, to ensure the Covenant is developed and implemented effectively. DCMS has also worked closely with civil society organisations, including NCVO and ACEVO, from the beginning of the process and has conducted a significant period of engagement across the civil society sector to inform the development of the Covenant. The feedback and recommendations in the NCVO and ACEVO report titled ‘A New Partnership’ are being carefully considered as the Covenant develops.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) is developing a Civil Society Covenant which will be published in the Summer. The Covenant will act as a foundation for resetting the relationship between government and civil society, symbolising recognition of the sector as a trusted and independent partner. DCMS is working closely with departments across government, including the Cabinet Office, to ensure the Covenant is developed and implemented effectively. DCMS has also worked closely with civil society organisations, including NCVO and ACEVO, from the beginning of the process and has conducted a significant period of engagement across the civil society sector to inform the development of the Covenant. The feedback and recommendations in the NCVO and ACEVO report titled ‘A New Partnership’ are being carefully considered as the Covenant develops.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) is developing a Civil Society Covenant which will be published in the Summer. The Covenant will act as a foundation for resetting the relationship between government and civil society, symbolising recognition of the sector as a trusted and independent partner. DCMS is working closely with departments across government, including the Cabinet Office, to ensure the Covenant is developed and implemented effectively. DCMS has also worked closely with civil society organisations, including NCVO and ACEVO, from the beginning of the process and has conducted a significant period of engagement across the civil society sector to inform the development of the Covenant. The feedback and recommendations in the NCVO and ACEVO report titled ‘A New Partnership’ are being carefully considered as the Covenant develops.

The Government recognises the economic benefits that tourism brings to all communities throughout the UK especially coastal and rural areas. The newly established Visitor Economy Advisory Council (VEAC) is a joint industry and government-led board composed of employers, small businesses and representative organisations. The Council will help co-create a National Visitor Economy Growth Strategy that is anticipated to be launched in the Autumn.

The government has recently implemented the most significant overhaul of destination management in a generation, creating a portfolio of nationally supported, strategic and high-performing Local Visitor Economy Partnerships (LVEPs) in partnership with VisitEngland. These LVEPs are providing strong local leadership and governance in tourism destinations all over the country, and North Devon is included in this programme as part of the Devon & Partners LVEP. LVEPs work collaboratively with both local authority and private sector partners as well as providing small business support.

Swimming and water safety lessons are compulsory at key stage 1 and 2 in the physical education (PE) national curriculum. Swimming and water safety are vital life skills, and every child should have the opportunity to learn to swim and know how to keep themselves safe around water by the time they leave primary school.

Sport England’s Active Lives Children and Young People Survey 2023/24 reports that 95.2% of state primary schools surveyed confirmed they do provide swimming lessons. The report also states that 70.2% of pupils in year 7 say they can swim 25 metres unaided. Ofsted inspections may include a deep dive into PE, in which case the inspector will consider how the PE curriculum has been designed, and whether the various requirements are met.

Apprenticeships and skills will play a critical part in the government’s mission to drive growth across the country, supporting people to get better jobs and improve their standard of living.

The government has established Skills England to form a coherent national picture of skills gaps and help shape the technical education system so that it is responsive to skills needs. This will include advising on priorities for the new growth and skills offer.

Skills England engaged with employers and other key partners regarding early priorities for the new growth and skills offer, including proposals to ask more employers to step forward and fund more level 7 apprenticeships themselves.

Skills England spoke to over 700 stakeholders before Christmas as part of their engagement exercise, and have shared their findings with the department. Its findings from this engagement process will be published in early 2025.

This government is determined to tackle the generational challenge of school absence, which is a fundamental barrier to learning and life chances. Missing school regularly is harmful to a child’s attainment, safety and physical and mental health, which limits their opportunity to succeed. There is evidence that more students are attending school this year compared to last, thanks to the efforts of families and school staff, although around 1.6 million children remain persistently absent and miss 10% or more of lessons.

Central to the department’s approach to tackling absence are stronger expectations of local authorities and schools, as set out in the ‘Working together to improve school attendance’ guidance, which was made statutory on 19 August 2024. The guidance promotes a 'support first' approach and sets out clear expectations on how schools, trusts, local authorities and wider services should work together and with families to address attendance barriers and provide the right support, including where a pupil is not attending due to special educational needs.

Every state school in England should now be sharing their daily attendance register data with the department, local authorities and trusts. These bodies can access this data through a secure, interactive dashboard which is maintained by the department, allowing them to target attendance interventions more effectively.

The department recognises the importance of creating opportunities within the sector to share existing best practice on how to improve attendance. This is why the department set up a network of 31 attendance hubs, who have offered support to 2000 primary, secondary and alternative provision schools and shared their strategies and resources for improving attendance.

In addition to this work, the department also aims to improve the existing evidence on which interventions work to improve attendance. Over £17 million is being invested across two mentoring projects that will support at least 12,000 pupils in 15 areas. These programmes will be evaluated and the effective practice will be shared with schools and local authorities nationally.

From early 2025, new Regional Improvement for Standards and Excellence (RISE) teams will support all state schools by facilitating networking, sharing best practice across areas including attendance and empowering schools to feel they can better access support and learn from one another. For schools requiring more intensive support, RISE teams and supporting organisations will work collaboratively with their responsible body to agree bespoke packages of targeted support, based on a school’s particular circumstances.

School attendance is also supported by broader investments, such as funded breakfast clubs across all primary schools to ensure children start their day ready to learn.

The department is working across government on plans to provide access to specialist mental health professionals in every school, new Young Futures hubs, access to mental health support workers and an additional 8,500 new mental health staff to treat children and adults.

Schools can also allocate pupil premium funding, which has now increased to over £2.9 billion for the 2024/25 financial year, to support pupils with identified needs to attend school regularly.

All state-funded schools are required to teach about good oral hygiene as part of statutory health education. Pupils should know about dental health and the benefits of good oral hygiene and dental flossing, including the need for regular check-ups at the dentist.

Departmental officials regularly meet with officials from the Department for Health and Social Care to discuss oral health in schools and this government’s commitment to introduce a national supervised toothbrushing scheme targeted at 3 to 5-year-olds living in the 20% most deprived areas of England. Further details on this scheme will be published in due course.

The government is committed to spreading opportunities and economic growth supported by a strong skills system.

This government has an extremely challenging fiscal inheritance. There are tough choices that need to be taken on how funding should be prioritised in order to generate opportunities for young people that enable them to make a start in good, fulfilling careers, and the department will therefore be asking more employers to step forward and fund a significant number of level 7 apprenticeships outside of the levy-funded growth and skills offer.

The department will take advice from Skills England, who are currently engaging with employers on this matter, and expects to make a final decision on affected apprenticeships in the new year.

The department recognises that for some employers level 7 apprenticeships form an important part of their workforce and career development offers. Employers will still be able to offer and invest in these apprenticeships where they feel they provide a good return on their investment.