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.

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 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.

The Department of Culture, Media and Sport has not made an assessment of the potential merits of a TV licence exemption for UK Armed Forces personnel resident in service accommodation.

As part of the next Charter Review, the Government will engage with the BBC and others to consider how to ensure the BBC thrives well into the next decade and beyond. This will include discussions on a range of important issues, including how we ensure that there is a sustainable funding model that is fair for those who pay for it.

To date, DCMS has invested £20.65 million in the 2025 Women’s Rugby World Cup. This includes £12.13 million of funding towards the tournament's legacy and impact programme, ‘Impact 25’. This is supporting women's and girls' clubs across the country as part of the Rugby Football Union’s ambition to widen female participation in England. This is part of our strategic approach to ensuring we maximise the socio-economic benefits of major sporting events.

In addition, the Governments arm’s length body for grassroots sport, Sport England, has awarded the Rugby Football Union £13.8 million for the period 2022-27, as one of their long-term system partners who have responsibility to support grassroots rugby union.

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.

The department is committed to improving inclusivity and expertise in mainstream schools, as well as ensuring special schools cater to those with the most complex needs, restoring parents’ trust that their child will get the support they need. This includes strengthening accountability for inclusivity, including through Ofsted, and encouraging schools to set up resourced provision or special educational needs (SEN) units to increase capacity in mainstream schools.

High quality teaching is central to ensuring that all pupils, including those with special educational needs and disabilites (SEND), are given the best possible opportunity to achieve in their education and as they move into adult life. The department is committed to recruiting an additional 6,500 new expert teachers over the course of this parliament. To support all teachers, the department is implementing a range of teacher training reforms to ensure teachers have the skills to support all pupils to succeed, including those with SEND.

On 1 September 2024, the government introduced a new mandatory leadership level qualification for special educational needs co-ordinators (SENCOs). The qualification will play a key role in improving outcomes for pupils with SEND, by ensuring SENCOs consistently receive high quality, evidence-based training on how best to support children with SEND.

High needs funding will also increase by almost £1 billion in 2025/26 compared to 2024/25, and we have announced £740 million of capital funding to create more specialist places, including in mainstream schools.

Letters were issued to all National Park Authorities (including the Broads Authority) in early April confirming Defra’s intent to continue grant funding for the financial year 2025/26. The letters also set out the provisional revenue and capital grant allocation for each authority.

The government is providing £45.2 million of core funding to the 10 National Park Authorities, with a capital uplift of up to £15 million to support their contribution to protecting 30% of land by 2030. In challenging financial circumstances, this uplift in capital investment is recognition of the vital importance of national parks to government priorities. We have also extended programmes such as Farming In Protected Landscapes, providing £30 million to support projects in our National Parks and Protected Landscapes, until March 2026.

In addition to investing in these important landscapes we are also working with Protected Landscapes organisations to identify additional sources of funding and foster innovation to ensure their future for generations to come.

• The Agricultural Supply Chain Adjudicator (ASCA) is responsible for enforcing regulations developed under the Agriculture Act’s 'Fair Dealing' powers (section 29). Regulations introduced using these powers promote fair contractual dealing and contribute to a more equitable relationship between producers and buyers.
• To date, these powers have been used to create the Fair Dealing Obligations (Milk) Regulations 2024 and the Fair Dealing Obligations (Pigs) Regulations 2025.
• These regulations provide greater protection for producers by requiring fair contract terms. This includes ensuring that producers are provided with clear information about how prices are set. Although the regulations do not dictate pricing expectations or directly address profitability, they help producers make more informed decisions by fostering transparency and balance in commercial relationships.
• The ASCA can investigate relevant complaints and has significant powers to impose fines on and/or order compensation to be paid by those found to be in breach. The ASCA also aims to be a convener across supply chains, working with both producers and purchasers/processors to improve business relationships and behaviours around contracts.
• Defra has recently commissioned a review on Farm Profitability. This will provide recommendations for government and industry that will support farming profitability as part of this government’s New Deal for Farmers.
• The food sector is also one of the UK's 14 Critical National Infrastructure sectors, and Defra recognises the importance of the food supply chain to National Security. Further, the UK Food Security Report examines past, current, and future trends to present a full and impartial analysis of UK food security.

We are reviewing the rights of way reform programme alongside our policies for delivering improved access to nature for all users.

This Government is proud to have secured the largest budget for sustainable food production in our country’s history, with £5 billion being spent to support farmers over a 2-year period. SFI is an important offer, but it is part of a wider package - across England, 50,000 farm businesses and over half of farmed land are already in agri-environmental schemes.

The department publish regular statistics on Farm Business Income. Farming evidence packs have been recently updated including key statistics and farm performance. These set out an extensive range of data to provide an overview of agriculture in the UK. On the 11th of March 2025 we published forecasts which suggest that average Farm Business Income has risen in 2024/25 across all farm types with the exception of cereal farms.

For the 2025/26 financial year, the Government is providing nearly £1.6 billion for highway maintenance, an increase of £500 million compared to 2024/25. It is the responsibility of individual highway authorities to maintain and improve their networks, based upon their local knowledge, circumstances, and priorities. Funding is not ringfenced, and it is a matter for local authorities to determine how the money is best spent.

As of Monday 24 March, the Department has written to all local highway authorities advising them that 25% of their uplift in maintenance funding is contingent on them demonstrating to Government that they are complying with certain criteria aimed at driving best practice and continual improvement in highways maintenance practice. All authorities will have to publish information online by the end of June, and share further information with the Department by the end of October. This will allow local people to hold their councils to account for their performance in maintaining their highway networks. The Department will also review the information provided by local highway authorities when it is submitted and will say more on this in due course.

The Department for Transport has not made an assessment of the effectiveness of AI road cameras at reducing road crashes in high-risk areas.

However, trials of new technology including the use of AI cameras in small scale operational activity has been carried out under the Roads Policing Review. Evidence from these is being considered.

National Highways has also worked with police forces to understand the role of technology to detect and enforce mobile phone and seatbelt violations.

At present, bus services in England outside London are predominantly run on a commercial basis by private operators, and the level at which bus operators set their fares is a commercial decision.

The government is committed to delivering better bus services for passengers, including making them more reliable and affordable, because we know how important this is for communities. The Department for Transport has issued to guidance to local transport authorities and bus operators to support the development of local Bus Service Improvement Plans (BSIPs). This makes clear that fares policy should be an integral part of BSIPs, and that they should set out ambitions and proposals for extending youth fares for younger people.

This government is determined to seize the opportunities of emerging micromobility and tackle any negative impacts which may arise. We actively monitor the industry and the new vehicle types and business models being developed while carefully considering policy steps to ensure these are operating safely and in the interests of our communities. A key part of these considerations will be how new technologies can benefit disabled people.

The government is committed to a sustainable, long-term approach to drive up opportunity and drive down poverty across the UK. As announced by the Chancellor in the Autumn Budget, a new Fair Repayment Rate has now been introduced from 30 April 2025, reducing the Universal Credit (UC) overall deductions cap from 25% to 15% of a customer’s UC standard allowance. This measure will help approximately 1.2 million of the poorest households benefit by an average of £420 a year.

The Department has also committed to reviewing Universal Credit to make sure it is doing the job we want it to, to make work pay and tackle poverty.

A key part of UC’s core design is that it supports customers with their finances. As part of our work to review UC, we are working with expert stakeholders to understand the impacts and causes as well as considering the ways in which we can better support customers who experience irregular or fluctuating household income.

Once the Pathways to Work Green Paper Consultation closes on 30 June 2025, a White Paper will follow later this year with final proposals ahead of future, further legislation required.

The consultation and subsequent White Paper will also inform the chosen future direction of Access to Work. Once this is established, we will consider implementation timelines and work closely with stakeholders to ensure an appropriate transition.

Universal Credit is available to eligible people who are out of work or on a low income. This includes people who are self-employed.

We recognise that some self-employed customers, including those in the farming industry, are likely to report large monthly fluctuations in their earnings. Steps have been taken to account for this, such as allowing self-employed losses to be carried forward into future assessment periods.

Wherever possible, employed earnings are received through the Real Time Information (RTI) system used by employers to report Pay As You Earn (PAYE) data to His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC). RTI enables a customer’s Universal Credit award to be automatically adjusted to reflect their fluctuating earnings, which eases the reporting burden on customers.

If earnings are not reported through RTI for any reason, the customer will need to self-report their earnings and provide evidence of these.

We are committed to reviewing Universal Credit to make sure it is doing the job we want it to, to make work pay and tackle poverty. The review will include consideration of the support in Universal Credit for customers with fluctuating incomes.

No assessment has been made.

Universal Credit broadly follows the capital rules from legacy means-tested benefits, e.g. income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance.

The treatment of capital in any benefit that assists with living expenses is not a straightforward matter. Whilst it is important to encourage saving, it has never been thought right for substantial amounts of capital to be ignored.

Departmental guidance is available to assist our decision makers to determine the value of capital assets at the point of review. Disregards are in place for some illiquid assets that customers hold, such as personal possessions and their main home.

Award reviews are an important feature of Personal Independence Payment to ensure people receive the correct level of benefit, both for those whose needs will increase and those whose needs may decrease. People who receive the highest level of PIP and whose needs will not improve, receive a PIP award for a continuous period with a light touch review at the 10-year point.

In the Green Paper Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working published on 18 March we outline plans to consider changes to improve the experience for people who receive these ongoing awards in PIP. These include improving the information we provide when we write to people about ongoing PIP award decisions, what support is offered between ‘light touch’ reviews and reviewing the length of time between ‘light touch’ reviews.