James Grundy

The UK Government regularly engages the devolved administrations on the negotiations and preparations for the end of the transition period. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster chaired a meeting of the Joint Ministerial Committee (EU Negotiations) on 3 September, attended by devolved administration Ministers, which included a discussion on readiness. I also chaired one of my regular meetings on readiness with devolved administration Ministers on 1 October. The Government remains committed to continuing this engagement.

In April 2022, we will increase the National Living Wage by 59p to £9.50. This puts us back on track for it to reach two-thirds of median earnings by 2024. The minimum wage increases are expected to benefit two and a half million workers across the UK next year.

The Government recognises the significant challenge the current pandemic poses to many individuals and freelancers working in the music industry.

The Government has carried out an assessment of access to the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) for individuals’ working in the Arts, Entertainment and Recreation Sector:

• For SEISS round 1: 76,000 individuals given an average of £2,700

• For SEISS round 2: 72,000 individuals given an average of £2,400

• For SEISS round 3: 66,000 individuals given £2,700

We are working very hard to help freelancers in those sectors access support, including through the Self Employment Income Support Scheme and funding from Arts Council England.

The Government has and will continue to look for ways to improve the Self Employment Income Support Scheme grant and existing support.

To date, the government has provided an unprecedented £300 million Sport Winter Survival Package to give a lifeline to organisations that would otherwise not survive the winter as a result of the restriction on spectators announced from 1 October. This included a provisional allocation of £12 million to support rugby league which is in addition to the £16 million cash injection government announced in May 2020 to safeguard the immediate future of the sport for the communities it serves.

Furthermore, rugby league clubs will have benefitted from the £220m of National Lottery and Exchequer funding committed by Sport England since March 2020 to support community sport clubs and exercise centres through this pandemic. This sector support was recently boosted by an extra £50million to help grassroots sports clubs and organisations as part of Sport England’s new strategy Uniting the Movement. Further details of Sport England funding including the organisations that have benefited can be found at: https://www.sportengland.org/why-were-here.

The government recognises that this academic year has been incredibly difficult for students. As a result of these exceptional circumstances, some students are facing financial hardship. Students experiencing financial hardship as a result of COVID-19 or for other reasons should contact their higher education (HE) provider.

We have made an additional £85 million of student hardship funding available to HE providers in the 2020/21 academic year. Providers have flexibility in how they distribute the funding to their students, in a way that best prioritises those in greatest need.

This is in addition to the £256 million of government-funded student premium funding already available to HE providers to draw on towards student hardship funds for the 2020/21 academic year.

We know that not all students will face financial hardship. The current measures aim to target support for students in greatest need and the government continues to monitor the situation to look at what impact this funding is having.

Undergraduate students undertaking work placement years with private employers receive a reduced-rate non-means tested loan for living costs from Student Finance England, on the expectation that the private employer who benefits from the student’s work should provide support for the student rather than the taxpayer.

The government, however, makes an exception for many work placements in the public sector by making available the full-rate partially means-tested loan for living costs package to encourage students to gain work experience in these areas. This ensures that low-income students undertaking working placements in the public sector receive targeted support through the student support system.

The government recognises that this academic year has been incredibly difficult for students. As a result of these exceptional circumstances, some students are facing financial hardship. Students experiencing financial hardship as a result of COVID-19 or for other reasons should contact their higher education (HE) provider.

We have made an additional £85 million of student hardship funding available to HE providers in the 2020/21 academic year. Providers have flexibility in how they distribute the funding to their students, in a way that best prioritises those in greatest need.

This is in addition to the £256 million of government-funded student premium funding already available to HE providers to draw on towards student hardship funds for the 2020/21 academic year.

We know that not all students will face financial hardship. The current measures aim to target support for students in greatest need and the government continues to monitor the situation to look at what impact this funding is having.

Undergraduate students undertaking work placement years with private employers receive a reduced-rate non-means tested loan for living costs from Student Finance England, on the expectation that the private employer who benefits from the student’s work should provide support for the student rather than the taxpayer.

The government, however, makes an exception for many work placements in the public sector by making available the full-rate partially means-tested loan for living costs package to encourage students to gain work experience in these areas. This ensures that low-income students undertaking working placements in the public sector receive targeted support through the student support system.

To support the return to college of all students from 8 March, the department has worked closely with Public Health England to develop and refresh the system of controls for education settings to reduce and mitigate the risk of transmission of COVID-19. New measures include asymptomatic testing and recommending the increased use of face coverings.

In addition, to prepare for return, colleges should update their risk assessments and ensure they are implementing the system of controls, this includes assessing the risks particular to their setting and provision.

For those students whose courses are more vocational in nature (for example, for courses that require close contact, require access to specialist equipment or are taught in non-traditional classroom environments such as workshops), the further education COVID-19 guidance sets out additional steps and considerations colleges can take, details of which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-maintaining-further-education-provision. Colleges are advised to put greater emphasis on the other measures outlined in the systems of controls, such as increased use of face coverings, increased ventilation, in addition to the use of screens or barriers and follow the relevant working safely during COVID-19 guidance to reduce the risk of transmission, details of the guidance can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/working-safely-during-coronavirus-covid-19.

The Government is supporting local authorities to deploy chargepoints for their residents without access to off-street parking to ensure this is not a barrier to drivers being able to realise the benefits of owning an EV. The On-Street Residential Chargepoint Scheme (ORCS) is available to all UK local authorities, and has so far awarded funding to over 135 different local authorities, to install over 5,000 chargepoints. This year, £20 million is available under this scheme to ensure more local authorities and residents can benefit from the scheme.

A new Local EV Infrastructure fund will be made available to local authorities later in the 2022-23 financial year, which will facilitate the rollout of larger-scale chargepoint infrastructure projects across England.

Drivers without off-street parking at home can also take advantage of the Workplace Charging Scheme, which provides Government support of up to £350 towards the cost of installing a charge point socket for staff and fleet use, with a maximum of 40 sockets available per business. To date over 8,000 businesses have used this scheme to install over 19,000 chargepoint sockets. There are a growing number of solutions for drivers without private parking, such as initiatives like community charging, where those with personal chargepoints can share access with other residents.

The Government’s forthcoming EV Infrastructure Strategy will define our vision for the continued roll-out of a world-leading charging infrastructure network across the UK. The strategy will focus on how we will unlock the chargepoint rollout needed to enable the transition from early adoption to mass market uptake of EVs. We will set out our next steps to address barriers to private investment, and level up charge point provision. The strategy will clearly establish Government’s expectations for the roles and responsibilities of key stakeholders in the planning and deployment of charging infrastructure alongside how we will intervene to address the gaps between the current market status and our vision, and how we will monitor progress.

As part of the Spending Round in 2020 over £2 billion of funding has been confirmed in 2021-22 for rail services, which builds on the estimated £12.8 billion of support for transport services that the government has already committed to provide in 2020-21.

As part of the levelling-up agenda, the Government announced in January 2020 that it has pledged £500 million for the Restoring Your Railway Programme to start reopening lines and stations, regenerating local economies and improving access to jobs, homes and education.

Between 2019 and 2024, approximately £38 billion has been allocated for investment in operations, maintenance and renewals of the rail network, of which around £20 billion is for Network Rail’s renewals programme.

To date, the Government has announced over £150 million of emergency grant funding to support the Light Rail sector. This funding has ensured that light rail services continue to run throughout the pandemic, enabling essential journeys such as those made by NHS staff and other key workers.

As announced in the 2020 Budget and confirmed in the Spending Review, the government is investing £4.2 billion in the transport networks of eight city regions across England from 2022, including Greater Manchester. These intra-city transport settlements will be based on plans put forward by city regions and could be used to fund light rail improvements.

In addition, the Transforming Cities Fund is a £2.5 billion fund focused on public and sustainable transport infrastructure. It is currently providing funding for light rail improvements in some cities, including Greater Manchester.

The Department of Health and Social Care has no current plans to fund a pilot project aimed to create a national blueprint for the provision of Autism Assistance Dogs.

It is for local commissioners to ensure that the appropriate provision is available to meet the health and care needs of the local population, including considering whether they provide Autism Assistance Dogs as part of their provision. NHS England is developing a framework of best practice to assist commissioners to improve outcomes for autistic people.

Integrated care boards and National Health Service trusts should have due regard to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines ‘Autism spectrum disorder in under 19s: support and management’ and ‘Autism spectrum disorder in adults: diagnosis and management’. These evidenced guidelines set out how health and social care professionals can provide support for autistic people.

No decisions have been taken in relation to the Health Disparities White Paper.

The Department continues to review how health disparities can be addressed and further information will be available in due course.

The Government considers the impact restrictions may have on public health.

Whilst we recognise that exercise is important for people’s mental and physical health, gyms are high risk settings for spreading COVID-19.

No such assessment has been made.

Dental practices have been able to open for face to face care from 8 June, with urgent provision backed up by over 600 urgent dental care centres across the country. The Department is working closely with NHS England and NHS Improvement and the Chief Dental Officer for England to increase levels of service, as fast as is safely possible.

NHS England and NHS Improvement have set out guidance that dentists should focus on care that is urgent, care to vulnerable groups and then overdue routine appointments. In circumstances where patients are unable to access an urgent dental appointment directly through a National Health Service dental practice, they should contact NHS 111 for assistance.

No such assessment has been made.

The Government is committed to increasing the number of police officers by 20,000 by March 2023.

As at 31 December 2020, 6,620 additional officers had been recruited in England and Wales as a result of the Police Uplift Programme with Greater Manchester Police having recruited an additional 266 additional officers against the force’s year one allocation of 347.

For year 2 of the Programme, Greater Manchester has an uplift allocation of 325 police officers to be recruited by March 2022.

Foreign national offenders who abuse our hospitality should be in no doubt of our determination to deport them.

We continue to remove where there are available routes and by charter flight operations.

The Levelling Up Fund considers the impact of projects in local communities, by looking at how strongly each bid aligns and supports local need.

The Community Ownership Fund considers the impact of projects in local communities by assessing how an asset under community ownership will deliver benefits to a local community and bolster pride of place.

The Government is committed to increasing the supply of affordable housing and is investing over £12 billion in affordable housing over 5 years, the largest investment in affordable housing in a decade. This includes the new £11.5 billion Affordable Homes Programme, which will leverage up to £38 billion of private finance and will provide up to 180,000 new affordable homes across the country, should economic conditions allow.

Around half of the new programme will be for social and affordable rent, and it will deliver more than double for social rent than the current programme. 10% of delivery will be used to increase the supply of much needed specialist or supported housing, including housing for older people.

We will also be using the new Affordable Homes Programme to fund a First Homes pilot of 1500 homes. The First Homes scheme will help local first-time buyers onto the property ladder by offering homes at a discount of at least 30% compared to the market price. That same percentage will then be passed on with the sale of the property to future first-time buyers, meaning homes will always be sold below market value, benefiting future generations. On 4 June, we launched the first phase with further sites set to launch across the country in the coming weeks.

Whilst we do not set requirements for the types of affordable housing that are delivered, Registered Providers work closely with local authorities to ensure that delivery meets local housing need.

I refer the Hon. Gentleman to the answer I gave on 26 February 2021 to question 153417.

The National Planning Policy Framework expects local authorities to prioritise brownfield land for development wherever possible. Local authorities are best placed to assess the potential of individual sites, and each authority is required to publish a register of its developable brownfield suitable for new homes.

Brownfield redevelopment is supported by funding including the £4.1 billion Housing Infrastructure Fund, the £400 million Brownfield Fund, and the Home Building Fund, which had a £450 million funding boost last year taking the total to £4.95 billion. In addition, details of the new Brownfield Land Release Fund, which will unlock brownfield sites and release serviced plots on local authority owned land, will be announced shortly.

Consultation on the White Paper Planning for the Future closed on 29 October 2020. My Department is undertaking further detailed policy development on individual elements of the reform proposals. However, we have made clear that local authorities would still have responsibility for protecting the Green Belt and other valued greenfield land.

Wigan Council has so far received almost £28 million of emergency grant funding since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic as part of its share of the £4.6 billion of unringfenced support to councils across the country.

Wigan has also received £9.3 million through the Contain Outbreak Management Fund, £5.7 million through the Infection Control Fund, £3.1 million via the sales, fees and charges income support scheme and £1.1 million via the Covid Winter Grant Scheme. This additional £19.2 million of support alongside almost £3 million of other grant funding to Wigan comes to a cumulative total of £50.1 million of funding since the start of the Pandemic.

In addition, Wigan Council will receive over £9 million in unringfenced funding to address the impacts of COVID-19 in the next financial year. This is alongside an increase in settlement Core Spending Power up to over £11 million.

From 2022, the UK Shared Prosperity Fund will target the people and places most in need, and we will publish our prospectus in due course.

This will complement work already underway on the Levelling Up Fund, Community Renewal Fund and Community Ownership Fund where applications are currently being considered.