Asked by: Jeff Smith (Labour - Manchester Withington)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether her Department plans to review the level of grant-in-aid for heritage institutions, in the context of rises in inflation.
Answered by John Whittingdale
The UK’s heritage institutions play a vital part in our nation's rich history and cultural life.
Just as we supported it through the challenges of the pandemic, HM Government has made support available to mitigate increasing costs for the whole heritage sector, not just those bodies which receive grant-in-aid. The Energy Bills Discount Scheme was implemented from 1 April 2023, a key component of which is the higher level of support being provided to energy and trade-intensive industries. Heritage was recognised as one of these industries and therefore receives a higher level of discount on energy volumes and will be subject to the maximum discount for gas and electricity bills.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport continues to work with its arm’s-length bodies and other Government Departments to support the sector’s resilience – and to deliver the Government’s promise to halve inflation this year to ease the cost of living and give people financial security.
Asked by: Jeff Smith (Labour - Manchester Withington)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, with reference to CPRE, the countryside charity’s report entitled Shout from the rooftops: delivering a common sense solar revolution, published in May 2023, whether he plans to ensure that the Future Homes Standard requires roof space-mounted solar arrays to be installed on new homes.
Answered by Lee Rowley
Renewable energy, such as that generated from solar panels, is a key part of our strategy to get to net zero.
Not all homes are suitable for solar panels. For instance, some homes are heavily shaded due to nearby buildings or trees.
Under the Future Homes Standard, the Building Regulations will continue to set performance-based standards. Our approach to achieving higher standards will remain technology-neutral, to provide flexibility to choose the most appropriate and cost-effective solutions.
Asked by: Jeff Smith (Labour - Manchester Withington)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will make an equalities impact assessment of proposals for a points-based penalty regime for late submissions of tax returns.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
A new points-based penalty system was brought in on 1 January 2023 for all VAT-registered businesses. The Government published the associated screening equality impact assessment on 23 March.
An equalities impact assessment covering the new penalty system for Income Tax Self-Assessment taxpayers will be published during its introduction.
Asked by: Jeff Smith (Labour - Manchester Withington)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what recent assessment his Department has made of Iran's ballistic missile capabilities.
Answered by David Rutley
Iran's ballistic missile programme destabilises the region and threatens European security. UN Security Council Resolution 2231 (UNSCR 2231) calls on Iran not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such technology. Alongside France and Germany, we have written regularly to the UN Secretary-General to draw attention to Iranian missile activity inconsistent with UNSCR 2231, most recently on 12 June. We urge Iran to fully abide by UNSCR 2231 and all other relevant resolutions.
Asked by: Jeff Smith (Labour - Manchester Withington)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what assessment he has made of the extent of Iran's influence on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
Answered by David Rutley
The UK Government regularly assesses the impact of Iran's activity throughout the Middle East, including its political, financial and military support to several militant and proscribed groups. We work closely with our partners to deter destabilising Iranian activity in the region, including through a range of sanctions designations. We are aware of the activities of Iranian-backed militant organisations and we are working hard to de-escalate tensions in order to achieve a peaceful negotiated solution for Israel and the Palestinians.
Asked by: Jeff Smith (Labour - Manchester Withington)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if she has made an assessment of the impact of the UK’s exit from the European Union on the income of UK cultural organisations.
Answered by John Whittingdale
HM Government recognises the great value of the UK’s world-leading arts and cultural sectors. The Creative Industries continue to thrive and are a key high growth sector of the economy. The sector contributed £108 billion in 2021, accounting for 6% of UK GVA, and employed 2.3 million people – 7% of the total UK workforce – with employment growth increasing at almost five times the rate of the economy more widely since 2011.
The UK Shared Prosperity Fund delivers on a commitment to match EU funding across all four nations of the UK and gives local communities control of how their money is spent, removing unnecessary bureaucracy and enabling them to invest in the cultural organisations that particularly matter to them.
Recently, the Department has also supported the cultural sector through unprecedented periods of financial instability and international border closures with the Culture Recovery Fund. As the published evaluation for the Fund shows, this £1.57 billion package of emergency cultural funding was delivered efficiently, helping support nearly 220,000 jobs and 5,000 organisations through the COVID-19 pandemic.
Similarly, the speed and highly targeted nature of the UK’s COVID-19 vaccination programme had a direct impact on our ability to open up the economy and ease social restrictions more quickly than other comparable countries.
The Department is also taking a number of steps to reaffirm and deepen the longstanding relationships with our European partners — and, indeed, with countries in other continents across the globe — which will support UK cultural organisations to maintain international connections and partnerships, and to forge new ones – for instance, supporting the British Council’s Seasons of Culture, via bilateral agreements with other governments, and through our membership of multilateral fora such as the Council of Europe and UNESCO. The Department also funds Arts Council England to support the sector to forge direct and deeper links at an institution-to-institution level. In all circumstances, we expect the UK’s creative output to continue to remain an export that is as highly valued in the European Union as it is across the world.
Asked by: Jeff Smith (Labour - Manchester Withington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will take steps with Cabinet colleagues to provide specific (a) educational opportunities and (b) training programmes to help the oil and gas workforce make the transition to work in green technologies.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The department has a range of existing skills and training offers that can support workers looking to transition between oil and gas, and other offshore energy sectors.
Skills Bootcamps are free, flexible courses of up to 16 weeks that give adults the opportunity to build sector-specific skills and access an interview. This can meet the needs of existing workers looking to upskill, as well as new entrants to a sector. Courses are available in energy skills, including offshore renewables and wind turbine blade repair.
Apprenticeships are available in a range of occupational standards and can give employers and employees the skills they need to grow. The apprenticeships offer includes training in a huge range of disciplines, from logistics and project management to engineering and manufacturing. Flexibilities within apprenticeships include accelerated apprenticeships, which support those with existing industry experience to complete more quickly by recognising their prior leaning. This would suit people looking to move between sectors with transferable skills. Training is available for a range of engineering occupations crucial to the offshore energy sector including level 7 system integration engineer, level 3 plate welder, and level 4 asset manager.
In March 2021, The North Sea Transition Deal commited to supporting up to 40,000 direct and indirect supply chain jobs in decarbonising UK Continental Shelf jobs, and in Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) and Hydrogen. In May 2022, the government tasked offshore energy skills organisation, OPITO with developing an Integrated People and Skills Strategy. This work is complimented by the October 2021 Net Zero Strategy which commits the UK to net zero carbon emissions by 2050. The Green Jobs Delivery Group is also covering the oil and gas industry in its detailed work on workforce and skills. The Group will be publishing a Net Zero and Nature Workforce and Skills Action Plan in the first half of 2024.
According to the Integrated People and Skills Strategy, there are approximately 118,400 workers in oil and gas, and 148,500 in offshore energy overall. The Strategy forecasts offshore energy sector jobs increasing to 350,000 by 2050. It estimates 90% of the existing UK oil and gas workforce has skills transferable to other offshore energy sectors. Additionally, it states over half of the oil and gas workforce would consider moving into renewable energy jobs, provided they were supported with the right training. The Strategy commits to developing transition pathways to support offshore energy workers open to moving between sectors. This includes integration with the Armed Forces Covenant.
A digital skills passport is in development that allows people working in offshore energy to be occupationally competent across oil and gas, CCUS, Hydrogen, and offshore wind. According to the Green Jobs Taskforce report, published in July 2021, approximately 50%, or 100,000, of the UK’s offshore energy jobs by 2030 are predicted to be filled by workers transferring from oil and gas to offshore renewable roles, as well as new entrants from outside the sector.
Asked by: Jeff Smith (Labour - Manchester Withington)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps she is taking to support cultural organisations to build and maintain relationships with European partners following the UK’s exit from the European Union.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
The Department is taking a number of steps to deepen the longstanding relationships with our European partners — and, indeed, with countries in other continents across the globe — for instance by supporting the British Council’s Seasons of Culture, via bilateral agreements with other Governments, and through our membership of multilateral fora such as the Council of Europe and UNESCO. Ministers also undertake regular international visits and hold virtual meetings to champion British arts and cultural organisations, and engage in regular dialogue with counterparts from key partner countries.
To give a recent example, in March 2023 the Department supported the UK-France Summit. The communiqué from this acknowledged our deep cultural connections and shared interests and agreed to develop people-to-people initiatives including encouraging mobility, culture, and exchanges, within the framework of the EU-UK relationship.
The Department also funds Arts Council England to support the sector to forge direct and deeper links at an institution-to-institution level. We agreed an objective with Arts Council England to ‘Help the Cultural Sector to Work Internationally’. This is included in its 2021–24 Delivery Plan and covered in accountability meetings.
Asked by: Jeff Smith (Labour - Manchester Withington)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, with reference to the Building Safety Act 2022, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of capping the cost that construction companies can charge for building work.
Answered by Lee Rowley
The department has a robust cost framework in place using earlier tender price data, industry benchmarks and modelling to drive best value for grant funded remediations. It would be difficult in practice to establish price caps given the wide range of building types and materials. Price ceilings also risk distorting the market and industry practice, as well as reducing the appetite of suppliers to participate in remediation projects.
Asked by: Jeff Smith (Labour - Manchester Withington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many teachers in (a) primary and (b) secondary schools in Manchester Withington constituency do not have qualified teacher status.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Information on the school workforce in England is published in the annual ‘School Workforce in England’ national statistics release, available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england.
The number of teachers without qualified teacher status in all state funded schools in England, including a breakdown by primary and secondary, and by local authority, is available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/29d83b82-2aba-44c7-bb82-08db371944c7.
Data relating to schools in individual constituencies can be found in the ‘teacher and support staff numbers by school’ file, within the additional supporting files section, available at: https://content.explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/api/releases/0728fb07-f014-492c-aac9-fd11bb441601/files/2dfcc772-c410-46ac-cb9d-08da713e9200.
There are 24,000 more teachers now than in 2010. The quality of teaching is the most important in school factor in improving outcomes for children, especially for those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Evidence is clear that high quality professional development can lead to improved pupil attainment.
The Department has invested in transforming training for teachers and head teachers. Every teacher and head teacher now has access to high quality, evidence based training and professional development at every stage of their career, starting with initial teacher training (ITT).
By 2024, a reformed ITT provider market will be delivering quality assured training leading to qualified teacher status (QTS) that places a greater emphasis than ever before on embedding structured practice into courses, ensuring trainees are ready to thrive in the classroom.
A new system of higher quality training provider partnerships will be supported by £36 million to introduce new Quality Requirements, including better training for mentors and the delivery of new, cutting edge, intensive training, and practice activity. Every teaching school hub will be involved in ITT to ensure that training places are available across the country.
QTS is considered desirable for teachers in most schools in England. In some schools, including academies, free schools, and independent schools, QTS is not a legal requirement. Academies have a fundamental freedom to employ talented people who do not necessarily have QTS.
Most teachers in all schools, including academies, have QTS and have undertaken initial teacher training. In the 2021/22 academic year, the latest data available, 14,771 teachers (headcount) did not have qualified teacher status, equivalent to 2.9% of teachers.