Lord Kempsell

I refer Lord Kempsell to the statement made by the Rt Hon Baroness Smith of Basildon about Machinery of Government changes on 24 July 2024, HLWS18.

No additional funding is allocated to departments to implement machinery of government changes.

The United States is the UK’s largest single country trading partner, and we are exploring multiple avenues to strengthen trade ties across the country.

Alabama imported £411 million of goods from the UK, and exported £312 million of goods to the UK, in 2023. Alabama’s single largest category of goods imports from the UK in 2023 was aircraft, spacecraft, and parts thereof, valuing £130.5 million.

We therefore welcome the participation of a delegation from Alabama in the recent Farnborough International Airshow, encouraging the growth of commercial ties between the UK and Alabama in the aerospace sector.

The U.S. is our largest single country trade partner, with trade totalling over £300bn in 2023. Supporting UK-U.S. trade and investment is a vital part of our mission to deliver economic growth. There are huge opportunities to build on this relationship, and ensure that we are working together to address the challenges of the modern economy.

The government recognises that effective accountability has the potential to make a real contribution to breaking down barriers and helping to support improvement for the benefit of children, students and learners across the country. That is why the department is committed to reforming Ofsted and improving the inspection system. This will include moving away from the single headline grade to a richer system through a report card. The department will work in partnership with schools and the wider sector to ensure that its reforms maximise the potential to improve the life chances for every child and young person. The department is carefully considering the timing of any changes that it makes.

The Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary met the Mauritian Prime Minister on 23 July and committed to continuing negotiations on the exercise of sovereignty over the British Indian Ocean Territory/Chagos Archipelago. It is too early to speculate on timelines or conclusions, but it is the Government's priority to resolve this long standing and important issue, including ensuring the long-term secure and effective operation of the joint UK/US military base on Diego Garcia.

This Government will bring a consistent, long-term and strategic approach to managing the UK's relations with China, driven by the national interest. We will co-operate where we can, including on global net zero, health and trade; compete where we have different interests; and challenge where we must, to protect our national security and values. We will improve the UK's capability to understand and respond to the challenges and opportunities China poses through an audit of the UK's relationship with China as a bilateral and global actor.

The Government is committed to breaking down barriers to opportunity, ensuring every child has access to high-quality education, which is why we have made the tough decision to end tax breaks for private schools. This will raise revenue for essential public services, including investing in the education system.

The Government has set out the details of this policy in the technical note Applying VAT to Private School Fees and Removing the Business Rates Charitable Rates Relief for Private Schools which can be found at the below link. A technical consultation on the technical note and draft VAT legislation will be open until 15 September 2024.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-on-private-school-fees-removing-the-charitable-rates-relief-for-private-schools

As set out by the Government in a Written Ministerial Statement on 29 July, the Government will introduce 20% VAT on education and boarding services provided for a charge by private schools across the UK from 1 January 2025. 20% VAT will also apply to pre-payments of fees for terms starting on or after 1 January 2025 made on or after 29 July 2024. These changes will not impact pupils with the most acute special educational needs, where their needs can only be met in private schools.

The Government will confirm the introduction of these tax changes at the Budget on 30 October. A Tax Information and Impact Note will be published alongside the Finance Bill.

The Migration and Economic Development Partnership has finished. We are currently carrying out a legislative review which includes consideration of the repeal of the Safety of Rwanda Act. More details will be set out in due course.

The UK is demonstrating its leadership in the global hypersonic arena by active participation in the AUKUS Pillar 2 Advanced Capability Partnership. Since inception in 2022, the UK has been championing accelerated capability development with AUKUS allies, whilst also developing the long-term future of the UK's hypersonic industrial base.

Additionally, MOD continues to work with existing allies and international partners to investigate a range of advanced future capabilities.

Building on previous research and development, the MOD has established a Programme Team - Team Hypersonics (UK) - to cohere Ministry of Defence, industry and academia around the development of a sovereign hypersonic capability.

Team Hypersonics (UK) has established the Hypersonic Technologies and Capability Development Framework (HTCDF). This bespoke £ one billion Commercial Agile Route to Market is the mechanism to facilitate a spiralled approach to technology development through to a sovereign capability. 90 suppliers including defence primes, small & medium enterprises (SME) and academic institutions are now signed up.

With these enablers in place, the testing of critical sovereign-designed and manufactured missile sub-system technologies continues, including a novel hypersonic propulsion system. Several invitations to tender have already been released to spirally develop a range of technologies. These and future ITTs will allow the development of technical demonstrators and onwards into a capability.

We are constantly monitoring the use of End of Custody Supervised Licence (ECSL) and its impact.

ECSL was implemented in October 2023. Since its operation, the number of ECSL releases between 17 October 2023 and 30 June 2024 was 10,083. Further information on ECSL data is intended for future publication in due course.