Lord Kempsell

Boosting trade abroad is essential to deliver a strong economy at home. That is why we are committed to delivering a Free Trade Agreement with India, which is projected to be the world’s third largest economy by2028.

The Business and Trade Secretary is reviewing progress in our talks with India, and when ready we intend to restart negotiations towards a deal in the best interests of the British people and the economy, supporting jobs and communities across the UK.

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.

At the start of the year, Departments were sent a commission to submit initial returns on their plan for AI adoption: 17 Departments responded. Workshops were then held with a smaller number of prioritised departments to understand their AI adoption opportunities and challenges in detail, ahead of an expected spending review. This work was paused due to the general election.

The new government is fully committed to harnessing AI and other technologies to deliver the government’s five missions and improve citizens’ lives. However, rather than being bound by the commitments of the previous government, the government will instead set out revised plans for accelerating the adoption of AI in public services, in due course.

This government is clear that music and the arts should be part of every child’s education.

The independent Curriculum and Assessment Review will advise on how we deliver a broader curriculum for every child, including subjects such as music, art and drama. The government will also support children to study a creative or vocational subject to 16 and ensure accountability measures reflect this.

School music provision is supported through the £79 million per annum grant provided for the Music Hub programme, which is led by Arts Council England. Music Hubs are partnerships that provide a suite of services to schools to support the delivery of music education, including instrumental teaching, whole class ensemble teaching, instrument hire, continuing professional development for teachers and access to national and regional music opportunities.

To further support access to learning a musical instrument, the government is also providing a £25 million capital grant for musical instruments, equipment and technology. This funding will be distributed to the 43 Music Hub lead organisations by Arts Council England.

The government has also announced the Music Opportunities Pilot, expanding Young Sounds UK’s existing programme – Young Sounds Connect – which offers disadvantaged pupils across primary and secondary schools the opportunity to learn to play an instrument of their choice or learn how to sing to a high standard by providing free lessons and supporting young people to progress. The four year pilot will be delivered across 12 areas in England, and this is backed by £2 million from the government and £3.9 million from Arts Council England and Youth Music.

The government believes that creative subjects like arts, music and drama are significant elements of the rounded and enriching education every child deserves to receive. Under this government, the arts and music will no longer be the preserve of a privileged few.

One of the aims of the existing National Curriculum programmes of study for music from age 5 to 14 is to ensure that all pupils in England have the opportunity to learn a musical instrument. However, academies and free schools are not required to follow the National Curriculum. The government has established an independent review of the curriculum and assessment from ages 5 to 18, which will be led by Professor Becky Francis CBE, and one of the aims is to deliver a broader curriculum so that pupils do not miss out on subjects such as music. When the review has concluded, subject to parliament passing the Children’s Wellbeing Bill, the department will require all state-funded schools, including academies and free schools, to follow the National Curriculum.

The department additionally supports children to learn to play instruments through the Music Hubs programme which support instrumental teaching in schools, including whole class ensemble teaching, instrument tuition, an instrument hire service, continuing professional development for teachers and access to local, regional and national ensemble. In 2022/23, Music Hubs provided support to around 90% of schools across England.

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.

Agriculture is a devolved area, and Wales’s Sustainable Farming Scheme is therefore a matter for the Welsh Government.

Defra and devolved administration officials meet routinely to share experiences and insight regarding our respective agricultural policies.

We remain committed to the statutory target to increase tree canopy and woodland cover in England to 16.5% by 2050. We have announced a rapid review of the Environmental Improvement Plan and will introduce a new, statutory plan to protect and restore our natural environment and to deliver our ambitious targets to save nature.

The Water Minister and I know the devastating impact flooding and coastal erosion can have on communities. That is why we are committed to supporting coastal communities and ensuring flood risk management is fit for the challenges we face now and in the future. We will work to improve resilience and preparation across central government and local authorities to better protect communities across the UK.

The Government’s investment plan includes defences for the coast where it is sustainable and affordable to defend the coastline. In areas where it is not, other approaches such as managed realignment or transition may be needed.

The Government is clear that traffic management measures such as low traffic neighbourhoods are a matter for local authorities as they know their areas best. Traffic management schemes should always be developed through engagement with local communities.

This Government will not roll out new smart motorways. The safety of everyone travelling on our roads is the Government’s priority, which is why we are committed to delivering a new Road Safety Strategy, the first in over a decade. In addition, we have asked the Office for Rail and Road to report on the effectiveness of safety systems in place on smart motorways, including the performance of stopped vehicle detection technology and operational technology performance. Their next report is due in Spring 2025.

Delivering reliable and affordable public transport services for passengers is one of the government’s top priorities and we know how important this is for passengers and for local growth. The Department for Transport is looking at the future of the £2 fare cap as a matter of urgency, and is considering the most appropriate and affordable approach for the future of the scheme.

The Government is committed to a preventative approach to public health. Keeping people warm and well at home and improving the quality of new and existing homes will play an essential part in enabling people to live longer, healthier lives and reducing pressures on the NHS.

Our continued commitment to the triple lock means the full new state pension is forecast to increase by a further £1,700 over this course of the parliament.

The Household Support Fund is also being extended for a further six months, from 1 October 2024 until 31 March 2025.  An additional £421 million will be provided to enable the extension of the HSF in England, plus funding for the Devolved Governments through the Barnett formula to be spent at their discretion, as usual.

The Warm Home Discount scheme in England and Wales provides eligible low-income households across Great Britain with a £150 rebate on their electricity bill. This winter, we expect over three million households, including over one million pensioners, to benefit under the scheme.

We are also providing support through our Warm Homes Plan which pensioners will benefit from. This will support investment in insulation and low carbon heating – upgrading millions of homes over this Parliament. Our long-term plan will protect billpayers permanently, reduce fuel poverty, and get the UK back on track to meet our climate goals.

There are a large number of Chagossian groups with a spectrum of views. Ministers and officials have sought to engage a range of Chagossian groups or representatives with an interest on a range of issues, including implementation of the agreement. We will continue to do so. We recognise the importance of the islands to Chagossians and have worked to ensure this agreement reflects their interests.

The agreement is subject to the finalisation of a treaty which the Government intends to complete over the coming months. Further details will remain confidential until the final version of the Treaty has been signed by both sides. Details of financial arrangements are held in the confidential exchange of letters that accompanies the draft treaty, which we do not plan to make public unless compelled to by parliament in due course. While we continue to finalise the treaty, making these figures public would put into question our reliability as a negotiating partner and undermine the security of the base.

The negotiations were between the UK and Mauritius, with our priority being to secure the full operation of the base on Diego Garcia. However, we recognise the huge importance of the islands to Chagossians and have worked to ensure this agreement reflects their interests. Mauritius will be free to implement a programme of resettlement on the islands other than Diego Garcia, and we will finance a new trust fund for Mauritius in support of Chagossians. Working with Mauritius, we will also restart visits to all the islands for Chagossians. Ministers and officials will continue regular engagement with members of the community.

The UK and Mauritius have held 12 rounds of negotiations on the exercise of sovereignty over British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT). Whilst it is too early to speculate on timelines or conclusions, our priority remains to resolve this important issue and ensure that any agreement protects the long-term effective and secure operation of the joint UK/US military base on Diego Garcia.

The UK Government is confident of British sovereignty over the whole of Gibraltar, including British Gibraltar Territorial Waters. The UK Government will never enter into arrangements under which the people of Gibraltar would pass under the sovereignty of another State against their freely and democratically expressed wishes. We have not, and will never enter into a process of sovereignty negotiations with which Gibraltar is not content. We regularly make this position clear to Spain.

In a public statement on 2 October 2023, the previous Chancellor announced a cap on civil service numbers. This statement includes data on the estimated financial impacts of this policy for the remainder of the SR21 Spending Review period, ending in March 2025. It can be accessed at GOV.UK.

The headcount cap announced by the previous administration was lifted in July in line with taking immediate action to stop all non-essential government consultancy spend in 2024-25 and to halve government spending on consultancy in future years. At Autumn Budget, the government committed to developing a strategic plan for a more efficient and effective civil service through phase two of the multi-year spending review.

On 29 July, the Government announced that, as of 1 January 2025, all education services and vocational training provided by a private school in the UK for a charge will be subject to VAT at the standard rate of 20%. This will include fees paid by CEA.

A small minority of diplomatic officials and service personnel are posted abroad for extended periods. In such circumstances, the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office provide the Continuity of Education Allowance (CEA) to ensure this does not interfere with their children's education.

The government will monitor closely the impact of these policy changes on affected military and diplomatic families with any changes to this scheme being considered as part of the ongoing Spending Review.

On 29 July, the Government announced that, as of 1 January 2025, all education services and vocational training provided by a private school in the UK for a charge will be subject to VAT at the standard rate of 20 per cent. This will also apply to boarding services provided by private schools.

The Government will confirm the introduction of these tax policy changes at the Budget on 30 October. Following scrutiny of the Government’s costing by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility, details of the Government’s assessment of the expected impacts of these policy changes will be published at the Budget in the usual way.

The Chancellor has launched a multi-year Spending Review to conclude in Spring 2025.

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 Home Office employs teams of caseworkers in a variety of different functions to deliver the department’s key missions, including processing visa applications, strengthening border security, clearing the backlogs and increasing removals of those with no right to stay.

The Border Security Command (BSC) has been launched within the Home Office, led by the Commander, Martin Hewitt. The BSC will be appropriately resourced to ensure we can disrupt organised criminal gangs and respond to a range of threats across the border security system.

The Command will collaborate with a wide range of agencies, recruiting hundreds of new specialist staff across these organisations, including investigators, to smash the criminal gangs and strengthen our borders. Wider recruitment is ongoing and any external opportunities for the BSC will be advertised on Civil Service Jobs; initial roles within the BSC have been filled through internal processes.

We need to be able to progress swiftly those with no right to remain in the country towards a return, reversing the decline in returns since 2010.

That’s why we have already begun delivering a major surge in immigration enforcement and returns activity to remove people with no right to be in the UK and ensure the rules are respected and enforced, redeploying significant numbers of staff to a returns and enforcement programme enhancing the Home Office’s ability to accelerate removals to safe countries for individuals without the right to remain here.

The Home Secretary set out the government’s position in respect of the Illegal Migration Act in her statement to the house on 22^nd July 2024. Any legislative plans flowing from the statement will be set out in the normal way in due course.

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.

For Academic Year 2023-24, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) paid £88.6 million for Continuity of Education Allowance (CEA) to support the education of 4,005 children for 2,666 Service personnel. Following the Budget statement by the Chancellor on 30 October, the MOD confirmed that it would carry out an in-year re-rating of CEA. The increased cost of the allowance to MOD is unknown until the exercise completes in early December.

The new Government’s work in improving retention and recruitment is part of a package of measures aimed to renew the contract between the nation and those who serve. We are modernising and refining our policies and processes to attract, and then retain the best possible talent, highlighting that Defence is a modern, forward-facing employer which offers a valuable and rewarding career. Our aim is to attract and recruit more, as well as maximise the number of applicants that successfully enter and remain in Armed Forces employment.

We have already awarded the largest Armed Forces pay increase in 22 years, ensuring that the starting Armed Forces’ salary is in line with the National Living Wage, and have set a new ambition for the Armed Forces to make a conditional offer of employment to candidates within 10 days and to give people a provisional training start date within 30 days. We have reviewed and implemented changes to the Armed Forces’ Entry Medical Employment Standards, setting new regulations for a range of conditions including asthma and eczema. Furthermore, Defence is creating a new military direct-entry cyber pathway. This will help boost our cyber resilience and support the UK’s ability to conduct operations in cyberspace.

The Ministry of Defence currently has 2,666* Armed Forces personnel receiving MOD’s Continuity of Education Allowance (CEA) The number supported since 2019 is as follows:

*as at Academic Year 2023-24

(2) The FCDO currently have 328 diplomatic families claiming Continuity of Education Allowance. The number supported since 2019 is as follows:

The UK has a number of excellent electromagnetic warfare capabilities; given the highly competitive nature of electromagnetic warfare, the Ministry of Defence will consider how best to keep pace with this challenge as part of the Strategic Defence Review.

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.

I refer the noble Lord to the answer given to Question UIN 11941 on 8 November

This government was elected on a manifesto that stressed its commitment to the communities' sector and community ownership through empowering communities to own and run those local assets which mean the most to them.

Communities will rightly be seeking clarity on previous funding commitments. The Chancellor’s July ‘Public Spending: Inheritance’ speech set out the path to confirming plans for this year and next at the forthcoming Budget on 30^th October 2024.

We understand that this may have caused uncertainty about the future of the Community Ownership Fund. The government recognises this is challenging and will seek to provide clarity as quickly as possible.

There are currently no plans to reform council tax.

Data on SDS40 releases forms a subset of data intended for future publication. The number of prison places projected to be saved by SDS40 releases are set out in the Impact Assessment (between 4,600 and 5,900 prison places for the male estate).

Serco had sufficient capacity in terms of both equipment levels and resources to tag all those being released from custody with an Electronic Monitoring requirement under this scheme. As with all releases from custody, prior notification was issued to Serco with licence notification paperwork to identify numbers and locations of those requiring tagging.

By 04 November, all required visits to attempt tag installation for SDS40 cases had been made.

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.