Paul Williams

The Government continues to engage across all regions of the country to ensure that the country as a whole is ready for Brexit. It is a UK Government priority to ensure preparedness across both the country and the economy, including through working closely with local government. These issues are discussed regularly by Cabinet and its committees, including the European Exit Operations Committee.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

BEIS analysis is that changes in the price of crude oil are the main driver of changes in the national average retail prices of fuels such a petrol and diesel. Other factors include currency exchange rates and the balance of supply and demand for these fuels in the wholesale petroleum products markets.

Crude oil and petroleum products are traded through liquid international markets. The UK benefits from a diverse range of import sources alongside UK domestic production and will continue to do so after we leave the EU.

BEIS Ministers and officials have been engaging throughout the country with businesses of all sizes and their representatives and trade associations, including the Bioethanol industry. We will continue to engage across the business population to ensure their priorities are reflected and that businesses have the latest information on how to prepare themselves for Brexit, including through a targeted series of roadshows and events.

The Government also has a business readiness website designed to keep businesses and consumers informed about what no deal might mean for them, with information on a range of measures that may need to be taken in order to prepare. These notices are being regularly updated with the latest information, for example BEIS have published 18 sector specific guides with the top three to six priorities per sector on GOV.UK. These guides can be easily accessed through an interactive business search tool: https://www.gov.uk/brexit.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

Government is in regular dialogue with businesses, including those in the automotive supply chain, to help ensure all companies are prepared for the UK leaving the EU on the 31st October, whatever the circumstances.

We are determined to ensure that the UK continues to be one of the most competitive locations in the world for automotive and other advanced manufacturing.

We are prepared for no-deal but there is more work to be done. The Chancellor has confirmed that all necessary funding will be made available to mitigate any short-term effects and to boost the potential of the UK economy. A £10m Business Readiness Fund for business organisations and trade associations will support businesses in preparing for a ‘No Deal’ Brexit ahead of 31 October 2019.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

The inclusion or exclusion of the 101 number from mobile phone plans is a decision made by individual telecom providers. Mobile phone customers can adjust their mobile phone settings, so they can ‘opt in’ to chargeable calls and use the 101 number. It is for telecom providers to provide this information to their customers in their plans.

The Home Office is removing charges for the 101 police non-emergency number, making the number free of charge for all members of the public from April 2020. The Policy for this sits with the Home Office.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

Ofcom has a power under the Communications Act 2003 to regulate premium rate services, those higher rate services charged to telephone bills, which it has delegated to the Phone-paid Services Authority (PSA).

Providers of intermediary connection services, known as information, connection and signposting services (ICSS) are subject to PSA’s strict mandatory Code of Practice if they operate under certain number and price ranges. Ofcom recently consulted on proposals to broaden the scope of the rules so that they would apply to all such services, meaning that all ICSS would be subject to the PSA’s remit. Ofcom aims to publish its decision before the end of 2018.

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is strongly committed to ensuring new build developments have high quality, reliable and future-proof connectivity.

In early 2016, DCMS brokered an agreement between Openreach and the Home Builders Federation (HBF) so that all new build developments would be offered with Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) for free, or as part of a co-funded initiative. In November 2016, Openreach announced that it would provide FTTP to all new developments with more than 30 plots for free. Virgin Media and GTC, another infrastructure provider, have similar agreements with the HBF.

My Department’s Barrier Busting Task Force are exploring how we can build on this to ensure that all residents of new build developments receive the connectivity they deserve.

The Department welcomes commercial investment in UK digital infrastructure such as Virgin Media’s Project Lightning and is working to encourage further investment through policies and funding. These include Business Rates Relief for fibre investment and the £200m Local Full Fibre Networks programme to fund locally-led projects that leverage commercial investment in full fibre broadband connections. For alternative network providers, £400 million of public funding has also been made available for fibre connectivity through the Digital Infrastructure Investment Fund, which will unlock approximately £1 billion of private investment.

Looking further ahead, the Future Telecoms Infrastructure Review is currently assessing what market models can best support broadband infrastructure investment in different areas of the UK.

The Government’s existing £1.7bn Broadband Delivery UK programme reached 95% of premises in December 2017 and is continuing with at least a further 2% likely to be achieved, ensuring that over 97% of premises in the UK can receive superfast broadband.

Department for Education officials have been working closely with higher education (HE) representative bodies including Universities UK, Independent HE, Guild HE, the Russell Group and others (representing the full spectrum of HE providers across the UK) on exiting the EU preparations. In all scenarios, the objective was to not only understand any concerns from universities but to also communicate policy.

The department has also published a number of notices providing advice and guidance to support the HE sector to prepare for exiting the EU. We will continue to update these as relevant, ensuring that HE institutions are aware of these updates.

The government has also launched a public information campaign to ensure that UK citizens, businesses, HE providers and EU citizens living in the UK, as well as UK nationals living in the EU, are well informed about how exiting the EU will affect them.

All local authorities are maintaining education, health and care (EHC) plans for young people up to the age of 25. The number of pupils with a statement or EHC plan, based on where the child attends school by local authority can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/statements-of-sen-and-ehc-plans-england-2018.

The information requested is not held centrally. Information on the number of young people who are not in education, employment and training and who have an education, health and care plan is currently being collected from local authorities for the first time and will be published in May 2019 within the “Statements of SEN and EHC plans: January 2019” publication.

The quality of support provided for care leavers is assessed under Ofsted’s framework for the inspection of local authority children’s services. In its annual report (2017-18) Ofsted reported that care leaver services were improving, saying “We have continued to explore the experience of care leavers in different local authorities and have been pleased to find an increasing number of local authorities providing high-quality services for them”. The latest Ofsted report for Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council rated its leaving care service as ‘outstanding’. A copy of the report is available at: https://files.api.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/2761258.

Department for Education has appointed Mark Riddell MBE as the national improvement adviser for care leavers. Mark was previously the manager of Trafford leaving care service, which was the first to be judged ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted. Mark has worked with over 40 local authorities to help them implement new duties introduced in 2018, which require local authorities to publish their ‘local offer’ for care leavers; and offer support from a Personal Adviser to all care leavers to age 25 (previously support ended at age 21 for most care leavers). Mark has published an annual report highlighting best practice in leaving care services, a copy of which is available via the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-implementation-adviser-for-care-leavers-first-year-report.

However, care leavers’ outcomes remain significantly worse than their peers in the general population and the government is determined to further improve the support care leavers receive as they make the challenging transition from care to independence. In addition to the new duties on local authorities mentioned above, government has introduced a range of measures to improve care leavers’ outcomes, including:

• Launching 3 care leaver social impact bonds, which will use ‘payment by results’ contracts to support care leavers to engage in education, employment or training;

• Establishing 8 ‘Staying Close’ pilots, which are testing an enhanced support offer for young people leaving residential care;

• Providing additional funding for 47 local authorities, to enable them to work intensively with small caseloads of care leavers at highest risk of homelessness – as part of the cross-government rough sleeping strategy;

• Introducing a £1,000 bursary for care leavers starting an apprenticeship (local authorities are already required to provide a £2,000 bursary for care leavers who go to university; and care leavers are a priority group for receipt of a 16-19 bursary if they are in further education).

• Launching the care leaver covenant, which provides a way for organisations from the public, private and voluntary sectors to show their commitment to care leavers, through providing concrete offers of support;

• Launching the next recruitment round for the Civil Service care leaver internship scheme, which provides 12-month paid internships for care leavers across government. For this intake we are hoping to place 100 care leavers in government departments across the country;

• Publishing guidance to universities on how they can improve the support they offer to care leavers.

The department publishes data annually on the activity and accommodation status of care leavers aged 19-21. It has also published experimental statistics for 17 and 18-year-olds. These data are available in tables F1 to F4 at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoption-2017-to-2018.

Data show care leavers’ activity/accommodation status on or around their birthday, so do not provide answers to the questions in the form they have been asked. However, the latest data for the year ending March 2018 show that of the 28,510 care leavers aged 19 to 21:

• 1% (320 young people) were reported to be homeless or no fixed abode; and

• 4% (1,080 young people) were reported to be in custody.

The department does not hold data on the number of care leavers who had diagnosed mental health needs.

The department has recently provided funding of £4.8 million to local authorities to enable them to provide additional support to care leavers at risk of rough sleeping – as part of the cross government rough sleeping strategy.

The most important drivers of change in the cost of food to consumers are global food commodity prices, currency exchange rates and oil prices. This will continue to be the case once the UK has left the EU and the UK Government has no direct control of these factors. However, we work closely with industry to promote transparency for consumers, and internationally to promote open global markets.

We have been working closely with all water companies in the UK, as well as chemical suppliers, regulators and the devolved administrations on contingency planning. Companies are well advanced in their preparations to make sure they can meet their statutory responsibility to maintain services. We are confident that no-deal will not have an impact on water supply.

It will be the case that our water will continue to be safe and of the same quality customers expect when we leave the European Union.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.