Philip Hollobone

We recognise that men and boys can be victims of these crimes and are committed to providing them with the support they need. In March 2022 we published our supporting male victims policy document, which contains commitments to strengthen our response to male victims. This financial year, we are also providing up to £200,000 funding to Respect to help run the Men’s Advice Line, who supported over 10,000 calls last financial year.

When the UK took on the role of organising COP26 less than 30% of the global economy was covered by Net Zero targets.

As a result of the work the UK did with partners, by the time we got to COP26 over 90% of the world's economy was covered by Net Zero targets.

There are still under-represented groups who are struggling to access Higher Education (HE), including white, working-class males.

Prior attainment is a key determinant of successful participation in HE.  When we account for this, we see reductions in the gaps between the most and least advantaged groups.

That is why we are refocusing the entire access and participation regime to drive up standards throughout the system – and we are asking universities to take a more direct role in doing this.

We are asking universities to raise standards in schools and colleges, offer flexible and skills-related courses, tackle drop-out rates, and support students throughout university and graduation into meaningful employment.

To increase aspiration and attainment a far greater focus needs to be placed on activities which benefit students, including summer schools, programmes of intervention in schools and targeted bursaries to assist with living costs.

An investment of up to £75 million has been announced to create a National Scholarship Scheme which will support high achieving disadvantaged students to reach their full potential.

I agree that we should do everything we can to protect our emergency workers. I hope that the Honourable Member will be pleased to know that between 2019 and 2020 the numbers of prosecutions for these offences increased by 27.2% in the East Midlands CPS Area and by 25.1% overall across England and Wales.

I refer my Hon. friend to the answers given to PQ 113291-113292 on 13 January 2023.

Departmental helplines are not managed or run centrally. Therefore, each department is responsible for their own helpline, as well as response and waiting times.

Data on Civil Service headquarters occupancy is published weekly on Gov.uk. The data is split out by individual departments. The data can be access at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/civil-service-headquarters-occupancy-data

The recently published statistics taken from the above source show that the number of civil servants working from offices is increasing across Whitehall. Many departments have seen occupancy rates rise to pre pandemic levels for several months now. The Government believes colleagues learn, develop and collaborate together best in an office setting.

During the pandemic, the Government delivered an unprecedented package of support for business. In total, over £22.6 billion was provided to businesses via Local Authorities throughout England, for Business Grant Support.

In the constituency of Kettering, over 5,000 covid-19 business grants were issued, amounting to £24.6 million.

North Northamptonshire Council has delivered £29.9 million to local businesses through covid-19 business grant schemes since its formation in 2021.

I am pleased that 89 percent of premises in the Kettering constituency and 85 percent of premises in North Northamptonshire can access gigabit-capable broadband. To improve this further, we have launched a £52 million procurement as part of Project Gigabit, to deliver gigabit-capable connections to rural premises across Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire and Milton Keynes. We aim to award a contract to the successful supplier by the end of this year. In April, we published a 10-point action plan to improve rural connectivity. We are already delivering on that plan through the appointment of Simon Fell MP as Rural Connectivity Champion.

88 percent of premises in the Kettering constituency and 83 percent of premises in North Northamptonshire are able to access gigabit-capable broadband.

The Government has now launched market engagement exercises in all Project Gigabit intervention areas in England and are making excellent progress on our Project Gigabit procurements covering premises in Kettering and North Northamptonshire, with contracts expected to be awarded next year.

More immediate support for premises in rural areas is also available through the Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme.

88 per cent of premises in the Honourable Member’s constituency are able to access gigabit-capable broadband.

Across the UK as a whole, 66 per cent of premises now have access to gigabit broadband, up from six per cent three years ago. This means Kettering’s connectivity is above the national average and we are on track for gigabit coverage to reach at least 85 per cent of premises by 2025 and we are working to reach near-universal coverage as soon as possible thereafter.

The Events Research Programme Science Board has planned for testing to take place both before and after each of the event pilots to ensure event safety and to gather evidence on the pilots. This will be for all attendees, regardless of COVID vaccination status, and there will be no requirement for participants to show proof of the vaccine.

The Events Research Programme (including DCMS, DHSC and BEIS) will report at the end of May to the Prime Minister, to feed into wider discussions around Step 4 of the roadmap.

An individual’s vaccination status will be included as a variable when analysing test result data relating to the Events Research Programme (ERP). This will enable analysis of whether vaccinations have impacted on any potential transmission at the events.

The Events Research Programme (including DCMS, DHSC and BEIS) will report at the end of May to the Prime Minister, to feed into wider discussions around Step 4 of the roadmap.

We are rolling out the Sustainable Farming Incentive 2023 in a controlled way, making sure we offer everyone the right level of support.

We invited Basic Payment Scheme eligible farmers to register interest for SFI2023 with the Rural Payments Agency from 30 August 2023. Over 14,000 farmers have done so, representing one in six. This process is already being simplified, with the majority of farmers no longer needing to registrations of interest as of this week.

We started to accept applications from 18 September. I am pleased to confirm the first payments were made yesterday.

Businesses have been clear that adding glass to a deposit return scheme will add fundamental complexity for our pubs and restaurants, increase burdens on small businesses, whilst creating greater inconvenience for consumers. We recognise that some sectors are concerned about potential for material switching. However, there are many market forces acting in this space - predicting impacts is very hard. Importantly glass will be included in Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging where obligated producers will be responsible for the disposal costs of their packaging so there will be some balancing of incentives.

We are working on the recycling targets for each packaging material as part of work to finalise our plans for Extended Producer Responsibility. The individual recycling targets for each material will be set to achieve our environmental ambitions taking into account the specific issues and challenges associated with each material.

In England and Northern Ireland glass drinks bottles will remain in scope of the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for packaging scheme as will all other types of glass packaging placed on the market in all nations. EPR will place recycling targets on producers in relation to glass packaging and require relevant obligated producers to cover the costs of collecting and managing glass packaging arising in household waste and discarded in street bins managed by local authorities.

In our 2022 response to the 2021 EPR consultation the Government set out recycling targets for 2025 and 2030, including glass. These included glass drinks containers in England and Northern Ireland.

Kettering and the wider East Midlands economy already benefit from the higher productivity and better-quality jobs associated with international trade. Over 680,000 jobs in the region were directly or indirectly linked to exports in 2016, and new Foreign Direct Investment created over 2,149 new jobs in 2020/21. We are confident the new Free Trade Agreements we are striking globally will create even more opportunities for Kettering and Northamptonshire companies.

Yes I will. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the way he has championed this issue. I have visited the hospital; I have seen it for myself. As he will be aware, the full business case was received by the New Hospital Programme recently. While the cost has increased, it is still within the wider funding envelope for the scheme on that site and I will do everything I can to expedite the process as he asks. I have asked my ministerial colleague, Lord Markham, to meet with him to discuss this case.

The Government is committed to building 40 new hospitals by 2030 - backed by an expected over £20 billion of investment in hospital infrastructure

We are working with all trusts, including Kettering, on what the certainty this funding confirmation represents and how it will benefit staff and patients

Our new standardisation approach to hospital design and construction, Hospital 2.0, means the process to review and agree business cases will be more streamlined, delivering results more quickly and almost halving the average time to develop and build hospitals.

I would be delighted to meet with my hon. Friend, hon. Members from North Northamptonshire and his local hospital trust at the earliest possible opportunity.

Data on the COVID-19 cases in the United Kingdom are not available in the format requested.

Public Health England has published a COVID-19 tracking dashboard showing reported cases of coronavirus in the UK, including new cases, cases by upper tier local authority in England.

The dashboard can be viewed at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-track-coronavirus-cases

The UK is actively monitoring the security situation in Jenin. We unequivocally condemn the use and possession of indiscriminate weapons by militant groups in Jenin. The UK has proscribed Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) as a terrorist entity since March 2001. PIJ and other terrorist groups must cease their campaign of violence, for which there is no justification. Such activity compromises the region's security, its ability to prosper and escalates already high tensions, with consequences for the international community. The UK supports the Palestinian Authority's security jurisdiction in area 'A' of the West Bank, as agreed through the Oslo Accords. We call on the Palestinian Authority and Government of Israel to cooperate in securing the safety and protection of civilians across the West Bank.

The UK is actively monitoring the security situation in Jenin. We unequivocally condemn the use and possession of indiscriminate weapons by militant groups in Jenin. The UK has proscribed Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) as a terrorist entity since March 2001. PIJ and other terrorist groups must cease their campaign of violence, for which there is no justification. Such activity compromises the region's security, its ability to prosper and escalates already high tensions, with consequences for the international community. The UK supports the Palestinian Authority's security jurisdiction in area 'A' of the West Bank, as agreed through the Oslo Accords. We call on the Palestinian Authority and Government of Israel to cooperate in securing the safety and protection of civilians across the West Bank.

During his call on 4 July with the Israeli chargé d'affaires in London, the Minister of State for the Middle East, Lord (Tariq) Ahmad of Wimbledon expressed his condolences over the terror attack that took place in Tel Aviv earlier that day. The Foreign Secretary also expressed his condolences about this terror attack when he spoke to Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen on 5 July. We are appalled by terrorist attacks against Israeli citizens. There can be no justification for such acts of violence. Every Israeli and Palestinian has the right to live in peace and security. We understand and share the deep frustration on all sides at the lack of progress on the Middle East Peace Process. Ongoing violence underlines that a just and lasting resolution that ends the occupation and delivers peace for both Israelis and Palestinians is long overdue.

The FCDO provides funding to the Centre for Information Resilience (CIR). We work with them on human rights and countering disinformation. They are experts on tracking disinformation narratives that our adversaries are using to undermine social cohesion and norms around the world, as well as using open-source investigation methods to identify and verify digital content showing abuse of human rights. Following the coup in Myanmar, we established and funded the Myanmar Witness programme, run by CIR, to collect and verify evidence of serious human rights violations and abuses. This evidence could be used in any future legal proceedings.

The next quarterly statistics release on irregular migration to the UK, published on 23 February, will include data on modern slavery claims from small boats arrivals.

New measures to strengthen our National Referral Mechanism against misuse came into force last week. New legislation will ensure we only support genuine victims; not those who seek to abuse our laws to stop their removal.

In the first three quarters of 2022 (Jan to Sept) the number of NRM referrals for potential victims of modern slavery for certain nationalities were:

• 3,432 Albanian

• 897 Eritrean

• In the first two quarters of 2022 (Jan to June) based on FOI data obtained by Migration Watch UK, there were 1,156 individuals who crossed the channel who made NRM referrals.

The National Shipbuilding Office will be responsible for driving forward one of the Prime Minister’s key domestic priorities across Government. It will report directly to the Shipbuilding Tsar and will oversee all of the UK Government’s interests in UK shipbuilding.

Our National Shipbuilding Strategy Refresh, which will be published later this year, will set out our approach in more detail.

Longstanding safety advice from the independent expert advisory panel established by Government following the Grenfell tragedy is that height is a central factor in assessing risk, and it is right we prioritise action on higher rise buildings where risk to multiple households is greater when fire spreads. For lower and medium-rise blocks of flats, the risks are significantly lower and the remediation of cladding is less likely to be needed - in many cases, it will not be needed at all. Government funding does not absolve building owners of their responsibility to ensure their buildings are safe. They should consider all routes to meet costs, protecting leaseholders where they can – for example through warranties and recovering costs from contractors for incorrect or poor work.

The Government is committed to supporting Northern Ireland’s economy. The Northern Ireland Investment Summit in September 2023 welcomed 180 investors, and generous funding packages are creating jobs, developing skills, supporting businesses and attracting FDI, including through the £617m UK Government investment into the four City and Growth Deals in Northern Ireland and the British Business Bank’s £70m Investment Fund. Northern Ireland is now positioned for an era of transformational success with a financial package worth in excess of £3bn to a returning Executive, plus unique arrangements for trade across the UK, the EU and the world, together with a range of government packages of support.

The Government has provided significant resources to the Executive to address these issues and I continue to urge the parties to form an Executive, so that the £435 million provided by the Government can be allocated to help people across Northern Ireland as a matter of urgency.

The Government has provided a joint work programme to the EU as a first step in working together to resolve the full range of issues that we have identified with the operation of the Protocol.

Our priority now is to move those discussions forward, address concerns, and ensure the Protocol is given effect in the pragmatic and proportionate way intended.

The UK Government supported businesses and households throughout the global pandemic and the British Business Bank loan scheme alone saved up to 500,000 businesses and 2.9 million jobs UK-wide alone.

We have taken action last year and returned the public finances to a sustainable path, and the Government is on track to meet its fiscal rules.