Philippa Whitford

The Terms of Reference for the Taskforce have been published on GOV.UK. As set out there, the Taskforce has been commissioned by the Prime Minister to consider opportunities for regulatory reform across the economy independently, and to report to him in April. It is a matter for the Taskforce to decide its areas of focus within the Terms of Reference.

The Terms of Reference for the Taskforce have been published on GOV.UK. As set out there, the Taskforce has been commissioned by the Prime Minister to consider opportunities for regulatory reform across the economy independently, and to report to him in April. It is a matter for the Taskforce to decide its areas of focus within the Terms of Reference.

The Government is committed to ensuring that elections are accessible for all those eligible to vote and has been working with the RNIB to improve the voting process for voters with sight loss. We are currently considering how best to implement changes better to support blind and partially sighted people to cast their vote. Announcements will be made in the usual way.

The Government is committed to ensuring that elections are accessible for all those eligible to vote and has been working with the RNIB to improve the voting process for voters with sight loss. We are currently considering how best to implement changes better to support blind and partially sighted people to cast their vote. Announcements will be made in the usual way.

The UK Government will continue to prepare to meet our obligations under the Northern Ireland Protocol, in line with the approach set out in the 20 May Command Paper, the UK’s Approach to the Northern Ireland Protocol. In this paper, we committed to providing guidance to business, including our plans for extensive HMRC support for Northern Ireland businesses engaging in any new processes under the Protocol. We will publish that guidance this summer.

We will also continue to engage with business through the Business Engagement Forum, which met for the first time on 10 June and which will play an important part in our thinking as we implement the Protocol.

The UK Government will meet its obligations under the Northern Ireland Protocol, in line with the approach set out in the Command Paper published on 20 May, the UK’s Approach to the Northern Ireland Protocol. We will ensure that the Protocol is implemented in a way that upholds the gains of the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement, and which protects the interests of the people and economy of Northern Ireland. We committed in the UK’s Approach to the Northern Ireland Protocol to provide guidance to business, including our plans for extensive support for NI businesses engaging in new processes. We will publish that guidance during the course of this summer.

The UK Government will meet its obligations under the Northern Ireland Protocol, in line with the approach set out in the Command Paper published on 20 May, the UK’s Approach to the Northern Ireland Protocol. We will ensure that the Protocol is implemented in a way that upholds the gains of the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement, and which protects the interests of the people and economy of Northern Ireland. We committed in the UK’s Approach to the Northern Ireland Protocol to provide guidance to business, including our plans for extensive support for NI businesses engaging in new processes. We will publish that guidance during the course of this summer.

Ministerial meetings with external organisations and individuals are declared quarterly on GOV.UK.

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. The information will be placed in the Library once provided by the UKSA.

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. The information will be placed in the Library once provided by the UKSA.

I refer the Hon. Member to the answer I gave to the Hon. Member for Strangford on 15 February 2022 to Question 119577.

The Government is, and will continue to be, a champion of the needs of business and industry, including the UK manufacturing sector. This is why Build Back Better: plan for growth and its supporting strategies will put the UK at the forefront of opportunities, give businesses the confidence to invest, boost productivity across the UK, enable our green industrial revolution, and support our vision for Global Britain.

As announced in the Plan for Growth, published alongside Budget, the Department is engaging across Government to develop an Innovation Strategy. As well as working across Whitehall and with our Innovation Expert Group, we want to engage with the innovation community, including the manufacturing sector which accounts for 64% of all business expenditure on UK R&D, to ensure the evidence base is sound and the policy proposals in the Strategy are well developed.

As set out in ‘Build Back Better: our plan for growth’, over the next 12 months the Government will work to develop visions for high growth sectors that will help shape the UK’s future and build on our existing competitive advantage and strengths in innovation. The specific sectors will be set out in the coming months.

My Rt. Hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary ran a cross-government process with Departments to review in detail how ODA is allocated between key priorities. The Foreign Secretary announced an ODA settlement of £706 million for my Department on Tuesday 26^th January.

Though the impact of the COVID pandemic has impacted ODA budgets, international collaboration remains central to a healthy and productive R&D sector. The Government’s commitment to research and innovation has been clearly demonstrated, given we are increasing investment in R&D across government to £14.6bn in 2021/22, and as set out in our Integrated Review ambition.

In contrast to the number of open calls that UKRI runs, which remained relatively stable with an additional surge to deliver specific COVID-19 related funding, the number of applications for funding from UKRI has risen over the last year, including in response to COVID-19. To date the trend has already shown an increase of over 1,000 applications ending December 2020, with a further projection of another 2,000 applications to be received in the final quarter. These increases are against an active portfolio of approximately 14,000 grants.

UKRI has also responded to increased demand to help stabilise the system and the pressures felt across the research and innovation community. Active grants continue to attract a high number of requested changes through their life, but more recently hundreds more enquiries have resulted from COVID-19 disruption, generating many requests for both costed and no cost extensions with £90 million in costed grant extensions paid this year.

Other stabilising interventions that UKRI has made in response to the pandemic include bringing forwards £100 million of Quality Related funding from Academic Year 2020-21 to AY 2019-20, and providing additional funding through the Sustaining University Research Expertise (SURE) Fund in financial year 2020-21.

The Government invests in research talent through PhDs and fellowship schemes. UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) is the single biggest funder of PhDs in the UK and currently funds between six and seven thousand PhDs per year (around 53% in STEM) through its studentships and training grants, including Centres for Doctoral Training and Doctoral Training Partnerships.

Multi-year fellowship schemes funded by BEIS are delivered both by the National Academies and UKRI and are targeted at different career stages, from early career researchers to research professors and chairs. These schemes support the development and progression of a broad spectrum of researchers and their teams while supporting their excellent research.

The Department is currently working with UKRI on the development of an R&D People and Culture Strategy as one of my top priorities. The R&D People and Culture Strategy will look to ensure the UK has the people we need at all levels, working in a culture that gets the best out of everyone and delivers the best outcomes for the country.  A key part of this will be ensuring the R&D workforce has the capacity and capability to deliver the government’s ambitions for R&D with enough people with the right skills across disciplines, and throughout career stages and job roles.

BEIS Ministers regularly speak to my Rt. Hon. Friend Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer on a range of issues, including R&D funding. I am pleased that the UK reached an agreement to take part in the Horizon Europe programme. Association to Horizon has been welcomed by businesses and the research community and will bring huge benefits to the UK. We have always been clear that Horizon funding complements domestic funding programmes.

At the Spending Review in November, the Government committed to investing £14.6 billion in research and development in 2021/22. Spending Review was complete before the outcome of negotiations with the EU was known. As part of our ongoing Departmental allocations process, we are continuing to work with HM Treasury on the costs of Horizon Europe.

The Government remains in dialogue with industry and overseas governments about the potential benefits, practicalities and implications of an aircraft scrappage scheme.

The Government is aware of the challenges, caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, that medical research charities are currently facing.

The Government already provides significant funding to charities’ research, for example through Research England’s Quality Related (QR) charity support funding. This year charity QR will amount to £204m, to support charity funded research in universities in England and equivalent support is provided in Scotland through devolved funding arrangements.

Additionally, the Government supports this research through investments in the necessary infrastructure, through collaborations with UKRI and through the tax system. In 2018-19 over £1.3bn in tax relief on donations was received through Gift Aid benefitting all charities, including those carrying out vital medical research.

BEIS has been working with the Association of Medical Research Charities to develop an appropriate approach to supporting the important research that their members fund.

The Government recognises that the death of a family member is deeply upsetting for those involved. The death of a child is particularly tragic, and this is why the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy we introduced Parental Bereavement Leave and Pay in April this year.

All employees have right to take a reasonable amount of time off work for an emergency involving a dependant, including in the case of bereavements. The entitlement could, for example, be used to make funeral and other arrangements.

We expect employers to respond with compassion and understanding in the case of all bereavements and we have given them the tools that they need to do this. In 2014 Acas published their guidance on Managing a Bereavement in the Workplace: A Good Practice Guide. This is available on the ACAS website- www.acas.org.uk.

The Government has published several sets of guidance to help employers support the need of bereaved employees.

In 2014, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills commissioned the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas) to publish guidance on how to manage bereavement in the workplace. The guidance was first published in 2014 and last updated in May 2018 (https://archive.acas.org.uk/media/4114/Managing-bereavement-in-the-workplace---a-good-practice-guide/pdf/Managing-bereavement-in-the-workplace-a-good-practice-guide.pdf).

Earlier this year, the Department introduced this year a new entitlement to Bereavement Leave and Pay for employees who lost a child. Guidance was published on GOV.UK in April 2020 to help employers managing this new policy (https://www.gov.uk/employers-parental-bereavement-pay-leave).

The Government has continued to examine and make reforms to the whistleblowing regime, both to the guidance and legislative framework of protections for workers. The most recent reforms came into effect last year.

The Government will continue to listen to stakeholders and will, of course, review the recent reforms once there is sufficient evidence of their impact.

Our Industrial Strategy recognises the role of new markets like space launch in driving growth across the UK. The Government is delivering a major programme to enable companies to offer small satellite launch and sub-orbital spaceflight from UK spaceports

We have considered 26 proposals for grant funding and expect to make an announcement on the results of this process shortly.

I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave her on 16 January 2018 to Question 122184. The principle set out in the Joint Report issued by the UK and EU negotiating teams on 8 December was that UK entities would be able to continue to participate in all EU programmes financed by the current Multiannual Financial Framework which ends in 2020. There will be further discussions on the individual programmes during Phase 2 of the negotiations. My rt hon Friend the Secretary of State and I continue to engage regularly with the UK space sector companies involved in the Galileo programme.

My rt hon Friend the Secretary of State, my predecessor (Jo Johnson) as Minister for Space, and the UK Space Agency have engaged with many UK space companies and the UK space trade association to discuss issues relating to business and space, including the EU Galileo Programme. These views are informing Government’s approach to the ongoing EU exit negotiations.

I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave her on 16 January 2018 to Question 122184. The principle set out in the Joint Report issued by the UK and EU negotiating teams on 8 December was that UK entities would be able to continue to participate in all EU programmes financed by the current Multiannual Financial Framework which ends in 2020. There will be further discussions on the individual programmes during Phase 2 of the negotiations. My rt hon Friend the Secretary of State and I continue to engage regularly with the UK space sector companies involved in the Galileo programme.

The European Space Agency (ESA) is independent of the European Union. Therefore our support for the European Space Agency is largely unaffected by the decision to leave the European Union. Indeed we made subscriptions of €1.4 bn at the ESA Ministerial meeting in Lucerne in December 2016 which is allowing UK companies to bid for ESA grants and contracts.

The Joint Report issued by the UK and EU negotiating teams on 8 December was clear that UK entities would be able to continue to participate in all EU programmes, including the space programmes, financed by the current Multiannual Financial Framework, which ends in 2020. Clearly there will be further discussions on exactly what this means for the individual programmes during Phase 2 of negotiations, but the principle set out in the report is that eligibility of entities located in the UK will be unaffected by the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.