Richard Tice

The UK government recognises the strategic importance of the steel industry for economic growth and national security. We are committed to developing the sector.

Many countries, particularly across Europe, are replacing aging blast furnaces with Electric Arc Furnaces (EAFs). While the future of the remaining blast furnaces ultimately lies with British Steel, as I recently conveyed to the Hon Gentleman, the government is reviewing innovative technologies, such as Direct Reduced Iron, to support primary steelmaking in the future.

EAFs will also bolster our economic security by reducing our reliance on imports. This shift will enable us to use the abundant supply of scrap metal available in the UK, thereby increasing the resilience of our steel sector and the wider UK supply chain from global shocks.

Landowners, businesses and homeowners that have electrical equipment, such as pylons or towers, sited on their land have the right to compensation for the value of their land, as well as for any losses or expenses incurred. Acquiring authorities can also put in place discretionary schemes offering additional compensation. As compensation is provided by the electricity network licence holders, not the Government, we cannot provide an estimate of potential costs.

More broadly, the Government is committed to ensuring that communities who live near new clean energy infrastructure can see the benefits and is currently considering how to deliver this most effectively.

Developers of electricity networks and all nationally significant infrastructure projects in England and Wales need to assess the impacts of their proposals, including on agricultural land, natural habitats and in terms of construction and maintenance. This is done through Environmental Impact and Habitats Regulations Assessments, which are then considered during the consenting process. This includes consideration of safeguarding Best and Most Versatile agricultural land and ensuring the protection of natural habitats.

All electricity transmission network projects, regardless of location, must go through the independent and robust planning process. Developers must evidence that they have engaged and consulted with communities. They must take account of community views, environmental impacts, efficiency of the system and the cost to consumers, and consider alternative options.

According to data provided by the National Energy System Operator (NESO), the costs of procuring stability services in the Balancing Mechanism for the last five years are as follows:

2019/20 £211m

2020/21 £348m

2021/22 £176m

2022/23 £112m

2023/24 £83m

Based on actions introduced to address the high stability costs faced in 2020/21, NESO do not expect stability costs to increase significantly from 2023/24 levels over the next five years.

NESO also incurs stability costs through its stability network services procurement project. NESO has awarded tenders to five providers across seven sites, securing stability services until 31st March 2026. With a total contract exposure of £328m, NESO expects to save consumers between £52m to £128m over this period as a result of having to take fewer Balancing Mechanism actions to address system stability.

According to data provided by the National Energy System Operator (NESO), the costs of procuring stability services in the Balancing Mechanism for the last five years are as follows:

2019/20 £211m

2020/21 £348m

2021/22 £176m

2022/23 £112m

2023/24 £83m

Based on actions introduced to address the high stability costs faced in 2020/21, NESO do not expect stability costs to increase significantly from 2023/24 levels over the next five years.

NESO also incurs stability costs through its stability network services procurement project. NESO has awarded tenders to five providers across seven sites, securing stability services until 31st March 2026. With a total contract exposure of £328m, NESO expects to save consumers between £52m to £128m over this period as a result of having to take fewer Balancing Mechanism actions to address system stability.

The proposals to require every local authority in England to maintain registers of children not in school, which are to be included in the future Children’s Wellbeing Bill, are intended to help local authorities identify all home educating families in their areas, so that they can ensure children are receiving a safe and suitable education. To ensure these registers can operate effectively, parents of eligible children will be required to provide some information to their local authorities but, as part of the implementation of the legislation, the department would engage with stakeholders to ensure that any burdens on families are minimised. In addition, the children not in school proposals will also include a duty on local authorities to provide support to home educating families should they want it, which will help more families to deliver a suitable education, ensuring more children receive the high standard of education they deserve.

The UK agricultural sector is both robust and adaptable and operates in an open market with the value of commodities established by those in the supply chain. We have seen evidence of this particularly in recent years following global events such as the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine.

Recognising that farmers should always receive a fair price for their products, the Government is committed to tackling contractual unfairness wherever it exists.

Innovation is key in supporting our efforts to improve agricultural sustainability. The Government wants the UK to be a great place for technology innovators to start and grow their businesses, and access both domestic and international market adoption opportunities. We have already announced our intention to bring forward the secondary legislation needed to implement the Precision Breeding Act.

The Government is also fully committed to Environmental Land Management schemes and will optimise them so they produce the right outcomes for all farmers, while delivering food security and nature recovery in a just and equitable way.

Defra will continue to work closely with stakeholders from all farming sectors on the best way to support farmers and the agricultural industry over the long-term, designing our policies in partnership.

People living in rural areas often have greater distances to travel to access essential services, employment, education and other social and recreational activities. We know that this can make it more costly and time consuming for rural communities.

As announced in the King’s Speech, the Government will introduce a Buses Bill later this parliamentary session, which will put decision-making into the hands of local leaders, including in rural areas across England. This will allow local areas to determine how best to design their bus services so that they have control over routes and schedules.

The Government has made a commitment that all policy decision-making should be rural proofed. Defra leads on rural proofing, but individual departments are responsible for ensuring that their policy decision-making delivers for rural communities.

Decisions on tax policy, including fuel duty rates, are made by the Chancellor at fiscal events.

The Rural Fuel Duty Relief Scheme was introduced in 2011 to provide a 5p reduction to motorists buying fuel in certain areas. The areas included in the scheme demonstrate certain characteristics such as: pump prices much higher than the UK average, remoteness leading to high fuel transport costs from refinery to filling station, and relatively low sales meaning that retailers cannot benefit from bulk discounts.

Improving local bus services is a key part of this government’s growth mission. The government will introduce a Buses Bill later this Parliamentary session. This will put the power over local bus services back in the hands of local leaders right across England, including in Boston and Skegness, to choose the model that works best in their area, whether that be franchising, high-quality partnerships with private operators or local authority ownership.

In addition, the government has confirmed £925 million for the 2025 to 2026 financial year to support and improve bus services in England outside London. Local authorities can use the £925 million to introduce new bus routes, make services more frequent and protect crucial bus routes for local communities. We have also confirmed over £150 million to introduce a new £3 cap on single bus fares in England outside London from 1 January 2025 to 31 December 2025, bringing total government bus investment confirmed at the budget to over £1 billion.

The government will continue working closely with local transport authorities including Lincolnshire County Council, and others, to deliver better bus services throughout England.

Improving local bus services is a key part of this government’s growth mission, and the government has set out plans to deliver better bus services, grow passenger numbers and drive opportunity to under-served regions.

As announced in the King’s Speech on 17 July 2024, the government will introduce a Buses Bill later this session. This will put the power over local bus services back in the hands of local leaders right across England, including in Boston and Skegness, to ensure networks meet the needs of the communities who rely on them. The Bill will seek to increase the powers available to local leaders to choose the model that works best in their area, whether that be franchising, high-quality partnerships with private operators or local authority ownership.

In addition, the government has confirmed an additional £925 million for the 2025 to 2026 financial year to support and improve bus services in England outside London, bringing total bus investment at the Budget to over £1 billion. Local authorities can use the £925 million to introduce new bus routes, make services more frequent and protect crucial bus routes for local communities.

The government will continue working closely with local transport authorities including Lincolnshire County Council, and others, to deliver better bus and public transport services throughout England.

More modern Class 170 trains were introduced to this route in 2023, and additionally these trains will be completely refurbished over the next three years. Meanwhile, East Midlands Railway will continue to improve its timetable of strengthened trains and passenger handling in the summer peak, building on the success of the last two years.

The Government takes the condition of local roads very seriously and is committed to maintaining and renewing the local road network. For England as a whole, the Government has a manifesto commitment to enable local highway authorities to fix up to a million extra potholes a year.

Lincolnshire County Council is the local highway authority for the Boston and Skegness constituency, and it is therefore responsible for the maintenance of its local highway network. Lincolnshire County Council will receive £43.6 million from this Department during 2024/25 to help it carry out its local highway maintenance responsibilities. It is up to the local authority to decide how that funding is used.

Lincolnshire County Council will also receive £3.3 million for small scale transport improvements including reducing congestion through the Integrated Transport Fund.

To help reduce congestion through improving traffic flow, the Department has also provided Lincolnshire County Council with £878,352 for traffic systems since 2021: £250,000 from the Traffic Signal Maintenance Grant in 2021, and £500,000 from the Green Light Fund, and £128,352 from the Traffic Signal Obsolescence Grant in 2024.

The Department publishes quarterly statistics on National Insurance number allocations to adult overseas nationals entering the UK on Stat-Xplore. The latest statistics, for January 2002 to June 2024, can be compiled by rolling year end to June and nationality down to country level, and are available by Westminster parliamentary constituency (based on the address given at time of National Insurance number registration).

Users can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest and, if needed, can access guidance on how to extract the information required.

The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) has a relatively low percentage of unpaid maintenance. Only 8% of the total maintenance due to be paid since the start of the CMS remains to be collected through the collect & pay service. This was as high as 17% in March 2015.

The CMS has a range of strong enforcement powers that can be used against those who consistently refuse to meet their obligations to provide financial support to their children including deducting directly from earnings, bank accounts and forcing the sale of a property. The Department plans to streamline the enforcement process further by removing the requirement to obtain a court issued liability order, and instead allow the Secretary of State to issue an administrative liability order. Introducing this simpler administrative process will enable the CMS to take faster action against those paying parents who actively avoid their responsibilities.

A CMS modernisation programme is ongoing which is delivering services with increased effectiveness and efficiency by optimising the use of digital channels and self-service. These efficiencies will make it easier for customers to report changes and report non-payment so CMS caseworkers can focus on the collection of unpaid child maintenance.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency’s (MHRA) role is to continually monitor the safety of medicines during their use. We have robust, safety monitoring and surveillance systems in place for all healthcare products. New medicines such as Mounjaro, which contains tirzepatide, are more intensively monitored to ensure that any new safety issues are identified promptly.

Thyroid cancer has not been causally linked with Mounjaro or any other medicines that belong to the same therapeutic class as tirzepatide, specifically glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RAs), and it is currently not listed as a side-effect associated with GLP-1RA medicines in the approved United Kingdom prescribing information, also known as the Summary of Product Characteristics (SmPC).

A recent European Union review conducted by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) included a comprehensive class review of the available evidence related to all types of thyroid cancer, taking into consideration various types of evidence, including large observational studies, literature, clinical trial cases, and post-marketing cases. The EMA reached the decision that the overall evidence was insufficient to establish an association between GLP-1RAs and thyroid cancer. Furthermore, the addition of a precautionary warning to the SmPCs was not agreed upon given the limitations of the currently available evidence, unlike the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approved product information. It is not uncommon for regulators to come to different decisions based on different assessments of risk. This can be due to factors such as differences in patient demographics, usage of a particular medicine in different countries, or differences in inclusion criteria for the product information for medicinal products. The difference in the United States’ labelling, in part, relates to the FDA’s interpretation of the data from animal studies, an area of research that is required for all new medicines prior to approval, and information related to thyroid cancer was added as a precautionary warning. However, the human relevance of the animal data is not known, and this is specified in the UK prescribing information.

A signal of thyroid cancer was not observed in the clinical trials for these medicines at the time of licensing, however it was acknowledged that clinical trials are not usually large or long-enough to observe cancer outcomes. Therefore, based on the need for further exploration of the risk about the human relevance, the pharmaceutical companies for all GLP-1RAs have been requested to assess the risk within a collaborative, long-term post-authorisation safety study evaluating medullary thyroid cancer events using United States cancer registries. The results from this study are not expected for a few years and will hopefully provide further information on this risk. Furthermore, the pharmaceutical companies are also monitoring all thyroid cancer types as part of their ongoing routine pharmacovigilance obligations.

Based on the current evidence, the benefits of GLP-1 RAs outweigh the potential risks when used for the licensed indications. The risk of thyroid cancer with this class of medicines remains under review by the MHRA and all pharmaceutical companies which hold a licence for a GLP-1RA. As part of our continuous monitoring procedures, we work with our international counterparts, such as the FDA, to gather information on the safety of medicines in other countries. When a safety issue is confirmed, we always act promptly to inform patients and healthcare professionals, and take appropriate steps to mitigate any identified risk.

The Government is committed to expanding the role of pharmacies and better utilising the skills of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians. That includes making prescribing part of the services delivered by community pharmacists, as we shift care from hospitals into the community.

Now that the budget for Government has been set, we will shortly be resuming our consultation with Community Pharmacy England regarding the funding arrangements for 2024/25. We are unable to say more until these have been concluded.

We know that patients are finding it harder than ever to see a general practitioner (GP). Patients can’t get through the front door of the National Health Service, so they aren’t getting the timely care they need.

We have pledged to guarantee a face-to-face appointment for all those who want one. We will make sure the future of GPs is sustainable by training thousands more GPs, ensuring increased capacity across the NHS to deliver this commitment and securing a future pipeline of GPs.

We condemn Hamas' continued holding of hostages in Gaza, including Emily Damari and others with UK links, who remain cruelly detained. The Foreign Secretary and I have met all the families of hostages with links to the UK, whose loved ones have been murdered or taken by Hamas and have heard firsthand the suffering they have endured. We welcome the tireless efforts of our partners in Qatar, Egypt and the United States, and fully endorse their efforts to secure a resumption of ceasefire negotiations and a hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas.

The Government does not speculate on tax changes outside of fiscal events.

As part of her July statement the Chancellor set out some immediate steps to make efficiencies across government including reducing departmental administration budgets, stopping non-essential spending on communications and consultancy, and disposing of surplus Government property.

The Government will provide an update on the delivery of these commitments at the Budget alongside further steps it is taking to ensure value for money in public expenditure.

The pub and hospitality industry make an enormous contribution to our economy and society, and this is recognised in the tax system.

The alcohol duty system supports pubs and hospitality businesses through Draught Relief, which ensures eligible products served on draught pay less duty. Draught Relief helps to level the playing field between pubs and supermarkets, allowing pubs and brewers to price their on-trade products more competitively.

The Government is closely monitoring the impact of the recent reforms and rates that took effect on 1 August 2023. As with all taxes, the Government keeps the alcohol duty system under review during its Budget process.

Since entering office, we have already launched the Border Security Command (BSC), led by Martin Hewitt, to strengthen our approach to prevent illegal migration. This will be backed with up to £75 million in new investment to build capability, taking the fight to criminals in Europe and beyond and directly targeting the criminal gangs behind small boat crossings.

The BSC will provide strategic direction across several agencies and partners, drawing together the work across the border security system. It will also work with international partners to disrupt the activity of criminal smuggling gangs and ensure those profiting from people-smuggling are brought to justice.

As set out in the King’s speech, this government will introduce new legislative measures to restore order to our border.

The proposed new legislation will include provisions to give the border security system stronger powers to disrupt, investigate and prosecute facilitators of organised immigration crime.

The Government is determined to bring down historically-high levels of legal migration and tackle the root causes behind it. To succeed in reducing net migration, we need to reduce our economy’s reliance on overseas workers. That is why the Government is setting out a new approach, linking migration, skills and labour market policies to build a sustainable workforce for the future. In the Home Secretary’s written ministerial statement on 30 July 2024, she confirmed the Government supported the changes made as part of the net migration package announced by the previous Government and will continue to implement them.

The Government keeps all policies under review and regularly publishes Impact Assessments, including on 27 September 2024 publishing those related to the net migration package, as well as monthly migration statistics.

Arriving passengers are examined by Border Force and checked against Home Office systems before being allowed into the UK. The system is used by Home Office staff for the purposes of national security and the detection and prevention of crime. It is longstanding policy not to discuss either the specific data held; the source of the data, nor how it is used, as to do so would be counterproductive and not in the public interest.

We have been clear that we will strengthen our border security. Resources are being redeployed to go after the organised criminal gangs who undermine our border security and put lives at risk in small boats. Our new Border Security Command will strengthen our global partnerships and enhance our efforts to investigate, arrest, and prosecute those who are facilitating the small boat crossings. The threats we face span geographic boundaries, and we will work closer with international partners, further developing the positive relationships already built by this Government.

The park homes sector is an important part of the housing market and must be a safe and secure place for residents.

The Government recognises that there are longstanding concerns about the requirement to pay site owners a commission upon sale of a park home.

The Government will set out its position on this matter in due course.

Parish Councils are engaged already in the Planning Inspectorate’s decision-making processes.

In the case of planning appeals, any submissions that a Parish Council, being a statutory consultee, made in relation to an appealed planning application will be available for a Planning Inspector’s consideration. In addition, Parish Councils may make direct representations on planning appeals. Representatives of Parish Council appear regularly at public hearings and inquiries, where they are afforded time to speak in front of the Planning Inspector. They may also ask to have so-called “Rule 6” status, which entitles them to appear as a formal party to a public inquiry and to cross-examine witnesses.

In the case of Local Plans, Parish Councils can submit representations on drafts of plans. Their representatives can request to take part in round table sessions on issues of concern to them. It is very common for Parish Council representatives to take part in discussions, and to provide evidence, in this way. Parish Councils can, of course, produce Neighbourhood Plans, of which Planning Inspectors will take account when reaching decisions on planning appeals.

In the case of Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects, Parish Councils, as statutory consultees, are engaged in the process from the start. Representatives can also register to have their say at the pre-examination stage, setting out full details of the issues that they which the examining authority to consider. They may also register to “have their say” at the public examination before the examining authority.

The Planning Inspectorate has no immediate plans to review its practices.

On 22 October, the Lord Chancellor announced the further steps the Government will take to manage prison capacity including launching an independent review of sentencing to ensure that we are never again in a position where we have more prisoners than we have space in our prisons.

We are also committed to creating 14,000 additional prison places and will set out a ten-year prison capacity strategy later this year, ensuring we have a sustainable pipeline of prison places over the next decade to allow us to effectively drive down reoffending.

This Government will act to improve rehabilitation services for offenders by giving offenders leaving prison the tools to move away from crime. This will include improving prisoners access to purposeful activity such as education, delivering pre-release plans for all those leaving custody; and ensuring that ex-offenders leave prison with a job and the skills needed to lead law abiding lives.

Sentencing in individual cases is a matter for our independent courts. When deciding what sentence to impose, courts must consider the circumstances of the case, including the culpability of the offender, the harm they caused or intended to cause, and any aggravating and mitigating factors. The courts also have a statutory duty to follow any relevant sentencing guidelines, developed by the independent Sentencing Council for England and Wales.

It is the function of the court to decide the sentence in each case subject to the maximum that Parliament has provided and any guidelines that may be laid down by the Sentencing Council or the Court of Appeal. The sentence imposed on an offender should reflect the crime they have committed and be proportionate to the seriousness of the offence. Custody should only be imposed if the offence is so serious that no other sentence can be justified.

The Government has launched an independent review of sentencing. The Review will be guided by three principles. Firstly, sentences must punish offenders and protect the public – there must always be space in prison for the most dangerous offenders. Secondly, sentences must encourage offenders to turn their backs on a life of crime, cutting crime by reducing reoffending. Thirdly, we must expand and make greater use of punishment outside of prison. The Review will report in Spring 2025.

Short Money is allocated on the basis of the number of seats won by each opposition party at the previous general election. The House of Commons Members Estimate Committee is responsible for modifying the provisions of the Resolutions relating to Short money as it considers “necessary or desirable in the interests of clarity, consistency, accountability and effective administration, and conformity with current circumstances” (Standing Order No. 152D (3)(c)) .

We should acknowledge that public money underpins the political system in respect of the Opposition as well as the Government, but we must always be conscious of the cost to the taxpayer. Further consideration of this policy is rightly a matter for the House.