Rob Roberts

It is a long-established precedent that information about the discussions that have taken place in Cabinet, and its Committees, is not normally shared publicly.

The latest available data centrally, as at 31 March 2021, shows there were 130 Civil Servants earning a full-time equivalent salary in excess of £160,000. Responsibility for employees of local government sits with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.

I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to PQ 115575 answered on 19 November 2020 and PQs 39766 and 41529 answered on 4 May 2020.

The Government has an ambitious strategy to build on the UK’s strengths in semiconductors to grow our sector, increase our resilience and protect our security.

To deliver our strategy we are investing to £200 million over the years 2023-25 and up to £1 billion in the next decade.

At the Spring Budget, the government announced a £500 million per year package of support for R&D intensive businesses through changes to R&D tax credits. In addition, the government also announced 'Full Expensing' - a £27billion business tax cut – which means the UK now has the joint most generous capital allowance regime of any major developed economy.

We understand that the semiconductor industry faces specific challenges, so we have also committed to announcing plans by the autumn to further support the competitiveness of the semiconductor manufacturing sector that is critical to the UK tech ecosystem or the UK’s national security.

The Government is open to considering well-developed tidal range proposals, provided that these proposals demonstrate energy system benefits, plausible environmental mitigation strategies, and clear value for money in the context of other renewables.

The government continues to work closely with Ofgem to improve outcomes for consumers with energy debts. Ofgem collects information from energy companies on average debt levels which can be sourced here: https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/energy-data-and-research/data-portal/all-available-charts?keyword=debt&sort=relevance. Energy companies are required to follow Ofgem regulations to collect debt from customers. These rules include treating customers fairly by proactively contacting those in payment difficulty to establish an appropriate repayment plan based on the customer’s Ability to Pay, and making customers aware of debt advice services.

The UK has demonstrated that clean, green growth is absolutely possible.

Between 1990 and 2018 we grew our economy by 75 per cent, whilst cutting emissions by 43%.

In his Summer Statement, my Rt hon Friend, Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer set out £3 billion pounds to improve the energy efficiency of homes and public buildings which will also support around 140,000 green jobs.

The Government strongly condemns Russia’s recent actions. Russia must not be allowed to exploit major sporting and cultural events on the world stage to seek to legitimise its illegal invasion of Ukraine.

The international sporting community has a pivotal role to play in standing up to the illegitimacy of the Russian Government's actions. Our absolute objective is to ensure that international sporting events do not take place in Russia, and that Russian teams cannot compete internationally. The Government has been vocal on this issue and helped to ensure that sporting bodies, in this country and globally, have taken swift action.

In particular, my Rt Hon Friend, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and I convened a forum of national governing bodies on 28 February to support them in their response to this unprovoked attack, and strongly encourage engagement with their International Federations. The Government is also engaging with international ministerial counterparts this week to help build a collective approach on these issues. This dialogue and has already resulted in numerous sports bodies moving events away from Russia, and being clear that Russian and Belarussian athletes cannot participate internationally.

We applaud and strongly support the sports who have already taken many steps to respond to our calls for what is right.

Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only.

The department is committed to continuing our support for school breakfast clubs, announcing up to £24 million to continue our national programme until July 2023. This funding will support up to 2,500 schools in disadvantaged areas, meaning that thousands of children from low-income families will be offered free nutritious breakfasts to better support their attainment, wellbeing, and readiness to learn.

The department understands that good-quality wraparound childcare has a positive impact on children’s outcomes. Research shows that participating in organised sports and joining after school clubs can help to improve children’s academic performance, as well as their social, emotional, and behavioural skills.

All schools are encouraged to make their facilities available for use by the wider community, and many schools already do so. To support with the costs of childcare, for example for the use of wraparound childcare such as afterschool clubs, working families can access support through Tax-Free Childcare, with up to £500 every three months for each child and rising to £1,000 every three months for families of disabled children. Working families may also be able to claim back up to 85% of their childcare costs if they are eligible for Universal Credit. This is worth up to £646 for one child, and £1,108 for 2 or more children a month.

Children who are in receipt of free school meals are eligible for a free place on the holiday activities and food programme. Backed by more than £200 million available, we are providing access to healthy food and enriching activities during the longer school holiday periods for more than 600,000 children across the country.

Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only.

The physical education (PE) national curriculum is designed to ensure that all pupils develop competence to excel in a broad range of physical activities, are physically active for sustained periods of time and lead healthy and active lives. From key stage 1 to 4, pupils are expected to master various fundamental skills relating to physical education.

The PE and sport premium has supported primary schools to deliver high quality PE, sport and physical activity since 2013. We are also developing tailored support to improve the teaching of PE at primary school which, along with a programme to support schools to open up their facilities, will be funded by nearly £30 million a year.

The department funds secondary school initiatives to encourage diverse groups of pupils to take part in and enjoy sport. This includes the Girls Competitive Sport contract, worth up to £980,000 over the next three years, which aims to improve and increase opportunities for girls aged 8 to 16 to access competitive sport and sport leadership opportunities. The Inclusion 2024 grant provides practical support to schools to increase opportunities for disabled young people and those with special educational needs to engage in sport and physical activity.

To support schools to take part in competitive sport, the government has funded the School Games since 2010. The School Games reaches over 95% of schools in England supporting four distinct levels of competition in over 40 sports and activities to cater for different ability levels, intra-school, inter-school, county level and a National Finals. Many schools also take part in their own inter-school competitions and National Governing Bodies of Sport run school sports events.

Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only.

The department is committed to high-quality education for all pupils, and the arts and music are integral to this. With the significant impact of COVID-19 on children’s learning, the department’s priorities have been to focus on education recovery in the recent Spending Review. The government remains committed to the ambitions in the Plan for Cultural Education published in 2013 and will give consideration for a future arts premium in due course.

In recognition of the merit of these subjects and how they contribute to a broad and balanced education in and out of school settings, the department will continue to invest around £115 million per annum in cultural education over the next three years, through music, arts, and heritage programmes.

The above funding is on top of core schools funding. The department has already committed to a real-terms per pupils increase in core schools funding, amounting to a £7 billion increase in the 2024/25 financial year compared with the 2021/22 financial year and nearly £5 billion in education recovery. This should support state-funded schools to provide a broad, ambitious curriculum, which includes cultural education and the arts.

The department has also committed to the publication of a Cultural Education Plan in 2023, working with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and Arts Council England.

Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only.

The department does not collect or hold capacity data for special schools. As special schools sit outside the Admissions Code and mainstream admissions arrangements, there is currently no official methodology for determining a special school’s capacity. Furthermore, if a school is named in a pupil’s education, health and care plan, that school must admit that pupil without regard to the notional capacity of the school.

The statutory duty to provide sufficient school places sits with local authorities. This includes places for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). The government does not currently collect data centrally on available or planned SEND provision, but is continuing to work with local authorities to better understand demand for SEND provision as it considers how it can best support the sector going forwards.

In March 2022, the department announced high needs provision capital allocations amounting to over £1.4 billion of new investment. This funding is to support local authorities to deliver new places for the 2023/24 and 2024/25 academic years and improve existing provision for children and young people with SEND or who require alternative provision. This funding forms part of the £2.6 billion the department is investing between 2022 and 2025 and represents a significant, transformational investment in new high needs provision.

Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only.

There are 613 open free schools which, based on the latest Ofsted judgements, will create more than 155,000 good and outstanding school places for children when at full capacity. Mainstream primary and secondary free schools are more likely to be rated good or outstanding by Ofsted than state-funded mainstream schools nationally and all open 16 to 19 free schools with an Ofsted judgement are good or outstanding.

The free schools programme remains an important part of the department’s plan to level up standards and respond where there is need for more school places.

The department launched a further round of free school applications on 10 June 2022 covering mainstream, special, and alternative provision free schools. The mainstream wave is seeking to approve free schools where there is the greatest need for new school places, prioritising proposals in Education Investment Areas. This will include a targeted number of new academic 16 to 19 free schools to help talented children from disadvantaged backgrounds get to leading universities.

Further information on free school application rounds is available here: https://www.gov.uk/education/set-up-a-free-school.

The Agriculture Act will enable us to transform the way we support farmers. Our new policy will be centred around support aimed at incentivising sustainable farming practices. We will support farmers to produce high quality and nutritious food in a more sustainable way, improve transparency in the supply chain and help farmers to reduce their costs and improve their profitability. We will also help those who want to retire or leave the industry to do so with dignity and create new opportunities and support for new entrants coming into the industry.

In our 2019 manifesto we promised to maintain the current annual budget to farmers for the lifetime of this parliament. When we made this commitment in 2019, the total farm support provided to Welsh farmers that year was £337 million. For 2021/22, the UK government have therefore provided new exchequer funding on top of the remaining £95 million of EU funding to ensure that £337 million of support continues to go to Welsh farmers this year.

We are working closely with the rail industry to develop and deliver on the Government priorities outlined in the Prime Minister’s Network North announcement. We are in the early stages of planning the next steps, including delivery timelines, for the North Wales electrification scheme and will share further information when that work is complete.

For the purposes of this answer we have taken enhancements spending and Rail Network Enhancements Pipeline (RNEP) spending to be the same.

The RNEP came into effect at the start of CP6 and provides a pipeline approach to enhancements investment with projects taking incremental investment decisions, moving away from the control period cycle. This reflected a change in the way both Network Rail and enhancements were funded and governed following the reclassification of Network Rail in 2014. It is therefore challenging to provide a direct comparator across all Control Periods, and data for "Wales Route" is not available in a comparable format in the time available.

Using data taken from Network Rail's Regulatory Accounts the spend on enhancements for England and Wales in CP4 (2009/10 to 2013/14) was £10.9bn (in 2013/14 prices) and in CP5 (2014/15 to 2018/19) was £14.7bn (in cash prices).

The spend to date for CP6 (2019/20 to 2022/23) is £6.16bn, again as per Network Rail's Regulatory Accounts (in cash prices). The England and Wales enhancements budget for the remaining year of CP6 2023/24 is £2.11bn.

In line with the Chancellor's Autumn Statement 2022, we anticipate that our enhancements budget for England and Wales for the first 4 years of CP7 will be set at c.£8.52bn. Budgets beyond this point have not yet been set and will be subject to future Fiscal Events. As per the RNEP, the allocation of this budget to schemes will be subject to investment decisions on a per scheme basis not yet taken.

For the purposes of this answer we have taken enhancements spending and Rail Network Enhancements Pipeline (RNEP) spending to be the same.

The RNEP came into effect at the start of CP6 and provides a pipeline approach to enhancements investment with projects taking incremental investment decisions, moving away from the control period cycle. This reflected a change in the way both Network Rail and enhancements were funded and governed following the reclassification of Network Rail in 2014. It is therefore challenging to provide a direct comparator across all Control Periods, and data for "Wales Route" is not available in a comparable format in the time available.

Using data taken from Network Rail's Regulatory Accounts the spend on enhancements for England and Wales in CP4 (2009/10 to 2013/14) was £10.9bn (in 2013/14 prices) and in CP5 (2014/15 to 2018/19) was £14.7bn (in cash prices).

The spend to date for CP6 (2019/20 to 2022/23) is £6.16bn, again as per Network Rail's Regulatory Accounts (in cash prices). The England and Wales enhancements budget for the remaining year of CP6 2023/24 is £2.11bn.

In line with the Chancellor's Autumn Statement 2022, we anticipate that our enhancements budget for England and Wales for the first 4 years of CP7 will be set at c.£8.52bn. Budgets beyond this point have not yet been set and will be subject to future Fiscal Events. As per the RNEP, the allocation of this budget to schemes will be subject to investment decisions on a per scheme basis not yet taken.

For the purposes of this answer we have taken enhancements spending and Rail Network Enhancements Pipeline (RNEP) spending to be the same.

The RNEP came into effect at the start of CP6 and provides a pipeline approach to enhancements investment with projects taking incremental investment decisions, moving away from the control period cycle. This reflected a change in the way both Network Rail and enhancements were funded and governed following the reclassification of Network Rail in 2014. It is therefore challenging to provide a direct comparator across all Control Periods, and data for "Wales Route" is not available in a comparable format in the time available.

Using data taken from Network Rail's Regulatory Accounts the spend on enhancements for England and Wales in CP4 (2009/10 to 2013/14) was £10.9bn (in 2013/14 prices) and in CP5 (2014/15 to 2018/19) was £14.7bn (in cash prices).

The spend to date for CP6 (2019/20 to 2022/23) is £6.16bn, again as per Network Rail's Regulatory Accounts (in cash prices). The England and Wales enhancements budget for the remaining year of CP6 2023/24 is £2.11bn.

In line with the Chancellor's Autumn Statement 2022, we anticipate that our enhancements budget for England and Wales for the first 4 years of CP7 will be set at c.£8.52bn. Budgets beyond this point have not yet been set and will be subject to future Fiscal Events. As per the RNEP, the allocation of this budget to schemes will be subject to investment decisions on a per scheme basis not yet taken.

Government provided £44.1 billion for rail operations, maintenance and renewals spending in England and Wales in Control Period 7. This settlement, a 4% real-terms increase on the current settlement, was published on 1 December 2022.

The quantum of funding within this that will be allocated towards spend in Wales remains subject to the completion of the independent regulator’s (the Office of Rail and Road) Final Determination, expected later this year.

The settlement for Control Period 8 will be finalised via the Periodic Review 2028 process which will commence during Control Period 7 (which begins in April 2024).

The number of people with outstanding benefit overpayments recoverable by DWP and the total value of those debts as at 16 November 2023 is set out below:

As all overpayments of certain welfare benefits are recoverable in law, irrespective of how they occurred, there is no requirement to categorise departmental error in all cases and we cannot therefore provide this information.

Our latest full estimates on fraud and error can be found at Fraud and error in the benefit system Financial Year Ending (FYE) 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

UK State Pensions are payable worldwide and up-rated overseas where there is a legal requirement to do so. The policy on up-rating UK State Pensions overseas is long-standing and has been supported by successive post-war Governments for over 70 years.

In response to (a): No recent assessment has been made of the annual cost of uprating the UK State Pension to UK pensioners living abroad.

In response to (b): The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.

In November 2020, the average (mean) amount of State Pension paid to individuals who live outside the UK was £70.61 per week.

Table 1. Average Amount of State Pension paid to individuals who live outside the UK, November 2020

Source: Stat-Xplore - Home (dwp.gov.uk)

Below is a table of the average (mean) amount of State Pension paid to individuals who live outside the UK, broken down by country of residence, in November 2020.

Table 2. Average Amount of State Pension by Country of Residence, November 2020

Source: Stat-Xplore - Home (dwp.gov.uk)

There are around 465,000 individuals who are in receipt of State Pension who reside in a Commonwealth country (excluding the UK) and there are around 688,000 individuals who are in receipt of State Pension who reside in a non-Commonwealth Country.

Table 1. The number of individuals who are in receipt of the UK State Pension and reside outside the UK, grouped by whether they live in a Commonwealth or non-Commonwealth country, November 2020

*Rounded to the nearest 1000

Source: Stat-Xplore - Home (dwp.gov.uk)

The Government has made significant progress in implementing pensions dashboards, working in close collaboration with key delivery partners including the Pensions Dashboards Programme which is part of the Money and Pensions Service, the Pensions Regulator and the Financial Conduct Authority.

Following extensive consultation with industry and other interested parties, the Department laid the draft Pensions Dashboards Regulations 2022, in Parliament on 17 October 2022. This was an important milestone, setting out detailed requirements for occupational pension schemes and for organisations seeking to provide a qualifying pensions dashboard service. The Regulations were subsequently approved in Parliament on 16 November 2022 and are due to come into force this winter. Alongside this, the Financial Conduct Authority intends to publish final rules for personal and stakeholder pensions shortly and The Pensions Regulator is providing support to help schemes meet their connection deadlines, including through guidance and writing to schemes at least 12 months ahead of their deadline.

The Pensions Dashboards Programme is responsible for delivering the digital architecture that will make dashboards work. They published their latest progress report on 26 October 2022 outlining key milestones and next steps, such as finalising a suite of operational and technical standards for dashboards. The Programme intends to consult on design standards this winter. The PDP has consulted on the data, technical, code of connection, and reporting standards relating to dashboards and will publish a response later this year. The overall delivery timetable remains on track with the Programme focused on building and testing the digital architecture to enable the first cohort of schemes to connect from April 2023.

Our Delivery Plan for recovering urgent and emergency care services set the ambition to increase the core general and acute bed base, above originally planned 2022/23 levels, by 5,000 sustainable, permanent beds in 2023/24. This takes the funded core bed base to over 99,000. NHS England in continuing to work with local systems and trusts to deliver this ambition.

Our Delivery Plan for recovering urgent and emergency care services set the ambition to increase the core general and acute bed base, above originally planned 2022/23 levels, by 5,000 sustainable, permanent beds in 2023/24. This takes the funded core bed base to over 99,000. NHS England in continuing to work with local systems and trusts to deliver this ambition.

There were seven temporary Nightingale hospitals constructed during financial year 2020/21 and the total cost for the Nightingale hospital programme in that year was £362 million.

Broadly, healthcare is devolved and it is the responsibility of the Devolved Governments to ensure the safety of patients accessing health services.

The Parliament of the United Kingdom retains the power to legislate in devolved areas and would usually do so with the consent of Devolved Governments. Under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, there are reserved emergency powers to make regulations when an emergency is declared within the terms defined in the Act, which include protecting human life, health and safety or treating human illness or injury.

The information requested is not held centrally. Age cost curves are available for integrated care board-commissioned health services rather than overall health expenditure and unit costs for social care are available for over-65-year-olds, but not more granular age bands.

The enactment and imposition by China of national security legislation for Hong Kong constitutes a clear and serious breach of the Sino-British Joint Declaration. It violates the high degree of autonomy of executive and legislative powers and independent judicial authority, provided for in the Joint Declaration.

We are also deeply concerned by the arrest of Jimmy Lai, and other individuals, in Hong Kong. Freedom of the press is explicitly guaranteed in the Sino-British Joint Declaration and Basic Law, and supposedly protected under Article 4 of the National Security Law. The arrests are further evidence that the National Security Law is being used to silence opposition. The Hong Kong authorities must uphold the rights and freedoms provided for in the Joint Declaration.

Following the enactment of the national security legislation, the Foreign Secretary announced on 20 July that the UK would take clear action in response, including offering a new immigration path for British Nationals (Overseas), suspending the UK’s extradition treaty with Hong Kong, and extending our arms embargo on mainland China to Hong Kong.

The Foreign Secretary set out concerns to State Councillor/Minister for Foreign Affairs, Wang Yi, on 8 June and 28 July. FCO officials have raised recent arrests with the Hong Kong authorities over recent weeks, including with members of the Executive Council and the President of the Legislative Council.

We will continue to bring together our international partners to stand up for the people of Hong Kong, to call out the violation of their freedoms, and to hold China to their international obligations.

All Government revenue collected from sources in Wales in the five years up to the financial year ending 2022 is set out in the Country and regional public sector finances revenue tables published by the Office for National Statistics[1].

Funding provided by the UK Government to the Welsh Government over the past five years is set out in the Block Grant Transparency publication. This publication is updated regularly and the most recent update was published in July 2023.

[1] Country and regional public sector finances revenue tables - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)

The energy price cap is currently set to £1,923 and is made up of different costs, for example the wholesale cost of gas and electricity, costs to supply energy on the network and VAT. This includes environmental and social costs (“green levies”) worth approximately £170 per year for the typical household.

Environmental and social costs play an important role in reducing energy costs by supporting investment in renewables and helping to reduce our exposure to global price volatility – the key driver of high energy bills.

Taxes are important in delivering our environmental policy objectives, with several taxes designed to encourage businesses and consumers to make greener choices, such as Landfill Tax and the Climate Change Levy.

At Autumn Budget 2021, the government announced that it will introduce a system to make top-up payments in respect of contributions made in 2024-25 onwards directly to low-earning individuals saving in a pension scheme using a Net Pay Arrangement. These top-ups will help to better align outcomes with equivalent savers saving into a pension scheme using Relief at Source. An estimated 1.2 million individuals could benefit by an average of £53 a year. The government will set out more detail on the implementation of this policy in due course.

We do not hold the information requested. Annual Allowance (AA) tax charges can be reported via Accounting for Tax (AfT) returns which are completed by the scheme administrator, and via Self-Assessment (SA). Neither AfT nor SA returns require information on the type of pension scheme that the charge relates to. In addition to this, the AA applies to an individual’s pension accrual across all pensions held, which could cover both defined benefit and defined contribution schemes.

However, HMRC publish data on the number and value of AA charges reported to us through AfT and SA, as well as the value of contributions exceeding the allowance. The AfT and SA columns are not mutually exclusive, the same case could appear in both columns. Individuals are required to report AA breaches through SA returns even if their scheme pays the charge and reports the breach through AfT returns. However, in practice individuals may be reported through AfT and not report themselves through SA, or vice versa, in error. The data for the last five available tax years is below:

In recognition of high prices at the pump and the fact that fuel represents a major cost for households and businesses, including the haulage sector, the Chancellor announced at the Autumn Budget 2021 that fuel duty would remain frozen for a twelfth consecutive year.

A freeze already represents a cut in real terms, providing savings for consumers worth almost £8 billion over the next five years.

All taxes, including fuel duty, remain under review.

Under the Immigration & Asylum Act 1999, the Home Office has a statutory obligation to house asylum seekers, who would otherwise be destitute, whilst their claim is under consideration. The cost for hotel rooms has now reached £6 million a day. The enduring solution is to stop the boats and that’s why we have brought forward the Immigration bill.

The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, which received Royal Assent in April, strengthened the police’s powers to arrest and seize the vehicles and other property of those who set up unauthorised encampments and cause damage, disruption or distress.

The measures also extend the powers of the police to direct trespassers to leave land.

In March 2022 we completed a two-part Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Review, delivering on the manifesto commitment to strengthen and expand the role of PCCs. Ten years on from the introduction of the PCC model, it is right to have stepped back and evaluated the role of PCCs to ensure we can continue to evolve the model.

Recommendations from the Review will sharpen local accountability, improve transparency and enhance the public’s ability to hold their PCC to account for their record on reducing crime.

The package of reforms will also ensure that PCCs have the necessary tools and levers to cut crime in their local areas; turning the dial on their involvement in the criminal justice system, including establishing the foundations for a greater role in offender management; improving their levers in local partnerships; and increasing their access to criminal justice data.

We are working closely with our partners to implement these important reforms as quickly as possible, including legislating when parliamentary time allows.

Recommendations from Part One of the review were announced to Parliament on 16 March 2021 here: https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2021-03-16/debates/21031653000006/PoliceAndCrimeCommissionerReviewConcludingPartOne.

Recommendations from Part Two of the review were announced to Parliament on 7 March 2022 here: https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2022-03-07/hcws664.

Establishing a National Crime and Justice Laboratory is part of the Government’s ambition to make better use of data in the fight against crime.

We are working closely with stakeholders from across the Criminal Justice System to deliver this manifesto commitment. This has included a project working with stakeholders and suppliers to explore the technical requirements needed to underpin its development.

Fraud is a national threat and often cases can be complex and sophisticated. It is therefore paramount our policing colleagues have what they need to keep pace with criminals and encourage innovation within industry. That is why, through the Spending Review 21 settlement and the Economic Crime Levy an overall package over the next three years of circa £400 million is being used to tackle economic crime, including fraud.

This funding will be used to replace and upgrade Action Fraud with a new national Fraud and Cyber Reporting and Analysis Service which will gather better analysis to improve the number, quality and timeliness of information packages given to police and expand fraud investigation teams across all Regional Organised Crime Units (ROCUs) and increase investigative capacity in the City of London Police (CoLP). This funding will also support the National Crime Agency, (NCA) to increase their capabilities on fraud.

The pilot of a national cyber crime force focused on fraud, based in the NCA was set out in the 2021 Statement of Progress on the Economic Crime Plan. The NCA’s pilot has delivered new tasking, intelligence and strategic communications capabilities in the NCA. This new national cyber crime force focused on fraud will be fully established by 2025.

Later this year, we will publish a new strategy to address the threat of fraud. This will further set out how we will work with law enforcement to tackle fraud and bring offenders to justice.

Within the last five years, the cost charged to the Welsh NHS for Defence support is £4,200,000. This figure includes the cost of ongoing Military Aid to the Civil Authorities (MACA) tasks.

The cost charged to the Welsh Ambulance Service for Defence support over the past five years is £2,802,545. This figure includes the cost of ongoing Military Aid to the Civil Authorities (MACA) tasks.

Within the last five years, NHS Wales had submitted 29 requests for Defence support, 24 of which were approved (as of 11 January 2022). Five of the requests submitted to Defence were cancelled.

Within the last five years, the Welsh Ambulance Service Trust had submitted eight requests for Defence support, five of which were approved (as of the 6 December).The sixth request was withdrawn as the Welsh Ambulance Service Trust identified a commercial provider.

In line with the practice of successive administrations, details of internal discussions are not normally disclosed.

I refer the Hon. Member to the answer I gave to Question UIN 80942, on the 14th November 2022. Further to this, local authorities will be notified when validation has been completed.

Once the validation of investment plans is finalised, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities will promptly communicate to local authorities the date upon which they will be notified of the outcomes of their investment plans.

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) are finalising the validation of UK Shared Prosperity Fund investment plans and will be notifying lead local authorities of the outcome in due course.

Government is committed to boosting growth across the whole of the UK. We will work with devolved governments and other partners to agree how we can deliver Investment Zones in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Discussions are ongoing with the Welsh Government, and we want to ensure Investment Zones maximise the value of both reserved and devolved levers.

We recognise the impact the pandemic has had on timeliness, and the Government is committed to continuing to work to reduce waiting times for victims, witnesses and other court users.

Over the next three financial years we are investing an extra £477 million for the Criminal Justice System to help improve waiting times for victims of crime.

We are investing £1 million in a programme of work to support the recruitment of new magistrates. Over the next three financial years we are aiming to recruit 4,000 new magistrates.

As a result of these measures, in the magistrates' court, the criminal caseload has fallen from 445,000 in July 2020 to 358,100 in April 2022.

The table below sets out timeliness of magistrates' courts cases for charge to first listing before a magistrate (known also as first hearing, or first appearance) for the offences of:

• Having an article with a blade or point in a public place
• Having an article with a blade or point on school premises
• Threaten with a blade or sharply pointed article on school premises
• Threaten with blade/sharply pointed article in a public place

Notes

1) Data excludes a small number of cases with identified data quality issues and breaches.

2) Only one offence is counted for each defendant in the case. If there is more than one offence per defendant that complete on the same day, a set of validation rules applies to select one offence only and these relate to the longest duration, seriousness and the lowest sequence number of the offence.

3) Data includes cases completed in the magistrates' courts during the specified time period, where no further action is required by the magistrates' courts.

4) Data includes cases that are sent to the Crown Court.

5) Following a technical issue a small amount of data (less than 1% of case disposals) was not included for a single day in September.

Further information on Magistrates' Courts Timeliness can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-court-statistics-quarterly-october-to-december-2021.

The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and I continue to hold regular discussions with Cabinet colleagues as part of the Government response to covid-19. This includes regular meetings with the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and, of course, the First and deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland.

Although each devolved administration controls its own public health policy, we have been coordinating our responses to Covid, seeking alignment in policy and approach where appropriate, to ensure we were able to tackle the pandemic.

This joined-up approach has been pivotal in delivering the successful vaccine rollout right across the UK which has seen over 995,493 of the adult population in Northern Ireland receive both doses of the vaccine. It will be important that we maintain this collective approach as we seek to recover from the pandemic.

From 2022, the UK Shared Prosperity Fund will target the people and places most in need, and we will publish our prospectus in due course.

This will complement work already underway on the Levelling Up Fund, Community Renewal Fund and Community Ownership Fund where applications are currently being considered.

It gives me great pleasure to announce that we signed a Final Deal Agreement for the North Wales Growth Deal on 17 December 2020.

We also successfully agreed Heads of Terms for a Mid Wales Growth Deal on 22 December with a view to negotiating a Final Deal Agreement at pace.

When this is signed, it will mean that the whole of Wales will be covered by £790m of UK Government City and Growth Deal funding.