Sheryll Murray

The latest ONS official statistics show the female employment rate at 71.8% up to the end of January 2021. This Government recognises that times are hard for many women, and men, which is why we have extended the furlough scheme until September, alongside new measures in our Plan for Jobs, such as our £2bn Kickstart Scheme and the Restart programme, which launches in the summer.

In the year ending September 2021, the CPS prosecuted 7,609 defendants where Fraud and Forgery were the principal offence. 84.9% of those defendants were convicted. In the last five years, the SFO secured reparations for criminal behaviour for organisations it investigated totalling over £1.3bn.

The CPS deploy a network of prosecutors around the world to help extradite suspects and secure the evidence needed to bring criminals to justice in this jurisdiction.

The Government has introduced the Online Safety Bill, requiring all companies to take robust action against illegal content. Companies will need to remove material that amounts to an offence in the UK regardless of where in the world it originated.

This Government knows that small and medium sized businesses are the backbone of the British economy.

The Procurement Bill we are introducing will bring four regimes into one and enable simpler, more flexible public procurement processes.

The single central digital platform, with open contracting data standards and efficient ‘tell us once’ register of suppliers, will deliver a step-change in transparency, including for SMEs bidding for public contracts.

The UK has attracted around £120 billion investment in renewables since 2010 and is expected to attract a further £100 billion investment in net zero by 2030, supporting up to 480,000 jobs.

The Government is providing investors with long-term certainty over policy and regulatory frameworks to unlock investment and create jobs in green industries such as hydrogen, CCUS, offshore wind and nuclear.

I have had several such discussions including at the AI Safety Summit, during which I was pleased to meet with more than 20 Digital Ministers.

I have since engaged with my counterparts from Australia, Japan, France, the US and the EU, and I have recently met with my Canadian counterpart to sign an important new agreement on compute collaboration.

I will continue to discuss AI safety as we work towards the next Safety Summits hosted by the Republic of Korea and France.

As part of Project Gigabit, we are delivering two local supplier procurements (Type A) for Central Cornwall and South West Cornwall. Combined, the two procurements are estimated to cover up to 19,000 premises, with a total value of £18 million. We expect to award contracts in January 2023.

The Government recognises the importance of improving access to pools however the responsibility primarily lies at Local Authorities level. Swimming is a crucial life skill, as well as a great way to stay fit, and I encourage Local Authorities to invest in swimming facilities.

In response to the pandemic, the government supported the reopening of local authority swimming pools through the £100 million National Leisure Recovery Fund.

Sport England has also awarded over £24 million to swimming and diving projects since April 2017.

Vocational and technical qualifications (VTQs) provide an important and valued route for many young people and adults. We are streamlining and improving the quality of post-16 qualifications at level 3 and below. Our reforms will put employers at the heart of the system, ensuring that all qualifications are fit for purpose, high quality and lead to good outcomes. We are creating clearly defined academic and technical routes at level 3, leading to future study and or skilled employment.

As set out in our level 3 consultation response published in July 2021, students will continue to be able to study qualifications similar to current Applied General qualifications where there is no overlap with T Levels. On 11 May we published a provisional list of 160 qualifications that overlap with the first two waves of T Levels. These qualifications will have funding approval withdrawn for anyone eligible to access the qualification through the 16-19 funding offer on 1 August 2024, unless awarding organisations successfully appeal their qualifications’ inclusion. The final list will be published in September 2022.

The department is strengthening routes for all students to progress through the system, by introducing high-quality technical qualifications that support young people’s progression and meet the needs of employers.

In January this year the department launched our ‘Get the Jump’ campaign, which helps 14-19 year olds explore all their education and training options. We recognise that technical education routes have lower levels of awareness, therefore this campaign spotlights T Levels, Apprenticeships, Traineeships and Higher Technical Qualifications in particular.

The department is also working closely with the Careers and Enterprise Company and Apprenticeship Support and Knowledge programme to ensure that teachers and careers leaders have the information and resources they need to communicate the benefits of T Levels to their students.

The Skills for Jobs White Paper sets our plans to transform technical education and is focused on giving people the skills they need, in a way that suits them, so they can get great jobs in sectors the economy needs and boost productivity.

Our reforms will put employers at the heart of the skills system and by 2030, almost all technical courses will be on employer-led standards, ensuring that the education and training people receive are directly linked to the skills needed for jobs.

We have been raising the quality and prestige of technical education by introducing T Levels, which are a high-quality technical alternative to A levels with an industry placement, and are reforming higher technical education (Level 4/5) to make it a more popular and prestigious choice that provides the skills employers need.

The Plan for Jobs introduced last year provides a package of support to ensure young people have the skills and training to go on to high quality, secure and fulfilling employment. This includes incentives for employers to take on new apprentices, supporting the largest-ever expansion of Traineeships, giving school and college leavers the opportunity to study high value Level 2 and 3 courses, and funding more vocational training placements to support the delivery of sector-based work academy programme (SWAP) placements.

We are supporting fishing communities by:

• Negotiating quotas of 750,000 tonnes to fish in 2024, an 80,000 tonne increase compared to 2023 which will deliver an up to £70 million boost for our fishing industry.
• And we are going even further, by developing new fisheries for species like Bluefin Tuna, and providing £100 million through the UK Seafood Fund.

This Government is committed to ensuring that the farming sector has the labour it needs to support food security, including supporting domestic workers and skills, and investment in automation.

We commissioned the Independent Review into Labour Shortages in the Food Supply Chain to consider how we can further support this, and look forward to receiving the report by the summer.

As set out at the recent UK Farm to Fork Summit, we will make 45,000 Seasonal Worker visas available for 2023 and 2024, with an additional 10,000 if needed.

At the Brussels conference, the International Development Secretary committed at least £300 million in aid for 2020, bringing total UK spend to over £3 billion for Syria and the Region. This is funding life-saving aid, supporting refugees and their host communities, and helping vulnerable Syrians to be self-reliant through education and training.

The Department does not designate whole routes as critical national infrastructure, only certain systems, or key infrastructure points.

Both Network Rail and National Highways are government owned companies, operating the rail network in Great Britain and motorway and major A-roads in England respectively.

We regularly review the strategic road network extent to ensure it remains fit for purpose, most recently in the consultation process that will inform the third road investment strategy, between 2025-2030.

Established government policy is that river and estuarial crossings will normally be funded by tolls, recognising the extra cost of their construction and maintenance, and also the substantial benefits for their users.

Other than such crossings and the M6 Toll motorway, the majority of the road network is free of tolls, and the Government has no plans to change this.

The only charge for users of the current strategic road network managed by National Highways is at the Dartford Crossing, where evidence has shown that it helps manage congestion to provide more reliable journeys for users.

During this Parliament the Government is investing over £5 billion in highways maintenance. It is up to the respective highway authority how best to spend this funding to fulfil their statutory duty under Section 41 of the Highways Act 1980. The Department encourages good practice in highway maintenance through channels such as the Well Managed Highway Infrastructure Code of Practice produced by the UK Roads Leadership Group (UKRLG).

I created the post of Chief Nurse for Adult Social Care. Deborah Sturdy is providing outstanding leadership for social care nursing in this role. She has been raising the profile of social care nursing and increasing the recognition of excellence in social care. As we take forwards our social care reforms, social care nurses and care workers are front and centre of our workforce ambitions.

Information provided to the consumer must not mislead and must enable the safe use of food. The United Kingdom maintains high standards on the information provided on food labelling to ensure consumer confidence. The Government food strategy sets out further action on consumer information and transparency.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) aims to reduce harm to people with food hypersensitivity and ensure that related food safety standards are maintained. This includes improving the provision of information for people with allergies and working with food businesses to increase allergen training in the sector. The FSA’s programme on food hypersensitivity is focused on policy, research and evidence to support enforcement and engaging with consumers and businesses.

We are appalled by the recent terrorist attacks. There can be no justification for such acts of violence. Every Israeli and Palestinian has the right to live in peace and security.

• As set out in the Beating Crime Plan, we are investing in the development and delivery of the Single Online Home, a national platform allowing the public to access a range of interactive police services in one place, including details about their neighbourhood police officers and their contact details.
• To ensure that the police know how responsive their local force is to 999 calls, we worked with policing to publish 999 answering times, and in September 2023 I wrote to police forces encouraging the publication of 101 answering time data.

Ukrainian forces have outperformed their Russian opponents using conventional military defensive tactics, the resourceful employment of special forces, and guerrilla attacks. They have stubbornly held ground, carried out counter-attacks to keep Russian forces off-balance, and prevented repeated Russian attempts to breakthrough or encircle their forces. Russia is now using massed artillery to wear down Ukrainian defences. Ukraine has proved to be nimble and resilient against this approach, limiting Russian gains.

Nationally significant infrastructure is vital for growing the economy, creating new jobs and levelling up our communities. In February, the government set out reforms to the system in the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects Action Plan, and will be consulting on detailed proposals shortly.

The Government has been clear that it will introduce legislation to address the legacy of the Troubles that focuses on reconciliation, delivers for victims, and ends the cycle of re-investigations that has failed victims, veterans and police personnel alike.

We remain committed to engaging with partners from all communities and making progress on this important issue as quickly as possible.

Floating offshore wind will create thousands of high-quality jobs in Wales, drive economic growth and help us reach our net zero and energy security ambitions.

I will continue to work with colleagues across Government and The Crown Estate as they progress plans to bring forward 4 Gigawatts of projects in the Celtic Sea by 2035.