Tristan Osborne

On 29 July 2024 the Secretary of State for Business and Trade announced the Government’s intention to deliver negotiations with the Gulf Cooperation Council, India, Israel, South Korea, Switzerland and Turkey.

The Secretary of State has spoken to Minister Barkat a number of times since the July 2024 General Election, including on the Free Trade Agreement.

As outlined in the AI Opportunities Action Plan, AI datacentres are a potential new consumer of nuclear power. We see the potential benefits of nuclear-powered datacentres and are considering how to unlock this potential.

Regulatory processes involve multiple steps to demonstrate the nuclear power plant will be safe, secure and can manage its waste, non-proliferation, and environmental obligations. There are multiple variables that drive timelines and costs.

The Department undertakes regular modelling on future energy scenarios, including on demand changes driven by new technology and plans for generating assets. This forms part of the considerations on the wider AI sector.

The upcoming Cyber Security and Resilience Bill will strengthen our defences and ensure that more essential and digital services are protected than ever.

The Bill will require regulated entities to take proportionate steps to address vulnerabilities in our digital economy and protect our essential services against cyber attacks. We will work closely with industry, public sector organisations and regulators to support organisations in complying with their new obligations under the Bill.

By safeguarding our nation's essential services and digital infrastructure, we will create a stable environment in which investment and innovation can thrive.

The forthcoming Cyber Security and Resilience Bill will strengthen the UK’s existing cyber regulatory framework (the Network and Information Systems (NIS) Regulations 2018) by protecting more digital and essential services, putting regulators on a stronger footing, and increasing reporting requirements.

The NIS Regulations covers five sectors (transport, energy, drinking water, health, digital infrastructure) and some digital services (online marketplaces, online search engines, cloud computing services). Where a public body delivers these services, such as NHS Trusts, they are in scope of the NIS Regulations.

The Bill will include powers that will enable more services and sectors to be brought into scope of regulation in the future, where this is considered necessary to address emerging risks.

The Government recently announced £5.5 million funding for the UK Games Fund (UKGF) for the financial year 2025/26 to support early-stage games studios and talent. This funding will support all existing strands of the UKGF, including the Tranzfuser programme.

The UKGF is administered by UK Games Talent and Finance Community Interest Company which works closely with DCMS on the fund’s design and delivery.

The process to agree the heads of terms for the site for the Leigh Academy Birchwood School in Swanley are ongoing. Work to progress the site for the proposed special free school at Whitstable is awaiting the outcome of a village green application (VGA). In addition to the VGA, local residents have applied to have the site registered as an asset of community value, which Kent County Council would also like to consider.

The government wants to make sure all children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) receive the support they need to achieve and thrive. That is why we set out a clear ambition to improve inclusivity in mainstream schools while ensuring that special schools cater to those with the most complex needs.

As with all government investment, special and alternative provision free-school projects will be subject to value for money consideration through their development, in line with the government’s vision for the special educational needs system.

Trading standards will be responsible for enforcing the single-use vapes ban. The published guidance provides businesses with the information they need to know to ensure that they are complying with the requirements laid out in The Environmental Protection (Single-use Vapes) (England) Regulations 2024 legislation. It is already a legal requirement that this legislation is complied with and the current business guidance covers these new legal responsibilities.

We are working closely with regulators and enforcing authorities, including trading standards, to ensure that they are prepared for the introduction of the single-use vapes ban on 1 June 2025 and to ensure that relevant information is shared.

I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Rotherham on 16 September 2024, PQ 4529.

Fisheries Management Plans (FMPs) are evidence-based action plans ensuring stocks can be sustainably harvested. Work is being done to implement actions in the six published FMPs. Collectively, these can be considered as equivalent to the ‘harvest control rules’ for the individual fisheries. Defra published a harvest standard specification in September setting out the broad framework within which individual harvest strategies can be developed for English fisheries. Harvest standard specification for fisheries management plans in English waters - GOV.UK Harvest Control Rules require a sufficient level of data and understanding of a stock. Currently, there are some FMP stocks that they cannot apply to until there is a better evidence base.

Kent County Council plans to submit an Outline Business Case to the Department in summer 2026. If this is approved, under current arrangements the Department’s maximum funding contribution would be up to a maximum of 85% of the total estimated cost at Outline Business Case stage. This would be conditional on approval by government to a Full Business Case. The Council currently forecasts works starting in spring 2029.

The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency’s (DVSA’s) main priority is to reduce car practical driving test waiting times, whilst upholding road safety standards.

DVSA continues to take measures to increase test availability. These include the recruitment of driving examiners (DE), conducting tests outside regular hours, including at weekends and on public holidays and buying back annual leave from driving examiners.

As part of its recruitment efforts in Kent, DVSA has made offers to 15 potential new DEs. DVSA launched its latest recruitment campaign in September 2024. From this campaign DVSA aims to recruit a further eight DEs in the Kent area.

The Government takes the condition of local roads very seriously and is committed to maintaining and renewing the local road network. Kent County Council and Medway Council are the local highway authorities for different parts of the Chatham and Aylesford constituency, and they are therefore responsible for the condition and maintenance of their local road networks. They will receive £38.3 million and £3.5 million respectively from this Department during 2024/25 to help them carry out their local highway maintenance responsibilities, and it is up to them to decide how that funding is used. For England as a whole, the Government has a commitment to enable local highway authorities to fix up to a million more potholes a year.

In late 2024, the Department issued communications on the discontinuation of both Novorapid Flextouch and Insulatard Penfill cartridges to the National Health Service, advising on suitable alternatives. The Department is working with NHS England and clinical experts to develop management advice for healthcare professionals ahead of the discontinuation of Levemir, in December 2026. This will be communicated at the earliest opportunity. There are no plans to issue guidance on Insulin Flextouch.

Public Health England did not previously publish annual evidence reviews on tobacco-based products. However, Public Health England did publish a series of reports on nicotine vaping products over 10 years. They are available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/e-cigarettes-and-vaping-policy-regulation-and-guidance

These reports aimed to assess the safety and efficacy of e-cigarettes as a smoking cessation tool. Heated tobacco products were also assessed in two of the reports. The final report in the commission was published in 2022, and is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nicotine-vaping-in-england-2022-evidence-update

The Department continues to monitor emerging data, and we are working closely with stakeholders and experts, including internationally, to ensure we are researching the long-term health impacts of vaping. We are exploring additional research and will set out plans in due course.

The Food Hygiene Rating Scheme is operated by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) in partnership with local authorities across England, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

We will consider whether the mandatory display of ratings should be introduced in England in due course. In the meantime, the FSA is working with its local authority partners to maintain and improve the impact and benefits of this highly successful public health scheme.

The Food Hygiene Rating Scheme is operated by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) in partnership with local authorities across England, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

We will consider whether the mandatory display of ratings should be introduced in England in due course. In the meantime, the FSA is working with its local authority partners to maintain and improve the impact and benefits of this highly successful public health scheme.

Presently, there is no Medway elective treatment business case going through assurance with the Department. NHS England has delegated authority for business cases costed at under £25 million, in which case the Department is not the decision maker. This aligns with our approach that local health infrastructure needs are determined by local health system planners, in collaboration with NHS England.

The government is committed to supporting small businesses, recognising their vital role in driving economic growth and innovation. The government continually reviews its support for small businesses to ensure it remains effective and responsive to their needs.

The government will publish its Small Business Strategy in 2025 after the Phase 2 Spending Review. This will set out the government’s vision for supporting small businesses, from boosting scale-ups to growing the co-operative economy and across key policy areas.

The government already has schemes in place that deliver outcomes similar to the US’s SBIC scheme: providing finance to small businesses.

Currently, the UK offers a range of support mechanisms for small businesses, including the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS), the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS), and the Venture Capital Trust (VCT) scheme which provide tax reliefs to investors who make new equity investments in high risk, early stage Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), in order to help them grow and develop.

Additionally, the British Business Bank plays a crucial role in improving access to finance for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) through various programmes, helping them to grow and succeed. These include programmes which provide funding to professional equity and debt fund managers, as well as guarantees to enable high street lenders provide additional finance to SMEs.

At Budget 2024, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced a public consultation on e-invoicing to promote its wider use across UK businesses and government departments.

HMRC and Department for Business and Trade will be publishing a joint consultation with an expected publication date of early 2025. The consultation will run for 12 weeks and will be open to all business sizes and sectors, individuals, and software providers.

The government is committed to modernising tax administration to enhance efficiency and compliance.

HMRC operates on a ‘digital by default’ basis and will look to mandate digital channels by which all businesses within the scope of the Vaping Products Duty (VPD) must register, report and pay online, with exceptions only for those who are digitally excluded by virtue of protected characteristics. This was set out in VPD consultation response document: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/672263b43ce5634f5f6ef582/Vaping_Products_Duty_consultation_response.pdf

This government is taking significant steps to make sure violence against women and girls is treated as the national emergency it is. Already, in the first six months of this Government, that has included:

• Embedding the first domestic abuse specialists in 999 control rooms in five police forces under Raneem’s Law.
• Starting the long-awaited roll-out of Domestic Abuse Protection Orders.
• Giving the police new powers to disclose the identities of online stalkers.
• Bringing forward a new standalone criminal offence of spiking.
• And improving the management of perpetrators by ensuring that those convicted of controlling or coercive behaviour, and sentenced to 12 months or longer, are now automatically managed under Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements.

These are just some of the crucial first steps we have taken as part of our unprecedented mission to halve violence against women and girls in a decade.

Information about the powers the police use to tackle anti-social behaviour (ASB) incidents is not held centrally by the Home Office, and is collected by HMICFRS.

The Home Office collects and publishes data about the number of ASB nuisance incidents on a quarterly basis, however information about which of these incidents involved motor vehicles is not currently identifiable.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) publishes data quarterly on the proportion of respondents who experienced types of ASB in their local area, including “Vehicle related behaviour”, in the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) – however the type of vehicle used is not currently identifiable.

Both the ONS and Home Office datasets for ASB in the year to March 2024 can be found here:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/datasets/crimeinenglandandwalesotherrelatedtables

Information for the year to June 2024 will be published on 24^th October 2024.

The F-35 programme is not a workshare programme. It is a competitive international supply chain where F-35 work is won and secured on merit. The UK has been successful in securing F-35 work to date and are well placed to secure work in the future.

Through Lockheed Martin and the Joint Program Office approximately 15% of every F-35 aircraft delivered globally is manufactured by UK companies. The UK is the design authority for a range of significant Lightning aircraft components, securing highly skilled jobs within the UK and providing significant economic benefit. For example, the rear fuselage, batteries, ejector seats and actuators are manufactured in the UK for the entire F-35 global fleet. This manufacturing and equipment support for the global fleet of F-35 includes over 100 UK-based Tier 1 suppliers and has created over 20,000 jobs in the UK.

Electors who wish to apply for a postal vote can choose to make their application on paper, or online for reserved elections in Great Britain.

Giving electors the choice to apply for an absent vote through a paper application or online gives electors more control over their voting arrangements, whether they choose to vote in person, via post, or via a proxy. The online postal and proxy vote application services also make the process easier and simpler for many electors. Over 1.5 million people in Great Britain made an application to vote by post or via a proxy in the run-up to the General Election last year. Between the election being called on the 22nd of May 2024 and the deadline for absent vote applications, 84% of postal vote applications and 93% of proxy vote applications were made using the online services.

Over 90% of electors who chose to apply for a postal or proxy vote online during this period found the services to be effective and said that they were satisfied with them.

These services make our democratic system more accessible for electors, and the Government is supporting work to expand their scope. The Government recently gave its full support to the Absent Voting (Elections in Scotland and Wales) Bill. If passed, the Bill will allow applications for postal and proxy voting arrangements for Welsh and Scottish Parliamentary elections, and local elections in Wales and Scotland, to be made online.

The government has recently published our response to the Electoral Commission’s reports on the 2024 General Election, and this is available here: Electoral Commission’s reports on the 2024 elections: government response - GOV.UK.

As set out in that response, we are presently undertaking a thorough review both of the list of identifications currently accepted in polling stations and of the wider voter ID policy. This will include consideration of digital IDs.

In December 2024, the government implemented a new standard method for assessing local housing needs. This method aligns with the government’s ambition for 1.5 million new homes over this parliament, and better directs new homes to where they are most needed and least affordable. Indicative housing figures for each local authority and region in England are published on gov.uk.

Investment in housing and infrastructure today drives future productivity growth and higher living standards, making these areas pivotal to the success of the Growth Mission. This government is committed to kickstarting economic growth and getting Britain building.

The Future Homes and Buildings Standards consultation was published in December 2023 and closed in March 2024. It set out proposals for improving the energy efficiency of new homes and buildings. An impact assessment was published concurrently, which included an assessment of the economic impact of the proposals, and the consultation invited consultees to offer their views on this assessment.

We are carefully considering the feedback received. We intend to introduce new energy efficiency standards later this year and will publish an updated impact assessment at that time.

The Crown Court outstanding caseload remains one of the biggest challenges facing the Criminal Justice System. The caseload has risen in recent years as a result of the pandemic and an increase in cases coming before the criminal courts.

To address this, we plan to sit 106,500 working days at the Crown Court this financial year and continue to keep 18 Nightingale courtrooms open for 2024/25. Alongside this, we consistently invest in the recruitment of c.1000 judges and tribunal members annually and are also considering further measures to speed up justice.

HMCTS receives a specified level of funding each year to operate the courts and tribunals. This level of funding is agreed by the Lord Chancellor and Lady Chief Justice via the Concordat process. Sitting days are subsequently allocated to regions and local courts.

In 2024/25, Maidstone Crown Court is scheduled to sit at its maximum capacity in line with the number of judges and courtrooms it has available. We continue to explore the prospect of increasing the number of courtrooms available at the Court. Canterbury sits below capacity, but this reflects the improving performance picture at the court.