Asked by: Thérèse Coffey (Conservative - Suffolk Coastal)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of its plans to address water scarcity in Greater Cambridge on the water bills of Anglian Water customers in (a) Suffolk and (b) Suffolk Coastal constituency.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
The Government is committed to supporting the growth of Greater Cambridge in a sustainable way, supporting its economic potential, protecting and enhancing the quality of life for residents, habitats and the environment.
At Spring Budget 2024, the government published a policy paper setting out its ambition to address water scarcity in Greater Cambridge. Customer water bills are set every five years by Ofwat through its ‘price review’ process which includes controlling the prices that companies can charge customers whilst allowing companies to finance improvements to their infrastructure.
Asked by: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to support private investment in ocean recovery.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Ocean conservation and the protection of marine biodiversity is a global challenge and one that is critically underfunded. Through the UK’s £500m UK aid Blue Planet Fund and in line with the 10 Point Plan for Financing Biodiversity and the International Development White Paper, we are supporting innovative projects that aim to attract and scale up private investment in ocean recovery. These initiatives include restoration and protection of blue carbon habitats and increasing coastal community resilience, funded through programmes led by the Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance (£13.9m), the World Bank’s sustainable blue economies programme- PROBLUE (£37.5m), and the Global Fund for Coral Reefs (£33m), amongst others. In June 2023, Lord Benyon hosted a joint UK-GFCR Investors Roundtable event, which showcased the GFCR as a viable investment opportunity and supported investor mobilisation for the GFCR Investment fund. At 28th Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC (COP28), the GFCR Coalition announced the mobilisation of more than $200 million USD as an initial direct investment toward the newly established 2030 Coral Reef Breakthrough targets, these include mobilising $12bn for corals and protecting 125,000 km2 of corals (50% of ~250,000km2 global total) by 2030.
As set out in Mobilising Green Investment: 2023 Green Finance Strategy, we are also taking action to meet our target to raise £1bn in private finance into nature’s recovery in England every year by 2030, both on land and at sea.
Asked by: Zarah Sultana (Labour - Coventry South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment with Cabinet colleagues of the potential (a) merits of extending eligibility for Disabled Students’ Allowance to international students and (b) impact of the existing eligibility criteria on educational inequalities in higher education.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
The government appreciates the significant economic and cultural contribution that international students make to UK higher education (HE). The department’s offer to international students remains very competitive and the department is committed to ensuring the UK remains a destination of choice for the brightest and best international students from across the globe.
To be eligible for Disabled Students Allowance, students must: (a) meet the personal eligibility criteria for student finance within the Education (Student Support) Regulations 2011 and be studying a course designated for student support; and (b) have a disability as defined in the Equality Act 2010.
Entitlement to student support and home fee status is limited to eligible students who are undertaking HE courses offered by UK institutions that are designated for support. This is to ensure that the HE student finance system remains financially sustainable. The government has no plans to extend home fee status and student support to international students.
All HE providers must fulfil their responsibilities under the Equality Act 2010 in their support for all disabled HE students regardless of whether they are home or international students.
Asked by: Matt Hancock (Independent - West Suffolk)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to help increase the usage of emerging technologies that help directly reduce methane levels in the atmosphere.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Methane reduction technologies are within scope of Defra’s £270 million Farming Innovation Programme and were in scope of its predecessor, Farming Innovation Pathways.
Defra’s evidence programme includes Research & Development exploring ways to reduce emissions from livestock. The portfolio includes research on nutrient and livestock management, feed and grazing regimes, methane suppressing feed products, ways to identify and selectively breed for more sustainable and productive animals, and ways to better manage manures.
Defra considers that Methane Suppressing Feed Products (MSFPs) are an essential tool to decarbonise the agriculture sector. In England, our objective is to establish a mature market for these products, encourage uptake and mandate the use of MSFPs in appropriate cattle systems as soon as feasibly possible and no later than 2030. We are committed to working with farmers and industry to achieve this goal, and in early March convened the inaugural meeting of a Ministerial-led industry taskforce on MSFPs.
The UK catalysed action on methane during our COP26 Presidency, including being one of the first countries to support the Global Methane Pledge - a collective commitment to reduce global methane emissions by at least 30% by 2030, against 2020 levels. As part of its commitment to the Global Methane Pledge, the UK published a Methane Memorandum in November 2023 during COP27. The Memorandum outlines how the UK has achieved a robust track record in reducing methane emissions and how it continues to explore and implement measures to secure future progress. We were pleased that methane emissions were prioritised at COP28, with more countries joining the Pledge and a particular focus on mobilising finance to support developing countries with their methane emissions. The UK committed £2 million to the Methane Finance Sprint.
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help support postgraduate students with the cost of living.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The government introduced postgraduate loans as a contribution to the cost of postgraduate level study.
The maximum loan available has continued to increase each year, by 2.8% for the current 2023/24 academic year, with a further 2.5% increase announced for 2024/25.
Decisions on student finance have had to be taken to ensure the system remains financially sustainable and the costs of higher education (HE) are shared fairly between students and taxpayers, not all of whom have benefited from going to university.
Overall, support to households to help with the high cost of living is worth £94 billion over 2022/23 to 2024/25, an average of £3,300 per UK household. The government believes this will ease the pressure on family budgets and will in turn enable many families to provide additional support to their children in HE to help them meet increased living costs.
Students in private rented accommodation who are provided energy through a commercial entity may also benefit from the Energy Bills Discount Scheme (EBDS) which provides a baseline discount on energy bills for non-domestic users locked into high fixed price tariffs. Any non-domestic user who benefits from the EBDS must ensure the benefit is passed through to the end user, such as students in private rented accommodation. The EBDS runs for 12 months from 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024.
Asked by: Damien Moore (Conservative - Southport)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the potential implications of the state pension rise from April 2024 for the sustainability of pension funding.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The new State Pension was introduced in April 2016 with the aim of providing a clearer, sustainable foundation for State Pensions for decades to come.
Each year, the Government Actuary’s Department publishes a report showing the impact of uprating decisions on the National insurance Fund. The most recent report in January this year took into account the 8.5% increase in the basic and new State Pensions which will come into force from 8 April. The assessment was that the Fund would have enough money to self-finance for at least the next five years. HM Treasury has the ability to top up the National Fund from the Consolidated Fund when needed, even if receipts do not match expenditure. The report said that a Treasury Grant would not be needed in the next five years.
Asked by: Tim Loughton (Conservative - East Worthing and Shoreham)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, with reference to report entitled Financing the Future: Energy, published by the UK Sustainable Investment and Finance Association on 26 February 2024, what steps her Department plans to take to encourage private capital investment in green energy.
Answered by Graham Stuart
The UK saw £60bn of investment in 2023, meaning that since 2010 the UK has seen £300bn of public and private investment into low carbon sectors. The Powering Up Britain Plan, backed by substantial government funding, seeks to attract private capital for green energy.
We've bolstered investor confidence with announcements on the UK Carbon Capture Usage and Storage (CCUS) sector and the Hydrogen Strategy. In December 2023, we unveiled Europe's largest simultaneous commercial-scale green hydrogen projects, supporting 125MW in the inaugural Hydrogen Allocation Round (HAR1).
We’ve allocated over £1 billion for the flagship Contracts for Difference (CfD) scheme's Allocation Round 6 (AR6) and £1.1 billion to the Green Industries Growth Accelerator, to support the expansion of domestic green manufacturing capacity and strengthen clean energy supply chains.
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to support students with the cost of living.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The department has frozen maximum tuition fees for the 2023/24 and 2024/25 academic years to deliver better value for students. By the 2024/25 academic year, maximum fees will have been frozen for 7 years.
The government has continued to increase maximum loans and grants for living and other costs each year. Maximum support has been increased by 2.8% for the current 2023/24 academic year, with a further 2.5% increase announced for 2024/25.
Students awarded a loan for living costs for the 2023/24 academic year that is lower than the maximum, and whose household income for the tax year 2023/24 has dropped by at least 15% compared to the income provided for their original assessment can apply for their entitlement to be reassessed.
Decisions on student finance have had to be taken to ensure the system remains financially sustainable and the costs of HE are shared fairly between students and taxpayers, not all of whom have benefited from going to university.
The government recognises the additional cost of living pressures that have arisen this year and that are impacting students. The department has already made £276 million of student premium and mental health funding available for the 2023/24 academic year to support successful outcomes for students including disadvantaged students.
The department is making a further £10 million of one-off support available to support student mental health and hardship funding. This funding will complement the help universities are providing through their own bursary, scholarship and hardship support schemes.
Further the department is investing hundreds of millions of pounds in additional funding over the three-year period from 2022/23 to 2024/25 to support high-quality teaching and facilities including in science and engineering, subjects that support the NHS, and degree apprenticeships. This includes the largest increase in government funding for the HE sector to support students and teaching in over a decade.
That is why the department has asked the Office for Students (OfS) to maintain student premium and mental health funding for the 2023/24 financial year at the same levels as the previous year and to ensure providers are aware they can draw on the Student Premium to support students in financial hardship. The department will continue to liaise with the OfS on the impacts of cost-of-living pressures.
Between 2022/23 to 2024/25, government will have provided support worth £104 billion, an average of £3,700 per household, to help families throughout the UK with the cost-of-living including to meet increased household energy costs. This will have eased some of the pressure on family budgets and so will in turn enabled many families to provide additional support to their children in HE to help them meet increased living costs.
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make it her policy to increase the (a) student loan and (b) postgraduate loan repayment thresholds in line with (i) inflation and (ii) the national living wage.
Answered by Robert Halfon
As education, including higher education and student finance, is a devolved matter, this department is responsible for student finance in England only.
The student finance and funding system must provide value for money for all of society at a time of rising costs. It is important that a sustainable student finance system is in place, that is fair to students and fair to taxpayers.
The department has frozen maximum tuition fees for the 2023/24 and 2024/25 academic years. By the 2024/25 academic year, maximum fees will have been frozen for seven successive years.
The mechanism for setting repayment thresholds for student loans is set out and governed by the Education (Student Loans) (Repayment) Regulations 2009 (as amended). This includes provision for annual adjustments, where applicable.
The department will continue to keep the terms of the student finance system under review to ensure that they keep delivering value for money for both students and taxpayers.
Asked by: Anna McMorrin (Labour - Cardiff North)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, what recent discussions the Government has had with the Colombian Government on the UN Biodiversity Conference 2024, to be held in that country in October-November 2024.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Since 2011, Colombia has been one of the largest recipients of UK International Climate Finance and we regularly engage with the Colombian Government on environmental issues. In January, officials from our Embassy in Bogotá spoke with the Colombian Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development to offer our support to ensure a successful UN Biodiversity Conference in 2024. We will continue to have discussions with the Colombian Government as they develop their plans for the conference.