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Tag: Matt Warman

  • Matt Warman – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Matt Warman – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Matt Warman on 2015-10-28.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what plans he has to improve the provision of work in prisons; and if he will make a statement.

    Andrew Selous

    We want prisons to be places of hard work, rigorous education and high ambition, with incentives for prisoners to learn and for prison staff to prioritise education and work. Improvements have been made to increase work but we want to go further. We are looking at the ways in which this might be achieved.

  • Matt Warman – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Matt Warman – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Matt Warman on 2016-05-03.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many bursaries have been offered (a) in total and (b) in each of the seven most hard to recruit areas as part of NHS England’s Targeted Enhanced Recruitment Scheme in the last 12 months for which figures are available.

    Ben Gummer

    The Targeted Enhanced Recruitment Scheme has been set up by Health Education England (HEE) and NHS England as a one year pilot scheme to support recruitment of general practitioner trainees in the 109 training places in England that have been hard to recruit to for the past three years.

    Recruitment is currently ongoing and 2016 fill rates will be published on the HEE website once recruitment has closed.

  • Matt Warman – 2022 Parliamentary Question about Skegness and Asylum Seekers

    Matt Warman – 2022 Parliamentary Question about Skegness and Asylum Seekers

    The parliamentary question asked by Matt Warman, the Conservative MP for Boston and Skegness, in the House of Commons on 23 November 2022.

    Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)

    There are now five hotels in Skegness occupied by asylum seekers and a further one in my constituency. I thank the Minister, and indeed the Home Secretary, for the engagement he has had with me ahead of what he knows will be a public meeting on Friday with a very concerned local community. I wonder if he could say what his message would be for that public meeting.

    Robert Jenrick

    I am grateful to my hon. Friend and wish him well with that meeting. We want to ensure that we exit hotels as swiftly as possible, and I set out in answers to other hon. Members how we will do that. I appreciate the burden that this is placing on his constituency and I hope the increase in engagement from the Home Office and its partners will ensure a better and more fruitful relationship with his local authorities.

  • Matt Warman – 2022 Speech on Visas for International Doctors

    Matt Warman – 2022 Speech on Visas for International Doctors

    The speech made by Matt Warman, the Conservative MP for Boston and Skegness, in Westminster Hall on 2 November 2022.

    I beg to move,

    That this House has considered visas for international doctors.

    It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer.

    This is a debate about doctors, but I want to begin with the story of a hypothetical patient. Let us call her Marjorie and say that she lives in Skegness. She is in her 80s or thereabouts. She is registered with a local GP practice, and she has a trainee doctor as her GP. They have a really good relationship and know each other well. They have the continuity of care that means that Marjorie’s needs are looked after. For a couple of years, Marjorie has gone back and forth to her doctor with little ailments, as people often do. In her final consultation, her doctor mentions that she will be moving on relatively soon.

    Thereafter, Marjorie finds herself with another GP, and the continuity of care is broken. Marjorie struggles to get the type of relationship that she built up over the past few years, and she finds herself bouncing in and out of hospital. She is fine, but not as well as she would be if her care had been provided by a doctor who was able to make sure that they knew each other well. The reason for the break in continuity of care is that the doctor she had in training was an international medical graduate who was being trained at the surgery in Skegness. Unfortunately, for a whole host of reasons, the surgery was not registered to take international medical graduates once they had qualified, and it was not what is called a sponsoring practice—it was not able to say that it would sponsor the visa for that doctor.

    The reason I make that point in such a way is because the people who are suffering as a result of the approach we currently take to visas—on one level, they are doctors who are dealing with the immensely stressful visa process—are ultimately patients, who should be our priority. The doctor I mentioned is one of 40% of trainee GPs who come from abroad. While they are training, their visas are sponsored by Health Education England.

    Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)

    A result of the difficulties around trainee GP visas is that many IMGs feel that they have no choice but to take on other roles within the NHS, or they leave the NHS altogether. Many may even return home. Does the hon. Member agree that this is yet another area where the Home Office must look at the bigger picture, rather than trying to plug gaps on an ad hoc basis?

    Matt Warman

    Ultimately, this is where we need joined-up government, whereby the Home Office and the Department of Health and Social Care deliver on the same priorities, and I really do think that they can.

    As I say, 40% of trainee GPs come from abroad. In the final months before they qualify as GPs, the last thing they should be doing is dealing with the stress of a potential visa application and considering whether the practice where they might want to apply for a job is registered on the programme, and whether they can reasonably jump through the Home Office hoops at that precise moment. We are increasing stress for doctors, and we are increasing the risks for patients at the same time.

    The hon. Lady alluded to figures from the Royal College of General Practitioners which show that some 30% of GP trainees are considering not working as GPs when they qualify for these visa-related reasons, and some 17% think they might have to leave the UK either temporarily or, at worst, permanently. That is some 1,200 doctors who are considering not working in the health service as a result of this system. In Lincolnshire alone, a third of practices have thought about registering as a visa-sponsoring practice, but just one in 10 have actually done it. We are really limiting the options for GP trainees and for the health service.

    This is a political choice, and it reveals an inequality between different sorts of doctors. It will probably take a hospital doctor five years to qualify. After those five years, they will qualify for indefinite leave to remain in a much easier way. Because GP trainees take just three years to complete their programme, they need to go through this visa process, because three years is not five years, and the Home Office has decided that five years is what is required.

    There are other associated problems. When it comes to applying for a visa, the GP practice that needs to register will consider whether that process is worth while. It may, in theory, be worth while in advance, and some practices do register in advance, but many do not. They then find themselves confronted with a brilliant candidate, and they try to register, but with the best will in the world, the timescales are very tight for doctors to apply for visas when they have a job offer from a practice that is already registered. There are lots of things to line up, and it is stressful for practices and for doctors. Even if there were no backlog in the Home Office, it would be a very tight timescale.

    Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)

    I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and congratulate him on securing this important debate. I have recently returned from an International Development Committee visit to Jordan, where I spoke to a number of highly educated Jordanians, as well as Syrian refugees. Some of the Jordanians were already doctors and nurses, and the Syrian refugees in the camps in Jordan cannot get an education beyond the age of 18 but wish to become doctors, engineers and so on. They speak amazing English and would love to train here in the UK.

    At the moment, Germany is hoovering up a huge number of these doctors and people who would like to study to become doctors, to satisfy the demands of its health service. Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be helpful for the Minister to consider opening up more visa routes for brilliant young medical students from countries such as Jordan that have long been strong international partners of the UK, in order to ease some of the workforce pressures on our NHS? It is important that we increase the numbers, and that would be one way of doing it.

    Matt Warman

    I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that increasing all those routes is hugely important. Of course, we would all like to see more doctors trained in this country, and the Government have gone some way towards doing that, but where people want to work abroad, Britain should be as attractive a place as we can be. That is why, on the GP point specifically, the Government should be removing every single barrier in that visa process.

    The most straightforward thing we could do, which would remove the need for a practice to register as a visa-sponsoring practice, is simply to say that when a GP qualifies in this country, they get the indefinite leave to remain that other doctors get. These are people in whom the UK has already invested. They are already here; they already have a visa. The extension of that visa into another form seems simply to be a bureaucratic hoop that we are putting in their way as doctors and in the way of GP practices. We are putting extra bureaucracy into a system, while on the other hand the Government say, “We desperately need people to come to this country to work in the NHS, and we will try to do everything we can.” The health service does hugely good work to try to recruit such people and specifically encourages them to train as GPs, but then we put an additional barrier in their way.

    The response from the Government in the past has been, “Actually, the visa process registration is not terribly onerous and GP practices can do it.” They point to the numbers that have and do, which is fine as far as it goes, but it does not answer the question of why we put a barrier in the way in the first place. It should not be a cost of doing business when we say that we really want to make it as easy as possible.

    Equally, it should not be a reasonable thing to put different sorts of doctors on different sorts of levels. It is not reasonable to say to people that, just as they have gone through the most stressful part of qualifying with exams, they should also be thinking about their immigration status. That calls into question their probity when we have things such as the General Medical Council making sure that they are upstanding members of our communities, and many of them have tens of thousands of patients to testify to that.

    I do not think it really washes when the Government say that we need to put barriers in place, and I do not think that the Department of Health, where the Minister was previously a Minister of State, would agree, in an ideal world, with the Home Office stance. We could work together across Government to try to secure a sensible outcome.

    I have talked about GPs, but there are broader issues around visas for doctors, many of which come back to the Home Office backlogs that I know my right hon. Friend the Minister is working really hard to address. There is a good argument for simply scrapping visa fees altogether for people coming to work in the health service. That is an argument for another day, but when it comes to GPs I think that lowering the five-year limit for indefinite leave to remain to three years is the neatest way to address the issue.

    On the broader issues, ultimately this comes back to how many doctors we are training in the UK. We all want, as I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham), to see more people trained in this country. That is what we are doing and that is what the Government continue to pursue, but until we reach that moment—the NHS has never reached entire self-sufficiency in the UK—we should make it as easy as possible for doctors, dentists, nurses, people working in social care, and all those who work in different parts of the health service, to come to the UK. It is not primarily a question about backlogs; it is a question about process. At the moment there is a degree of bureaucracy that simply does not need to exist.

    Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)

    It is great to hear my hon. Friend making such an eloquent case, as always—more so than I can. The issue matters for all the reasons he has set out, but would he agree that because of the retention challenge in the health service, the more we pour in at the top is sometimes, in part at least, offset by those who go out at the bottom? There is a wider picture here to do with pension pots—the whole retention piece is part of the wider jigsaw, which I appreciate is not the remit of this Minister, but perhaps was in his previous job.

    Matt Warman

    I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. It is always tempting to ask the Minister to go and have a word with his former self, but we cannot do that. I think he has read the last couple of points that I want to make.

    There are a number of relatively low-hanging pieces of fruit that the NHS has repeatedly asked for. I want to thank the RCGP, the British Medical Association, the radiologists, the British Dental Association, and also groups such as EveryDoctor, which have helped me with this debate and have identified the fact, as my hon. Friend implied, that there are a small number of things that could and should be sorted as quickly as possible. Busting the barriers around pensions and the bureaucracy around visas are things that would make a real difference to recruitment and retention across the health service. There are plenty of things that are difficult when it comes to addressing the NHS’s challenges, particularly as we approach winter. On the narrow point of GP provision, we have a visa process that puts pressure on, in particular, small GP practices, where the added burden of registering as a visa sponsoring practice is even greater now as they are under such huge pressure. It is also a burden on GPs at what is a particularly stressful point in their careers.

    I know the Minister will make entirely legitimate points around putting a process in place, but the reality is that there is a political choice to be made to ease some of those burdens. There is a powerful, compelling case to be made for doing a small number of easy things that could address the GP crisis in particular, which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) alluded to, is acute.

    I appeal to the Minister and the Government to work as closely as they can with the Department of Health and Social Care to understand these challenges and see what can be done, and I urge my right hon. Friend to take seriously the suggestion that if someone qualifies as a medical doctor in this country, and in particular as a GP, they should have indefinite leave to remain. At the moment, it effectively comes with that if they qualify in a hospital but not in general practice. That is an inequality that the Minister can look to fix, and I hope he will do so as soon as is practicable.

  • Matt Warman – 2022 Tribute to HM Queen Elizabeth II

    Matt Warman – 2022 Tribute to HM Queen Elizabeth II

    The tribute made by Matt Warman, the Conservative MP for Boston and Skegness, in the House of Commons on 10 September 2022.

    In 2012, prior to the diamond jubilee, the Queen hosted a reception at Buckingham Palace for national newspaper editors, the usual great and the good, and, to my surprise, technology editors as well. That induced the unique, gut-wrenching dual anxiety of having to meet Her Majesty, and having to do so with my boss. Thankfully, the Duke of Edinburgh said that technologists, such as myself, were there because people like us knew “what was going on”. That put me at ease, at least for the seconds before I realised he had just said explicitly something that I had only ever optimistically inferred from working with my bosses.

    Perhaps surprisingly, the digital jubilee reception was not a novel concept. The Queen understood that she had to be seen to be believed. We knew her first in the ’40s and ’50s via black and white photos, the wireless and that scratchily televised coronation, which was so many people’s first experience of television. By the 2020s, it was ultra-high definition video, and in the lockdown of 2020 it was Zoom. She moved with the times, and the times moved with her. She was present in our lives in a way that moved even places like Boston and Skegness, which she never visited, to hold street parties in her honour, and that now moves many there to tears.

    I met His Majesty King Charles at a reception for Roberts Radio, which is a long-standing warrant holder.

    He, too, knows that technology can make his family’s warmth and service palpable around the world. He used the opportunity to do an impression from “The Goon Show”, which only time sadly precludes me from recreating in the House. With TV cameras in the Accession Council, we have already seen more of what it is to be a monarch than we could ever have done previously, and long may that continue. It is familiarity and closeness that fosters hope and togetherness with our sovereign.

    I said that we first saw Her Majesty in black and white, and later on Zoom. I should, of course, have said that we are unlikely to see such a lengthy reign again, with its diligence, humility and uplifting love. Thanks to the times in which she lived, we are blessed to have felt uniquely close to so much of it. That makes her absence feel so personal and acute. Grief is the price we pay for love. God save the King.

  • Matt Warman – 2022 Speech on the Computer Misuse Act 1990

    Matt Warman – 2022 Speech on the Computer Misuse Act 1990

    The speech made by Matt Warman, the Conservative MP for Boston and Skegness, in Westminster Hall on 19 April 2022.

    I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Dr Wallis) on securing this debate. I myself put in for a debate on this issue a while ago, but the gods obviously smile more on Bridgend than they do on Boston. Nevertheless, I welcome this opportunity to debate the issue.

    I thank the Minister and his officials for several meetings that he and I have had about this issue relatively recently. All were prompted, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend said, by CyberUp and by Kat Sommer, who deserves to be cited in Hansard for her persistence, among many other things.

    This is an important but technical issue. I will be honest and say that I am not completely certain that the Computer Misuse Act 1990 is broken, but I am certain that it can be improved, by one means or another. That is because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend said, the structure of the cyber-security industry has changed since the Act came into force, and is different from almost any other part of the national security set-up. If we were to ask whether academics have a right to interrogate systems for the purposes of research, we would definitely say yes. If we were to ask whether businesses have the right to interrogate those same systems, we would assume that it was for commercial purposes and that it was important to have different rules.

    It is also a sector where a lot of very small-scale research is done by individuals—some of them literally in their bedrooms. There is a very diverse set of people looking for loopholes and vulnerabilities. Uncovering those vulnerabilities—be they in banks, businesses or any other area where we all rely on the internet—is categorically in the public interest, even if it may also be in the interests of businesses, researchers or people looking for bounties given by large businesses to uncover those vulnerabilities. Those businesses realise that it is in their interests to provide the maximum security to their customers or users.

    That gets to the heart of why the Computer Misuse Act matters. On the one hand, it seeks to prevent hacking and other things that we do not want to see done by people with malign intent; but on the other hand, it risks fettering the ability of people with the public interest at heart to solve issues that we would all like to see solved. Admiring the problem is the easy bit; the hard bit is trying to work out what we should do about it.

    There are a couple of things that we should not do. We should not introduce a blanket public interest defence for anyone who goes looking for things that might subsequently be perceived as a loophole or bug in a system. To do that would potentially give carte blanche to anyone who got caught, allowing them to claim that they were going to fess up about it, rather than benefit from it themselves. A public interest defence that goes too far should be avoided. I find it hard to imagine how a public interest defence might be constructed that does not, inadvertently or otherwise, go too far.

    The other thing that we should not do—notwithstanding the figures that my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend quoted—is assume that cyber firms of any sort should not be mindful of legislation such as the Computer Misuse Act. Of course, if someone is doing research they should consider what is legal. It is a good thing, not a bad thing, that it is a factor for consideration for those who are engaged in the cyber-security industry. We should be mindful of how we can fix the Act, rather than just sweep it away altogether. I come to a point that was made a moment ago; those issues can probably be addressed through enhanced guidance that provides a degree of legal comfort to the unsurprisingly risk-averse lawyers who work for cyber firms and others. Such guidance would not provide carte blanche to people who might have malevolent intent.

    Criminals will not be looking at the CMA and wondering whether what they are doing is legal; by definition criminals are not bothered about whether they are breaking the law. However, there is an important grey area, and we should not create an unintended opportunity for people to defend themselves in court. I implore the Minister to continue his work on the review of the Act, which is really important, but with some minor legislative tweaking we could provide the comfort that the industry rightly asks for and could continue to secure the excellent reputation that Britain has and, as the hon. Member for Strangford said, that Belfast has, for being a world-leading cyber power. We can build on that success because the CMA is an example of a bit of legislation that, although very old, has largely stood the test of time for a lot longer than many might think.

    I will close by simply saying that the principles embedded in the CMA are not bad ones. Whenever it comes to legislating for the internet, we should realise that the internet has not necessarily reinvented every single wheel, and principles that apply offline can be applied online. In this case, they need a little bit of updating, but I do not think we should throw the baby out with the bathwater, as the hon. Member for Strangford said.

  • Matt Warman – 2021 Comments on Digital Identities

    Matt Warman – 2021 Comments on Digital Identities

    The comments made by Matt Warman, the Digital Infrastructure Minister, on 2 August 2021.

    Whether someone wants to prove who they are when starting a job, moving house or shopping online, they ought to have the tools to do so quickly and securely.

    We are developing a new digital identity framework so people can confidently verify themselves using modern technology and organisations have the clarity they need to provide these services.

    This will make life easier and safer for people right across the country and lay the building blocks of our future digital economy.

  • Matt Warman – 2021 Statement on Digital Identity

    Matt Warman – 2021 Statement on Digital Identity

    The statement made by Matt Warman, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, in the House of Commons on 19 July 2021.

    I am pleased to inform the House that the Government are today publishing a public consultation on enabling legislation to strengthen digital identity use for the whole economy.

    More and more people, in all walks of life, are using products and services online. People expect these transactions to be simple, quick, safe and personalised. However, people in the UK often still have to use a combination of paper documents issued by Government, local authorities and the private sector—and a mixture of offline and online routes—when opening a bank account, claiming benefits, starting a new job or applying for a school place. And these steps often need repeating for each new transaction.

    Voluntary online authentication, identity and eligibility solutions can increase security, ease of use and accessibility. They are central to transforming the delivery and efficiency of public services and people’s ability to operate confidently in an increasingly digital economy.

    The Government are committed to realising the benefits of digital identity technologies without creating ID cards. We have committed to put in place the necessary framework and tools so that digital identity solutions enhance privacy, transparency, confidence and inclusion, and that users are able to control their data, in line with the principles published in the 2019 call for evidence response.

    In our response to the call for evidence, we committed to enabling businesses and individuals across the economy to use digital identities securely and with more confidence. This is only achievable by putting in place a legal framework and regulatory infrastructure.

    The consultation DCMS is publishing today follows up on that commitment. It sits alongside the UK digital identity and attributes trust framework, which was published as a first draft in February 2021, opening the way for legislation. Digital identity legislation is needed to underpin a governance framework in law, to enable Government to allow checks by industry against data it holds, and to create confidence in the validity of digital identities. We have worked extensively with industry, civil society, and academia to get to this point.

    The consultation sets out our plans to create a digital identity governance framework. Creating a governance system which can build trust in digital identities is vital. This trust will drive innovation and growth in the UK economy and good governance will ensure that the digital identity and attribute principles are upheld.

    We are also consulting on our intention to create a permissive legal power for Government-held attributes to be checked safely and securely by non-public sector organisations for eligibility, identity, and validation purposes. This will allow digital identities in the UK to be built on a greater range of trusted datasets and ultimately provide people with a choice of how they use this data to prove their identity.

    Finally, we are proposing to establish in law that digital identities and digital attributes can be as valid as physical forms of identification or traditional identity documents. This builds on our commitment to enable the use of digital identities in as many areas as possible and to build confidence in their validity.

    Further details can be found in the consultation, available here:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/digital-identity-and-attributes-consultation.

    A copy of the consultation will also be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

  • Matt Warman – 2021 Speech on Dame Vera Lynn National Memorial

    Matt Warman – 2021 Speech on Dame Vera Lynn National Memorial

    The speech made by Matt Warman, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, in the House of Commons on 11 May 2021.

    How fitting, on this day of the Gracious Speech, that we should be talking about Dame Vera Lynn, because I think it was one of the most moving speeches that Her Majesty the Queen has ever made, and she herself quoted the line that we will meet again. It is right that we understand what Dame Vera Lynn has contributed to this country and to all that we have gone through in the past couple of years as well. It was only in September that my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) raised this important matter, and I thought at the time that we would meet again. I did not know where and I did not know when, but today has been a sunny day, and here we are. I would like to echo his warm words about the lasting legacy of Dame Vera Lynn. The importance of her words and actions was brought home to us not just by the speech that Her Majesty the Queen gave last year, but by the 75th anniversary of VE Day— we all remember the fitting tribute to Dame Vera during the closing stages of the celebrations, when the nation came together to sing that most famous song. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, Her Majesty the Queen and countless members of the public shared their condolences with Dame Vera Lynn’s family following her death last June, at the grand age of 103.

    To hear all about Dame Vera Lynn’s endeavours in later life through the Dame Vera Lynn Children’s Charity, the Bluebird appeal and the Dame Vera Lynn Charitable Trust is truly inspiring.

    Whether Dame Vera was aiding former servicemen and women or working with children and schools, it is clear that she was a true public servant who helped people of all ages and backgrounds throughout her life. My hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield), whom my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West mentioned, has written to me personally to say that Dame Vera is much missed in her home village of Ditchling in Sussex, where she was a key figure in the local community. It is clear that Dame Vera touched many people, across this country and this House, through her music and her philanthropy; I can only echo the warm praise of the general public and of my colleagues here today for her lasting legacy.

    As I said in the previous Adjournment debate, this country has a long and well-established tradition of commemorating its national and local individuals through statues and memorials. I reiterate the Government’s support for public monuments and statues, which serve as a long-lasting reminder of individuals and their efforts for this country, bridging the gap between the past and the present.

    I look forward to the day when the memorial to the great Dame Vera Lynn that my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West mentioned gazes down from the white cliffs of Dover. As he mentioned, he has a successful track record of managing to have public statues erected, and we should look forward to future success, whether it follows on from Eric Cole’s or from Raoul Wallenberg’s in adding to the 12,000 outdoor statues and memorials in England alone. We all know that Dame Vera Lynn will be a huge addition to that roster, and that my hon. Friend is the man to do it.

    The debate gives me an opportunity to detail the Government’s position more broadly on erecting new memorials and statues. As my hon. Friend said, it is not normal practice for central Government to fund new memorials, but we all know that in this case many organisations, public and private, have been hugely successful in proposing funding—I can think of few more fitting recipients of that funding than the projects he mentions—and delivering memorials, marking a variety of incidents and historical figures that they are best placed to deem appropriate and sensitive to their local area. There is no more appropriate area than the white cliffs, I am sure.

    Many successful memorials are created by a wide range of authorities and organisations, allowing each memorial to respond sensitively to the particular circumstances that it seeks to commemorate. I will not dwell on the excellent example of the jolly fisherman in Skegness—another example of funding by public subscription—or on the excellent Gracie Fields statue in Rochdale. Those memorials and statues were conceived, fundraised and erected through local efforts and ownership. Many people will have seen the recent proposals for a new memorial inside St Paul’s cathedral to those who have died as a result of the covid-19 pandemic.

    Statues matter. They provide a memorial and a memory for people who wish to remember vital parts of our nation’s history. There are a great many people and organisations interested in establishing memorials. As a general rule, it is for those groups to work with the relevant local planning authority and other organisations to identify a suitable site and obtain the necessary planning permissions. The good news is that, following the passing of the Deregulation Act 2015, consent is not even required from the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to erect statues in London; the process is determined through the planning system only—although I do not think in this case I am going too far by saying that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is as much of a fan of the great Dame Vera as is my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West. I hope that provides him with some of the reassurance he has sought on the process around new monuments and statues.

    I wish my hon. Friend, and all those involved, the deepest best wishes in their efforts to raise funds for this commemoration of Dame Vera. It sounds like an ambitious and transformative proposal for the south coast, truly befitting Dame Vera. I look forward to that moment when her statue looks down from the white cliffs.

    I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke) for her intervention this evening. I share her commitment to the important role of arts and culture in truly levelling up and reinvigorating towns and cities across the country. I know that she recently met the Minister for Digital and Culture, my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage), to discuss her plans and had a productive conversation with Arts Council England. We at DCMS look forward to seeing the outcomes of her work across Dover and Deal.

    I would take this opportunity to burst into song, such is my enthusiasm for this project, but I think that could possibly send it in the wrong direction, rather than the one we would all like to see. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West for all his work in promoting the cause of this statue. I wish him and all those involved—foremost the family of Dame Vera Lynn—the best of luck in this hugely deserving endeavour, and I look forward to seeing it in real life.

  • Matt Warman – 2021 Statement on the Extension of 5G

    Matt Warman – 2021 Statement on the Extension of 5G

    The statement made by Matt Warman, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, in the House of Commons on 20 April 2021.

    Now, more than ever, people need access to dependable and consistent mobile coverage where they live, work and travel.

    We have committed to extend mobile geographical coverage across the UK with uninterrupted mobile signal on all major roads, and to be a global leader in 5G. That is why the Government have agreed a £1 billion shared rural network deal with the UK’s mobile network operators to extend 4G mobile geographical coverage to 95% of the UK by 2025. The Government are also investing £200 million in a programme of 5G testbeds and trials to encourage investment in 5G so that communities and businesses can benefit from this new technology.

    It is essential that the planning system can effectively support the delivery of the mobile infrastructure that we need. That is why in 2019 the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government published an in-principle consultation on proposed reforms to the permitted development rights governing deployment of mobile network infrastructure. We concluded that the proposed reforms would have a positive impact on the Government’s ambitions for the deployment of 5G and extending mobile coverage, particularly in rural areas, where mobile coverage tends to lag behind more urban areas.

    In July 2020 we announced that we would take forward the reforms, subject to a technical consultation on the detail of changes and including the appropriate environmental protections and other safeguards.

    The Government have now published a technical consultation, https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/ changes-to-permitted-development-rights-for-electronic-communications-infrastructure-technical-consultation, seeking views on proposals to:

    Enable the deployment of small radio equipment cabinets without the requirement for prior approval in article 2(3) land (which includes national parks, areas of outstanding natural beauty and conservation areas), and allow greater flexibility for installing equipment cabinets in compounds;

    Allow for the strengthening of existing masts by permitting greater increases in the width and height of existing masts outside of article 2(3) land, and the width of existing masts in article 2(3) land, without prior approval; and further increases with prior approval;

    Enable building-based masts to be deployed closer to the highway on unprotected land; and permit smaller masts and poles to be installed on buildings without prior approval outside of article 2(3) land; and,

    Enable taller new ground-based masts to be deployed on all land subject to prior approval, with greater permitted heights outside of article 2(3) land; and permit the deployment of monopole masts up to a height of 15 metres without prior approval outside of article 2(3) land.

    The proposed changes will not apply to land on or within sites of special scientific interest, to listed buildings and their curtilage, or sites that are or contain scheduled monuments.

    The consultation will run for eight weeks, closing 14 June 2021.

    These changes will support wider and enhanced coverage that will ensure all communities benefit, and will give greater certainty and speed over deployment of infra-structure, increasing investor confidence. They also aim to encourage the use of existing infrastructure and promote site sharing to reduce the impacts of new deployment.

    We believe these proposals achieve an appropriate balance between supporting the Government’s ambitions for 5G and mobile coverage, and ensuring that the appropriate environmental protections and safeguards are in place, particularly for protected landscapes.

    Alongside the technical consultation, we will work with industry representatives, Ofcom, local authorities and rural stakeholders to develop a new code of practice on mobile network development in England, to ensure the impact of new and upgraded mobile infrastructure is minimised and that appropriate engagement takes place with local communities.

    As planning law is a devolved matter, any future legislative changes will apply to England only, but we will continue to work closely with the devolved Administrations to ensure that the planning regime continues to support the deployment of mobile infra-structure across the United Kingdom.