We recognise the potential that the use of emerging technologies present for improving outcomes for citizens and also the importance of ensuring that these are used in a way which is compliant with appropriate legal and ethical frameworks.

We welcome the work by the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation (CDEI) to develop a code of practice for use of algorithms in predictive policing and will be working with them to develop it.

Met Office staff collect samples of the air on Ascension Island as part of the Global Atmosphere Watch which helps scientists measure, track and understand the rise in CO₂ and methane around the planet. This is done on behalf of Royal Holloway, University of London and the US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) who fund the equipment.

Ascension Island is a remote location which relies on limited air freight services to provide resupply of equipment. On occasion, equipment deliveries can be disrupted due to the essential prioritisation of other cargo, such as food, resulting in delays to the sampling schedule.

The Met Office is working with the programme’s owners to investigate contingency measures to minimise disruption if supplies to the island are delayed again in the future.

The Office for Students, as the regulator for higher education (HE) in England, is responsible for assessing and monitoring the financial sustainability of registered HE providers. UK universities are autonomous institutions and are therefore responsible for making business planning decisions and ensuring their institutions’ financial sustainability.

Further to the answer provided by the former Home Secretary (Sajid Javid), my right hon. Friend, the Member for Bromsgrove, on 15 July, the statutory guidance ‘Working together to safeguard children (2018)’ sets out how the 3 safeguarding partners – the police, Clinical Commissioning Groups and the local authority - should have a clear understanding of the collective needs of children locally when commissioning effective services. These collective needs include the risks of criminal exploitation that are faced by children. In addition, the local authority is under a duty to monitor and report on serious child safeguarding incidents to the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel.

The safeguarding partners must publish an annual report setting out what they have done as a result of the arrangements, including how effective these arrangements have been in practice. They must also include how they will use data and intelligence to assess the effectiveness of the help being provided to children and families as well as the procedures and processes for cases relating to the abuse, neglect and exploitation of children, including in relation to child criminal exploitation.

As part of the department’s annual ‘Children in Need’ census, local authorities are also required to report to the department on the factors identified at the end of the assessment of children, including trafficking, missing children, gangs and child sexual exploitation, all of which may be related to the risk of child criminal exploitation.

The Home Office have provided £3.6 million for the establishment of the National County Lines Co-ordination Centre (NCLCC) to enhance the intelligence picture and support cross-border efforts to tackle county lines. The NCLCC supports operational policing as well as providing a central point at which intelligence and information is shared and the links with criminal exploitation and illegal drugs markets are identified.

In November 2018, the Director General of the National Crime Agency formally tasked all Chief Constables to direct all forces to implement a more consistent and prioritised intelligence and operational response, in respect of county lines drugs supply, to include the submission of intelligence to the NCLCC and a prioritised response to high-risk lines and gangs.

Intensive pig and poultry installations are major point sources of ammonia emissions that are regulated under the Industrial Emissions Directive. These farms are required to report their ammonia emissions annually through their pollution inventory return. This requirement applies to installations with more than 40,000 places for poultry, or 2,000 places for production pigs (over 30kg), or 750 places for sows.

Agricultural ammonia emissions from all farm types are estimated on a national scale and reported annually through the National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory.

The UK is gravely concerned by the situation in Idlib, which we are closely monitoring, in coordination with our international partners and relevant UN bodies.

We have repeatedly called on all parties to end the violence, return to the ceasefire agreed in September 2018, and abide by their obligations under international humanitarian law, including at three emergency sessions of the UN Security Council. The Prime Minister raised the urgent need to restore the ceasefire in Idlib with President Putin and President Erdogan at the G20 Summit on 28-29 June.

UK aid continues to support the protection of civilians in Idlib, where DFID partners are working to support health facilities and establish mobile emergency protection teams. We also support an innovative new technology to provide early warning of airstrikes through the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund.

Accommodation and support services will continue for 28 days from when an asylum seeker has been granted asylum. During this period the Advice, Issue Reporting and Eligibility (AIRE) Provider, Migrant Help, will assist newly recognised refugees to access local housing and benefit services through their dedicated ‘Move-On’ service. Within one working day of notification of the decision by the Home Office, Migrant Help will contact newly recognised refugees to help prepare them for their new lives in the UK.

This improved service includes: providing information on the length of ‘grace period’ and next steps on support, accommodation and employment; booking an appointment with the local Department of Work and Pensions office for a ‘work focussed interview’; signposting Service Users to the relevant Local Authority housing team; and providing information on, and signposting Service Users to, relevant public services, local support networks and voluntary sector organisations.

As part of the AIRE contracts, this service, will include clearly defined performance standards measured through a set of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) set within a wider Performance Management Regime (PMR). These KPIs will be monitored formally at Contract Management meetings between the providers and representatives of UK Visas and Immigration and will be supported by a rigorous contract compliance regime that will ensure that the required performance standards are met.

The Home Office and its Provider remains committed to working in partnership with local government and civil society to evaluate, develop and improve services.

The Ministry of Justice assesses the quality of alternative risk assessment tools proposed by Community Rehabilitation Companies and sets a number of conditions for approval including a requirement for ongoing research and evaluation to ensure the tool is fit for purpose. Under our proposals for future probation arrangements responsibility for undertaking risk assessment processes will sit with staff in the National Probation Service.

We are still at the early stages of using algorithms in the criminal justice system, primarily as decision support tools to aid professional judgement. We have internal process in place to ensure we develop and roll-out algorithmic models appropriately and responsibly and are working with The Alan Turing Institute to make sure use of these models is ethical, safe and fair

These tools are one element of a number of measures for assessing the risk of re-offending: offender managers make robust risk assessments based on their professional expertise. The most complex cases, and those with the highest assessed risk of re-offending or causing harm, will attract the most intensive intervention. In all cases, the professional judgement of the offender manager is a key factor in deciding what measures are needed to manage an offender and prevent re-offending.

There is no place in our society, including within higher education, for hatred or any form of discrimination or racism, such as antisemitism. This is why I have called on higher education providers to accept the International Holocaust Remembrance Association (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism.

Higher education providers are autonomous organisations, responsible for the management of their own internal affairs. They should discharge their responsibilities fully and have robust policies and procedures in place to comply with the law, and to investigate and swiftly address all hate crime, including any antisemitic incidents that are reported.

On 16 May 2019, I wrote to all higher education providers to urge them to consider adopting the IHRA definition and set out my view that this is a useful tool which will help front-line services better understand and recognise instances of antisemitism. The government believes that adopting the IHRA definition of antisemitism sends a clear message that antisemitic behaviour will not be tolerated, and that any instances of antisemitism will be taken very seriously.

The Ministry of Defence conducts no routine monitoring of these sea-dumping sites.

The Ministry of Defence conducts no routine monitoring of these sea-dumping sites.