The Government’s awarding of Growth Deal 3 funding in March 2017 provided a boost of £21.9 million for the Marches area.

Since the Deal was agreed, the Marches Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) have been working closely with the New Model in Technology and Engineering (NMiTE) project. The LEP also provided development funding to the project to support the completion of the business case.

A location for the first phase of development has been identified. The LEP have recently received a business case for the second phase of development, and discussions aimed at agreeing the next tranche of funding are ongoing.

The new deal agreed with the EU ensures that there will be no infrastructure, controls or checks at the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland; goods in Northern Ireland will continue to move freely into Ireland and the rest of the EU without any customs processes. In respect of the rest of the UK, the Government will continue to consider the use of technology-based solutions where these support the administration of customs systems or support traders to meet their obligations.

Northern Ireland continues to benefit from the decision taken by this Government to build a stronger economy across the whole of the United Kingdom. Of particular importance, is the Tech Sector, which provides highly skilled and rewarding jobs, as well as boosting innovation.

The UK Government has announced economic investments of over £600m through City and Growth Deals and other initiatives that cover all 11 councils in Northern Ireland. This provides an excellent opportunity for each to enrich their Tech Sector capabilities, including digital and R&D innovations; and clearly demonstrates the Government’s continued support for the development of skills provision and growth in this innovative sector.

DFID recognises that mobile phones can be a cost-effective, large-scale channel for delivering a range of services and socio-economic benefits. Indeed, mobile coverage is expanding dramatically with 5.1 billion mobile subscribers in 2018. In July 2019, DFID’s Mobile for Development programme was extended. This is a multisectoral partnership with the global mobile industry (via the Global System for Mobile Communications Association) that unlocks and scales mobile-enabled innovations to deliver against the Sustainable Development Goal targets. To date it has impacted the lives of over 20 million people – over 70% of whom are women – and has leveraged over £250m of additional (mostly private sector) funding.

In partnership with mobile network operators, this programme delivers impact in key areas including digital inclusion for women and people with disabilities, expanding connectivity, mobile-enabled smart cities, water, sanitation and energy, and mobile-based tools for climate resilience. It has a cross-cutting agenda on inclusion and has developed tools to improve digital literacy that are being adopted by national regulators.

The programme will achieve its aims through a combination of research and analysis, catalytic funding for innovation and targeted advocacy within the mobile and technology industry.

Highways England has one project regarding “Automated Cone Laying” which seeks to develop a first generation fully automated cone laying vehicle which requires no personnel on the back of the vehicle. £1.133m is forecast to be spent in 2019/20 from a total approved allocation for the project of £1.27m. There is a break point at the end of this financial year after completion of live testing of the automated cone laying vehicles. No funding was spent in previous financial years on automated traffic cone machines.

Highways England has one project regarding “Automated Cone Laying” which seeks to develop a first generation fully automated cone laying vehicle which requires no personnel on the back of the vehicle. £1.133m is forecast to be spent in 2019/20 from a total project budget of £1.27m approved on 9^th December 2018. There is a break point at the end of this financial year after completion of live testing of the automated cone laying vehicles. No funding was spent in previous financial years on automated traffic cone machines.

There are no projects or recipients awaiting funding to develop automated traffic cone machines and associated technology.

Planning for the London Summit in 2020 is ongoing. The aim is to ensure scientific and technological developments are harnessed in pursuit of our shared values of freedom, openness and pluralism. Governments cannot do this alone and we will seek participation from academia, industry and civil society. We will announce further details in due course.

The Department, NHS England and Public Health England (PHE) are committed to increasing the proportion of invites for National Health Service cancer screening appointments that are accepted, through increasing uptake and making appointments more accessible. NHS cancer screening programmes cover breast, bowel and cervical cancer.

PHE’s ‘Be Clear on Cancer’ and ‘Cervical Screening Saves Lives’ campaigns use social media and online platforms to increase awareness of cancer symptoms and the importance of screening and thereby improve attendance at cancer screening appointments. The ‘Cervical Screening Saves Lives’ campaign encouraged women to respond to their cervical screening invitation letter, and if they missed their last screening, to book an appointment at their general practitioner practice. The campaign also provided practical information about how to make the test more comfortable, which could also improve attendance.

In addition to this, Professor Richards’ review of national adult screening programmes, published on 16 October, made a number of recommendations on using technology to improve attendance. These recommendations included rolling-out text reminders nationally that have been successfully piloted at a local level and improving functionality of the screening IT systems to support improvements in uptake and coverage. The Department, NHS England and PHE will carefully consider the recommendations in Professor Richards’ report and publish an implementation plan in due course.