The Government has supported the wine industry with duty freezes at 6 of the last 12 fiscal events, including the decision at Spring Budget 2024 to freeze alcohol duty until 1 February 2025.

As part of the new alcohol duty reforms, the Government has removed the sparkling wine premium, meaning sparkling wines now pay the same amount of duty as still wines of the same strength. As a result, an 11% sparkling wine now pays 61p less duty than under the previous duty system. While higher strength wines will be subject to more duty under the reforms than under the previous system, lower strength wines will be subject to less duty.

The Government has been clear that the wine easement is a temporary and transitional measure to support the wine industry to adapt to the new duty system by 1 February 2025. The Government is confident that the necessary changes are manageable within the time provided and that the wine industry has the information required to update their systems and calculate the correct duty.

The Government has supported the wine industry with duty freezes at 6 of the last 12 fiscal events, including the decision at Spring Budget 2024 to freeze alcohol duty until 1 February 2025.

As part of the new alcohol duty reforms, the Government has removed the sparkling wine premium, meaning sparkling wines now pay the same amount of duty as still wines of the same strength. As a result, an 11% sparkling wine now pays 61p less duty than under the previous duty system. While higher strength wines will be subject to more duty under the reforms than under the previous system, lower strength wines will be subject to less duty.

The Government has been clear that the wine easement is a temporary and transitional measure to support the wine industry to adapt to the new duty system by 1 February 2025. The Government is confident that the necessary changes are manageable within the time provided and that the wine industry has the information required to update their systems and calculate the correct duty.

The Government continues to support the industry’s adaptation to new requirements, including through our Export Support Service and comprehensive GOV.UK guidance.

Visa and permit free touring routes are available in 24 of 27 Member States including key markets; France, Germany and Spain.

The Music Export Growth Scheme, tripled to £3.2 million until 2025, facilitates UK artist entry into new international markets. MEGS has successfully supported over 400 artist music export projects and SMEs since launching in 2013, with a return on investment of over £13 for every £1 received.

This Government have a plan to ensure that technology works for our people, not against them. Right now, the Secretary of State is in South Korea for the AI Seoul summit. She is building on the progress we have made and on the UK’s leadership at Bletchley Park last year to tackle the risks of artificial intelligence. Whether it is AI, quantum, life sciences or the next generation of advanced telecommunications, we are making the UK a science and tech superpower, backed by the highest ever level of spend on research and development. Our plan is working, and our scientists and entrepreneurs cannot afford to go back to square one with Labour.

I wrote to you on this important subject on Friday 17 May 2024. For completeness, I set out my full written response below.

Tackling violence that disproportionately impacts women and girls remains one of this government’s top priorities. Women and girls should be able to go about their lives without being subjected to unwanted sexual images. Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) prosecutors are committed to tackling this unacceptable behaviour.

As you know, this government has recently enacted new offences designed to tackle online offending through the Online Safety Act 2023. This includes the offence of cyberflashing and other intimate image offences.

The CPS has welcomed the enactment of these new offences designed to target predatory behaviour and non-contact sexual offences. It has introduced comprehensive updates to prosecution guidance to support prosecutors to better recognise behaviour-driven and escalating offending. Additionally, it has published ‘Communications Offences’ legal guidance which includes online offences relating to violence against women and girls.

Whilst this legislation is still new, the police are referring more cases to the CPS for charging decisions and I can confirm the CPS secured their first conviction for cyberflashing in February 2024, resulting in the offender being jailed for 66 weeks at Southend Crown Court. I am unable to provide detail on any other cases where there may be live criminal proceedings.

Regrettably, I am unable to provide you with data on prosecutions under the Online Safety Act yet. However, in July the CPS will publish its next data summary covering the period January to March 2024 and after this summary release, more granular data may be shared publicly. This pause ahead of publishing data allows for quality assurance checks and internal scrutiny before publication.

I wrote to you on this important subject on Friday 17 May 2024. For completeness, I set out my full written response below.

Tackling violence that disproportionately impacts women and girls remains one of this government’s top priorities. Women and girls should be able to go about their lives without being subjected to unwanted sexual images. Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) prosecutors are committed to tackling this unacceptable behaviour.

As you know, this government has recently enacted new offences designed to tackle online offending through the Online Safety Act 2023. This includes the offence of cyberflashing and other intimate image offences.

The CPS has welcomed the enactment of these new offences designed to target predatory behaviour and non-contact sexual offences. It has introduced comprehensive updates to prosecution guidance to support prosecutors to better recognise behaviour-driven and escalating offending. Additionally, it has published ‘Communications Offences’ legal guidance which includes online offences relating to violence against women and girls.

Whilst this legislation is still new, the police are referring more cases to the CPS for charging decisions and I can confirm the CPS secured their first conviction for cyberflashing in February 2024, resulting in the offender being jailed for 66 weeks at Southend Crown Court. I am unable to provide detail on any other cases where there may be live criminal proceedings.

Regrettably, I am unable to provide you with data on prosecutions under the Online Safety Act yet. However, in July the CPS will publish its next data summary covering the period January to March 2024 and after this summary release, more granular data may be shared publicly. This pause ahead of publishing data allows for quality assurance checks and internal scrutiny before publication.

Tackling violence against women and girls is a priority for the Government. I recently visited CPS Thames and Chiltern

to hear specifically about the work it is doing to combat stalking. I also heard how the domestic abuse joint justice plan will transform how we investigate this all-too-frequent crime.

In our White Paper on AI regulation we set out our ambitious pro-regulation, pro-innovation framework, outlining five cross-sectoral principles to be applied by existing regulators. In February we published our response, setting out how we are supporting regulators to deliver the framework and strengthen our global AI leadership. That includes new funding and guidance for our regulators, and we have established a central risk function to support.

All assaults on prison staff are utterly unacceptable. That is why we have taken steps to protect our staff. I put on record something that I suspect those on both sides of the House share, which is our gratitude to all those who work in our prisons. To protect staff, we have rolled out PAVA—pelargonic acid vanillylamide—spray in adult male prisons, and body-worn video cameras. The maximum penalty for those who assault prison officers has been doubled, and we have completed our £100 million security investment programme to clamp down on the illicit items that fuel prison violence. The rate of assaults on staff in the 12 months to September 2023 was 10% lower than in the 12 months to September 2019—before the pandemic—but it is still far too high.

Court Martial results from the Military Court Service are available back to 2010 in a searchable format at the following website: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/court-martial-results-from-the-military-court-centres. Information includes rank, service, final legal charges, finding and overall sentence. However, the particulars of the offence are not included. The detailed information necessary to answer every question would require the recall of physical files from archives to examine each charge sheet, and this could only be achieved at disproportionate cost. In addition, the term ‘dishonourably discharged’, is not used by the UK Armed Forces.

Court Martial results from the Military Court Service are available back to 2010 in a searchable format at the following website: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/court-martial-results-from-the-military-court-centres. Information includes rank, service, final legal charges, finding and overall sentence. However, the particulars of the offence are not included. The detailed information necessary to answer every question would require the recall of physical files from archives to examine each charge sheet, and this could only be achieved at disproportionate cost. In addition, the term ‘dishonourably discharged’, is not used by the UK Armed Forces.

Court Martial results from the Military Court Service are available back to 2010 in a searchable format at the following website: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/court-martial-results-from-the-military-court-centres. Information includes rank, service, final legal charges, finding and overall sentence. However, the particulars of the offence are not included. The detailed information necessary to answer every question would require the recall of physical files from archives to examine each charge sheet, and this could only be achieved at disproportionate cost. In addition, the term ‘dishonourably discharged’, is not used by the UK Armed Forces.

The number of military bases maintained by the UK in Germany in each year since 2010 can be found in the table below:

The maintenance costs for Ministry of Defence (MOD) bases in the UK and Overseas dating back to Financial Year 2018-19 is shown in the tables below (rounded to one decimal place).

Defence Infrastructure Organisation

Navy

Army

Defence Equipment & Support

Strategic Command

Maintenance on the majority of MOD bases is carried out under contracts managed by the Defence Infrastructure Organisation. However, a proportion of bases are managed by other individual areas of the MOD and are detailed separately in corresponding tables above.

Maintenance cost data prior to Financial Year 2018-19 is not held because IT systems and contracts were not configured to capture data in this way.

The National Dog and Technical Support Group (NDTSG) provides prison dogs for patrol and detection purposes and a wide range of technical support including the transmission of audio and visual information, and the capability to capture evidence of an incident.

The table below states how many times NDTSG was deployed to each Youth Offenders Institute and how many times those dogs were used in those deployments in each year since 2017.

“–” indicates where dog uses are not recorded pre-2020.

NDTSG is deployed to support the National Tactical Response Group (NTRG) with a wide range of technical support including the transmission of audio and visual information, and the capability to capture evidence of an incident. As shown by the number of dog uses, the increased deployment of NDTSG is not necessarily indicative of an increase in the use of dogs. Equally, where dog uses have increased, this may be due to an increase in proactive searches and patrols at establishments, and is not necessarily indicative of responses to disorder.

The National Dog and Technical Support Group (NDTSG) provides prison dogs for patrol and detection purposes and a wide range of technical support including the transmission of audio and visual information, and the capability to capture evidence of an incident.

The table below states how many times NDTSG was deployed to each Youth Offenders Institute and how many times those dogs were used in those deployments in each year since 2017.

“–” indicates where dog uses are not recorded pre-2020.

NDTSG is deployed to support the National Tactical Response Group (NTRG) with a wide range of technical support including the transmission of audio and visual information, and the capability to capture evidence of an incident. As shown by the number of dog uses, the increased deployment of NDTSG is not necessarily indicative of an increase in the use of dogs. Equally, where dog uses have increased, this may be due to an increase in proactive searches and patrols at establishments, and is not necessarily indicative of responses to disorder.

HMPPS uses Nico 9 Stun grenades as a distraction device during planned interventions as part of an agreed tactical plan. They can only be employed by National Tactical Response Group (NTRG) staff who are highly trained in their use.

The table below states how many times Nico 9 stun grenades were used in each Youth Offender Institution in each year since 2017.