I am going to make a short topical statement. The information that Meta and other tech companies give to UK law enforcement helps to protect around 1,200 children and leads to over 100 arrests of suspected child abusers every month. However, Meta plans to roll out end-to-end encryption soon, without safeguards, and it will no longer proactively detect and alert authorities to child grooming and abuse material on Facebook, Messenger and Instagram Direct. This will be a huge boon to anyone who wants to hurt a child. The Online Safety Bill will hold tech firms to account, but indifference to abuse is intolerable. I have written to Mark Zuckerberg—together with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Security, the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat), children’s charities and campaign groups—to outline our profound concerns. Last week, I was in New Zealand at the Five Eyes security conference where there was widespread support for working together to ensure that social media companies put child safety first.

The latest published Immigration Statistics detail the number of asylum seekers accommodated in each local authority area. These statistics can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/asylum-and-resettlement-datasets#asylum-support. Data is published on a quarterly basis, with the latest information published 25 August 2022.

The next quarterly figures are due to be released later this month.

The Home Office selection criteria includes deliverability, size, location, cost, situation and use.

The Asylum Transformation programme aims to bring the system back into balance and modernise it. It is focused on increasing productivity by streamlining, simplifying and digitising processes to speed up decision making to increase efficiency and output. This will support us in delivering sustainable changes to decision maker productivity, helping us control the unprecedented volumes of intake to prevent long wait times for customers.

The PACE pilot covers new flow cases (including small boats and those claims which are admitted to the UK asylum process) along with Legacy cases and children casework. The 8-week pilot reduced the time asylum seekers waited for a first interview by 40%. It is being rolled out across the UK at pace to deal with the 100,000 people awaiting a decision on their claim.

We have increased the number of asylum caseworkers by 80%, from 597 staff in 2019/20 to more than 1,000 today. We are on course for a further 500 people by March 2023.

The Asylum Transformation programme aims to bring the system back into balance and modernise it. It is focused on increasing productivity by streamlining, simplifying and digitising processes to speed up decision making to increase efficiency and output. This will support us in delivering sustainable changes to decision maker productivity, helping us control the unprecedented volumes of intake to prevent long wait times for customers.

The PACE pilot covers new flow cases (including small boats and those claims which are admitted to the UK asylum process) along with Legacy cases and children casework. The 8-week pilot reduced the time asylum seekers waited for a first interview by 40%. It is being rolled out across the UK at pace to deal with the 100,000 people awaiting a decision on their claim.

We have increased the number of asylum caseworkers by 80%, from 597 staff in 2019/20 to more than 1,000 today. We are on course for a further 500 people by March 2023.

The pricing of financial products is a commercial decision for firms and the Government does not seek to intervene in such decisions.

The independent Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Bank of England makes monetary policy decisions independently of the Government. Therefore, the Government does not comment on the conduct or effectiveness of monetary policy. The MPC sets the base rate of interest, which is known as Bank Rate. This is the rate of interest the Bank of England will pay on reserves held with them by commercial banks. MPC decisions over Bank Rate guide commercial banks’ decisions over retail interest rates, i.e. interest rates they charge on loans and pay on deposits. However, retail banks also make commercial judgements that influence the degree of pass‐through from changes in Bank Rate into retail interest rates, with conditions in financial markets and in the banking sector also influencing interest rates paid on deposits or charged for lending.

The Building Safety Act 2022 protects leaseholders from costs associated with historical building safety defects. Qualifying leaseholders and buildings of

above 11 metres in height are fully protected from unsafe cladding remediation costs. There are also robust and far-reaching protections from non-cladding costs, with leaseholder contributions being a last resort and firmly capped. Where a freeholder is linked to the original developer, leaseholders will now pay nothing.

The Home Office carefully considered the possible impacts of the new immigration system, making best use of existing evidence and data – this included a review undertaken by the Migration Advisory Committee in the design of the Points Based System.

Prior to the launch of the Skilled Worker route we published a detailed Impact Assessment which set out a range of impacts. The Government continues to monitor the immigration system and the wider UK economy impacts on migration flows and the labour market, and whether this is in line with our detailed planning assumptions. As part of this, the Government regularly engages the MAC for their expert and independent view.

The Points Based System, including the Skilled Worker route, provides for many occupations in the maritime and agricultural sector (which has its own sector specific scheme for horticultural roles), if the requirements of the system are met.

Capital allowances, including writing down allowances, provide tax relief for businesses' capital expenditure on qualifying plant or machinery.

In 1997 a 6 per cent special rate writing down allowance was introduced for assets with a long life, which is more than 25 years, to align their tax position more closely with the commercial accounts of a business. This compared to a 25 per cent main rate, which is now 18 per cent, for plant and machinery.

HMRC does not classify which assets should be written down at the main or special rate of writing down allowances. Instead, businesses should identify whether an asset they have acquired has a useful economic life of more or less than 25 years when new.

Ships were initially exempted from this change, with owners given 13 years to adjust to the long-life asset rules. Ships are now treated consistently with all other business assets.

The Government keeps all tax reliefs under review.

Capital allowances, including writing down allowances, provide tax relief for businesses' capital expenditure on qualifying plant or machinery.

In 1997 a 6 per cent special rate writing down allowance was introduced for assets with a long life, which is more than 25 years, to align their tax position more closely with the commercial accounts of a business. This compared to a 25 per cent main rate, which is now 18 per cent, for plant and machinery.

HMRC does not classify which assets should be written down at the main or special rate of writing down allowances. Instead, businesses should identify whether an asset they have acquired has a useful economic life of more or less than 25 years when new.

Ships were initially exempted from this change, with owners given 13 years to adjust to the long-life asset rules. Ships are now treated consistently with all other business assets.

The Government keeps all tax reliefs under review.

I refer my Hon Friend to my answer to Question UIN 122751 on 21 February 2022.

The Building Safety Bill currently in the House of Lords marks the next step in the Government’s ongoing reforms to make sure everyone’s home is a place of safety. The Bill is part of a package of legislative changes to move things forward and make sure the problems Dame Judith Hackitt identified with the current building and fire safety regime are rectified. The package includes the measures in the Fire Safety Act 2021 and changes to the Fire Safety Order alongside the current Building Safety Bill.

The new regime established through the Building Safety Bill will:

• Establish a national Building Safety Regulator at the heart of our reformed building regulations and fire safety system. The Regulator will make buildings safer by enforcing a stringent new regulatory regime for high-rise residential and other in scope buildings, overseeing the safety and performance of all buildings, and increasing the competence of those working across the built environment.
• require those responsible for buildings when they are occupied to actively manage building risks, evidencing this through a new ‘safety case’ regime. This will make sure that proportionate steps are taken to deal with building risks in high-rise buildings through prevention, control, mitigation and ongoing management.
• It will also give a greater voice to residents of tall buildings to air their concerns and toughen sanctions against those who threaten their safety.

The Department has also taken steps to ensure that industry takes a proportionate approach in the assessment of the external walls of buildings. The government has supported the development of guidance which aims to provide risk proportionate guidance to competent assessors. This guidance (PAS 9980) provides new advice on how to assess the risk of fire via an external wall of an existing multi-storey, multi-occupied residential building. It sets out steps that can be taken to identify and assess risk factors as well as mitigation measures that might improve the risk rating of a building via a holistic and fact-based assessment of a building’s construction.

Under the current system, Approved Inspectors such as NHBC are independently monitored and regulated by CICAIR Ltd to carry out building control work in England (and Wales). CICAIR Ltd is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Construction Industry Council (CIC) and the approval process it operates provides a route to registration as an Approved Inspector.

The Building Safety Regulator will be responsible for oversight of the competence and performance of building control professionals and the building control bodies in which they work, taking a wider view of the professionalism and culture that needs to support building safety in all classes of work, not just in-scope buildings. To do this, we are introducing a system of oversight of the performance of building control bodies (Local Authorities and Registered Building Control Approvers), and a system of individual registration based on competence and adherence to a code of conduct, all overseen by the Building Safety Regulator.

The Joint Money Laundering Steering Group guidance helps firms to meet their obligations under the money laundering regulations. Banks should take measures to assess risks presented by pooled client accounts to ensure that the accounts are not abused for criminal purposes.

The Government is aware of anecdotal reports of lenders requesting remediation to be completed prior to lending. The Department does not support this approach and is of the firm view that a clear financing plan for remediation, including Government grant funding, removes the financial risk to lenders and should enable mortgage lending to progress.

The Department does not hold this information. An independent expert statement in July this year was clear that there is no systemic risk of fire in residential buildings under 18 metres and that EWS1s should not be required by lenders on buildings under 18 metres. The Government strongly supports this position and made this clear in its written statement of 21 July. Existing EWS1 assessments of buildings under 18 metres should be reviewed to ensure that proportionate risk management and mitigation has been considered before committing to remediation, and the Building Owner should share that information with the leaseholders.