Written questions by White.

Communities and Local Government, what steps she is taking to (a) regenerate town centres and (b) reduce the number of derelict properties.

This government is committed to rejuvenating our town centres. On 4 March, we launched the Plan for Neighbourhoods, the government's flagship programme, a £1.5 billion investment to help revitalise local areas and fight deprivation in 75 places across England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. We have also launched High Street Rental Auctions; powers which allow local authorities in England to auction the lease of persistently vacant commercial properties. On 6 March we announced the names of a further 8 early adopter councils, 11 in total, which will champion the new powers to give others confidence to revive their high streets.

Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of banning the use of bottom-towed fishing gear within marine protected areas.

I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Runcorn and Helsby on 3 February 2025, PQ 26547.

Whether he is taking steps to regulate commercially available prostate specific antigen tests; and if he will produce clinical guidance to ensure the promotion of (a) clear and (b) evidence-based public health messaging on the (i) risk of prostate cancer and (ii) options for testing.

In January 2024, the UK National Screening Committee updated its information on paid-for private screening tests, and how they differ from National Health Service screening programmes.The updated guidance sets out the potential benefits and harms of all screening, including summarising some additional possible issues for people to think about if considering commercially offered health screening tests. These issues include that commercial companies often only offer a test, rather than an end-to-end screening pathway. If an individual then receives an abnormal finding, it is up to them to seek any advice, further investigation, or treatment.Furthermore, NHS England is taking steps to raise awareness of the symptoms of prostate cancer, where there are opportunities to do so. NHS England’s Getting It Right First Time programme published guidance in April 2024 to support the implementation of good practice in the management of prostate cancer, which includes ensuring that the diagnostic pathways for prostate cancer were implemented from a primary care setting to a secondary care presentation.The Government recognises that a cancer-specific approach is needed to meet the challenges in cancer care, and to improve all cancer services and outcomes for people living with cancer, including those with prostate cancer. The Department is investing £16 million into the Prostate Cancer UK-led TRANSFORM screening trial, which seeks to find better ways of detecting prostate cancer. This trial will compare the most promising tests that look for prostate cancer in men that do not have symptoms, and aims to address disparities in detection rates across different groups. As recently announced, we will publish a new National Cancer Plan, which will include further details on how we will improve cancer services across England, including for those living with prostate cancer.

What steps she is taking to (a) support young people with mental health conditions into work and (b) help reduce the number of young people signed off work due to mental health conditions.

The Get Britain Working White Paper set out the government’s plans to drive forward approaches to tackling economic inactivity, create an inclusive labour market in which everybody can participate and progress in work, and meet the long-term ambition of an 80% employment rate. The White Paper set out three major reforms: to create a new Jobs and Careers Service, address the growing and unsustainable problem of people being out of work due to poor health, and establish a new Youth Guarantee. The Youth Guarantee will be for all 18-21 year olds in England and will ensure that they can access quality training opportunities, an apprenticeship or help to find work, starting in eight Youth Guarantee Trailblazer areas this Spring. Department for Work and Pensions already provides young people aged 16-24, who are claiming Universal Credit, with labour market support through an extensive range of interventions at a national and local level. This support includes the Youth Employment Programme, Youth Hubs across Great Britain, and Youth Employability Coaches for young people with additional barriers to finding work. Youth Employability Coaches specifically work closely with Disability Employment Advisors to support those with disabilities and health conditions. The Government also recognises that many people find health conditions and disabilities, including mental ill health, a barrier to employment. Disabled people and people with health conditions are a diverse group so access to the right work and health support, in the right place, at the right time, is key. There are a range of specialist initiatives to support individuals with health conditions to stay in work and get back into work, which involve joint working between Department for Work and Pensions and Department for Health and Social Care. Support includes Employment Advisers in NHS Talking Therapies, Individual Placement and Support programme for people with severe mental illnesses, and Intensive Personalised Employment Support programme aimed at disabled people with complex barriers to employment. In addition, Department for Health and Social Care’s Early Support Hubs also provide employment advice and broader mental health and wellbeing support to young people aged 11-25. Policy relating to waiting lists for people referred for mental health support sits with my Ministerial colleagues at the Department for Health and Social Care, and you may wish to raise the matter with them.

What steps his Department is taking to recruit more neurodiverse graduates into the armed forces.

In a competitive age, our advantage derives from the talent and skills of our people. Attracting, recruiting, and retaining the best people drawn from the broadest diversity of thought, skills and background is mission critical to our operational effectiveness. It ensures we continue to meet the threats we face and safeguard the security, stability and prosperity of our nation. Diversity drives performance, innovation, increases creative thinking and reduces the risks of group think and lack of challenge, as highlighted in the Chilcot Review. This Government has already begun to modernise and refine our policies and processes to attract, and then retain the best possible talent in our Armed Forces. Defence is committed to a diverse workforce, including in neurodiversity. The Defence Secretary has undertaken to review the current recruitment policies and has already announced several changes to prior outdated approaches, including medical entry standards relating to neurodiverse conditions. For example, candidates with Autism Spectrum Disorder can now join the Armed Forces, providing their symptoms have no significant impact and do not require ongoing specialist support.

If she will take steps to regulate the level of interest rates offered by loan companies on daytime television; and what steps she is taking to protect vulnerable consumers from high-cost credit.

Lenders offering high-cost credit are regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). This oversight ensures that lending practices are fair and that consumers are protected. In 2013 the Government placed a duty on the FCA to implement a price cap for high-cost short-term credit products. The price cap came into force in 2015 and ensures that consumers using these products will never repay more than 100% of the principal in interest, fees, and other charges. Lenders are also required to follow the FCA’s rules on promotions and adverts, where non-compliance could lead to fines. The FCA requires that all adverts and other promotions must be clear, fair, and not misleading.

Food and Rural Affairs, whether he has made an assessment of the potential impact of mini forests on (a) improving (i) air quality and (ii) diversity and (b) supporting the UK’s environmental goals.

Defra, through the Trees Outside Woodlands research programme (funded by the Government), has carried out a study on the Miyawaki Method of planting, sometimes known as tiny or mini forests. The testing has been carried out since 2021. The long-term potential effects of this type of planting compared to typical planting is not yet known, but the study found that the plots that used the Miyawaki Method produced significantly higher early growth and survival rates. It also found early indications that biodiversity levels may be higher than typical planting. Ongoing research aims to understand the carbon implications and longer-term effects of using the method, but these early findings show that the method is a useful tool that can be deployed for tree planting, particularly in urban areas. A report on the findings after two years of growth can be found here.

If he will take steps to (a) correlate data between people (i) with mental health conditions and (ii) reported as perpetrators of domestic abuse and (b) share that data with police authorities.

We know that the proportion of domestic homicide reviews where mental health concerns have been identified has risen in recent years. It is important that all parts of the system, including health, policing and justice services, work together to deal with this and protect domestic abuse victims. Following recent discussions with the Home Office and NHS England, we are considering what options might be available to help achieve this.Tackling violence against women and girls is a top priority for the Government, we have a mission to halve this violence in a decade. We are working across Government to deliver a transformative approach to this, underpinned by a new strategy to be published later in 2025.

Whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of designating care leavers as a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010; and if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of that designation on opportunities for care leavers.

The department is committed to enabling all children and young people to achieve and thrive. To ensure we are providing the best support for children in care and care leavers we have tabled an amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which introduces corporate parenting responsibilities on government departments and relevant public bodies to ensure that services and support to children in care and care leavers better take account of the challenges these young people face.Whilst we currently have no plans to update the Equality Act, we believe our corporate parenting proposals will serve to tackle the stigma and discrimination that we know children in care and care leavers experience.The department knows that care leavers have some of the worst outcomes in society across all aspects of their lives and we are committed to ensuring that young people leaving care have stable homes, access to health services, support to build lifelong, loving relationships and are engaged in education, employment and training.To support these ambitions, the department has re-established a Care Leaver Ministerial Board, chaired by my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education and my right hon. Friend, the Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, which brings together ministers from key departments to improve support for care leavers across government.The department has also introduced the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to drive forward our reforms on children’s social care, including placing new duties on local authorities to provide ‘Staying Close’ support to care leavers up to the age of 25 and requiring each local authority to publish information about the arrangements it has in place to support care leavers in their transition to independent living.We are determined to tackle the stigma and discrimination faced by care-experienced young people, by creating a culture where all those who play a role in the lives of children in care and care leavers are ambitious for their outcomes.

How many independent inquiries into maternity care have been conducted by NHS England in the last 20 years; what the key recommendations of those reviews were; and how many of those recommendations have been implemented.

There have been four independent inquiries into maternity and neonatal services provided at the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust, published in 2015, Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, published in 2020 and 2022, and East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust, published in 2022. There is also an on-going inquiry into maternity care provided at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, expected to publish in June 2026.These reviews have uncovered issues at both a local and national level related to failing to listen to women and families, staffing, failing to learn from errors, lack of leadership, compassionate care and teamworking.These inquiries jointly have approximately 130 recommendations aimed at various areas of the system. The Morecambe Bay report had 44 recommendations in total; 18 recommendations were specifically for the trust, all of which have been implemented, and 26 recommendations were aimed at the wider National Health Service, the majority of which have been addressed and implemented.The Ockenden review at Shrewsbury and Telford had three key asks for my Rt. Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, 15 immediate and essential actions to improve maternity care and safety across England and 60 local recommendations for the trust. The inquiry into East Kent had eight recommendations across four key action areas for NHS England, the Government and wider system and one additional recommendation for the trust itself. Most of the remaining recommendations, along with those from other reports, were addressed in NHS England’s Three-year Delivery Plan for maternity and neonatal services, published in 2023, which sets national measures to make care safer, more personalised and more equitable.

What steps he is taking to improve access to NHS dentistry in Leeds North West constituency.

The Government plans to tackle the challenges for patients trying to access National Health Service dental care with a rescue plan to provide 700,000 more urgent dental appointments and recruit new dentists to areas that need them most. To rebuild dentistry in the long term, we will reform the dental contract with the sector, with a shift to focus on prevention and the retention of NHS dentists.The responsibility for commissioning primary care services, including NHS dentistry, to meet the needs of the local population has been delegated to integrated care boards (ICBs) across England. For Leeds North West constituency, this is NHS West Yorkshire ICB.ICBs have started to recruit posts through the Golden Hello scheme. This recruitment incentive will see up to 240 dentists receiving payments of £20,000 to work in those areas that need them most for three years.

Whether he plans to strengthen firework regulations to (a) ensure responsible use and (b) limit their impact on (i) pets and (ii) wildlife.

Most people use fireworks in a responsible, safe, and appropriate manner and there are laws in place to address situations where fireworks are misused. The current regulatory framework is designed to support people to enjoy fireworks whilst lowering the risk of dangers and disruption to people, pets, and property. To inform any future decisions I intend to engage with stakeholders after the fireworks season to gather evidence on the issues with and impacts of fireworks. The safety of the public and impact on people, animals, wildlife and property will be central in decisions in relation to the regulation of fireworks.