Written questions by Conlon.

What steps he is taking to improve energy security in (a) England and (b) Beckenham and Penge constituency.

The Government will reduce dependency on fossil fuel markets by transitioning to a diverse energy system based on renewables and nuclear. This includes delivering clean power by 2030 as part of the Prime Minister’s mission to make Britain a clean energy superpower, supported by the largest investment in home-grown energy in history. By producing clean energy at home and being more efficient in how we use it, we can boost our energy independence, protect billpayers and reduce exposure to global supply shocks. The Clean Power Action Plan details the route towards the mission, covering Great Britain, including Beckenham and Penge.

What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to tackle benefit fraud by organised criminal gangs.

The DWP collaborates across Government to enhance operations, share data across government, and represent DWP at cross-government Digital and Data forum to deliver outcomes. DWP works jointly across Government Departments and Law Enforcement Agencies on investigations into benefit fraud carried out by organised crime gangs.

What steps he is taking to increase access to GP appointments (a) in Beckenham and Penge constituency and (b) nationally.

We are committed to improving access and capacity in general practice (GP). That’s why, in October 2024, we provided an £82 million boost to the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme, enabling the recruitment of 1,000 newly qualified GPs across England. This will increase the number of appointments delivered in GPs, which will benefit thousands of patients and will also secure the future supply of GPs, and take pressure off those currently working in the system.Additionally, we have announced a proposed £889 million uplift to the GP Contract in 2025/26, the largest uplift in years, with a rising share of total National Health Service resources going to GPs. We are also currently consulting on key proposals to improve access, continuity of care, and GP recruitment.

What steps she plans to take to help support parents into work.

Our recently published Get Britain Working White Paper sets out our aspirations to overhaul the Jobcentre system and establish a new Job and Career Service, which will focus on people’s skills and careers instead of just monitoring and managing benefit claims. This will be kickstarted by £55million of investment, to help people – including parents - get into work, stay in work, build skills and progress in their career. We are also considering how we can improve our support to help parents into work as part of our Child Poverty Strategy which will be published later this year. Work Coaches provide individual, tailored support to all customers, this includes advice to parents on childcare support or help to address their skills gaps to aid career progression.

What steps she is taking to support people with (a) disabilities and (b) long-term health conditions into work.

Backed by £240m investment, the Get Britain Working White Paper launched on 26 November will drive forward approaches to tackling economic inactivity and work toward the long-term ambition of an 80% employment rate. Employers play a key role in increasing employment opportunities and supporting disabled people and people with health conditions, to thrive as part of the workforce. Our support to employers includes increasing access to Occupational Health, a digital information service for employers and the Disability Confident scheme. Appropriate work is generally good for health and wellbeing, so we want everyone to get work and get on in work, whoever they are and wherever they live. 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. We therefore have a range of specialist initiatives to support individuals to stay in work and get back into work, including those that join up employment and health systems. Measures include support from Work Coaches and Disability Employment Advisers in Jobcentres and Access to Work grants, as well as joining up health and employment support around the individual through Employment Advisors in NHS Talking Therapies and Individual Placement and Support in Primary Care.

What assessment she has made of the potential impact of job centres on economic growth.

As announced in the recent Get Britain Working White Paper, we are reforming Jobcentre Plus and creating a new service that will enable everyone to access support to find good, meaningful work, and support to help them to progress in work, including through an enhanced focus on skills and careers advice. This new service will transform our ability to support people into work, help those on low pay to increase their earnings, and create a more flexible workforce for a fast changing, higher skilled jobs market. This transformation is expected to contribute significantly to economic growth by addressing local skills gaps and providing tailored support to meet the needs of local labour markets. We are currently considering our evaluation strategy to assess the effectiveness, efficiency and impact of the new service. This includes funding in 2025/26 to take forward the first steps of building the new service through a pathfinder, as set out in the Get Britain Working White Paper.

What steps his Department is taking to help reduce bureaucracy in (a) GP and (b) other primary care services (i) in Beckenham and Penge constituency and (ii) nationally.

To reduce bureaucracy in the National Health Service, on 4 October 2024, the Government and NHS England launched a Red Tape Challenge to address bureaucracy between primary and secondary care and give our health professionals back time to do what they do best. As part of the Red Tape Challenge there has been close engagement with professionals across primary care to learn more about what works and what needs to change.

What steps her Department is taking to help tackle mobile phone theft (a) in Beckenham and Penge constituency and (b) nationally.

Set against soaring levels of snatch thefts and pickpocketing, crimes which commonly involve the theft of mobile phones, a series of meetings have already been held, and we will shortly be holding a Home Office Mobile Phone Theft Summit, drawing together representatives from the mobile phone industry, including tech companies, the Metropolitan Police and other law enforcement agencies to see what more can collectively be done to break the business model of mobile phone thieves.As part of our Safer Streets Mission, this government is determined to crack down on theft and other crimes that make people feel unsafe in our communities, including tackling anti-social behaviour and restoring public confidence. We are committed to strengthening neighbourhood policing and through our Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee, there will be thousands of additional police officers, police community support officers and Special Constables.

What steps his Department is taking to help (a) promote and (b) support participation in physical activity for people with long-term health conditions.

The Government and the National Health Service recognise the importance of physical activity for the prevention and management of long-term health conditions. The NHS Better Health Campaign promotes ways for adults, families, and children to move more, and signposts people, including those living with long term conditions who are ready to build movement back into their routines, to digital support like the NHS Active 10 walking app.Local authorities and the NHS also promote and provide services for people living with long term conditions, such as exercise on referral and social prescribing, including access to physical activity interventions, fall prevention, and walking groups.The Department, with Sport England, has delivered support and training to equip healthcare professionals to enable patients to move more, to improve their physical and mental health. Sport England continues to support work in this area through the Physical Activity Clinical Champions programme, which is currently being piloted in local areas.NHS England is working closely with partners nationally and locally to explore how the NHS might galvanise support to make physical activity a core part of NHS care, in order to benefit patients, NHS staff, and the wider public. By empowering clinicians and healthcare professionals with the skills and confidence to discuss and promote physical activity, and by integrating it into key clinical pathways and aligning it with Core20PLUS5 for adults, children, and young people, the NHS could help to transform patient outcomes and reduce health inequalities.

Media and Sport, how the National Youth Strategy will help tackle barriers to opportunity for children and young people in Beckenham and Penge constituency.

This Government is committed to tackling barriers to opportunity and to giving all young people the chance to reach their full potential. The National Youth Strategy will allow us to put young people back in charge of their own destiny and provide them with meaningful choices and chances. We are working with young people and other key stakeholders to develop our plans. Further details will be shared in due course.

Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to improve access to the natural environment.

The Government recognises the vital role access to the natural environment plays in supporting people’s health and wellbeing and is committed to ensuring opportunities to enjoy the outdoors are both safe and appropriate. To this end, we have set out ambitious manifesto commitments, including the creation of nine new national river walks and three new national forests in England, which will significantly expand access to the great outdoors. Key initiatives are already underway to improve access to nature, including The King Charles III England Coast Path, which will be the longest waymarked and maintained coastal walking route in the world, spanning approximately 2,700 miles. The project will also create 250,000 hectares of new open access land within the coastal margin.

Media and Sport, what steps she is taking to help ensure that young people benefit from grassroots sports facilities.

The Government believes that every child should have the opportunity to play sport and participate in regular physical activity. Our mission-led Government puts children and young people at the heart of our priorities. This includes breaking down barriers to opportunity for every child to access high-quality sport and physical activity inside and outside of school, especially those who are less likely to be active.We provide the majority of our funding for grassroots sport through our Arm’s Length Body, Sport England - which invests over £250 million in Exchequer and Lottery funding each year. The expansion of Sport England’s Place Partnerships will invest up to £250 million of National Lottery and Exchequer funding and enhance engagement in areas of greatest need to tackle inactivity levels through community-led solutions, including for children and young people.This Government recognises that grassroots facilities are at the heart of communities up and down the country and is acting to support more people to get active wherever they live through the delivery of the £123 million Multi-Sport Grassroots Facilities Programme in 2024/25.

Innovation and Technology, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure that the use of artificial intelligence complies with existing copyright law.

The Government is clear that making copies of protected material will infringe copyright unless it is licensed, or an exception to copyright applies. However, the application of existing copyright law to generative AI models is untested in the courts, and there is a lack of legal certainty. The Government published a consultation on Copyright and AI in December 2024, seeking views on how to create clarity in this area through a package of measures. The Government recognises that this is a complex area and welcomes all views and evidence to help shape its thinking. The consultation closes on 25 February.

Media and Sport, what steps she is taking to support the growth of the creative industries (a) through the Creative Careers Programme and (b) generally.

The creative industries are worth £124 billion to the UK’s economy and employ over 2.4 million people. As a sector in which the UK excels today, and which will propel us forwards tomorrow, the Creative Industries have been announced as one of the eight growth-driving sectors within the Industrial Strategy. As part of this, we will develop a Sector Plan which will be focused on driving growth and opportunity for creative businesses across the country. As a first step towards delivering the Sector Plan, the government has announced a £60 million package of support to drive growth, including £40 million investment for start-up video games studios, British music and film exports and creative businesses outside of London.By providing £3 million to expand the Creative Careers Programme (CCP), the Government will continue to broaden and diversify the talent pipeline in the creative industries, through giving young people the opportunity to learn more about career pathways, and directly engage with creative workplaces and employers.The CCP will target more young people from priority areas, which are currently identified as those places where children face the greatest disadvantage in accessing information about careers in the creative industries. The programme is designed to raise young people’s awareness of creative careers and pathways into them by providing specialist advice and information. It seeks to boost opportunities and support for young people aged 11 - 18 from backgrounds that are under-represented in the creative industries.

What steps her Department is taking to tackle (a) domestic abuse and (b) violence against women and girls in Beckenham and Penge constituency.

This Government has set out an ambition to halve violence against women and girls (VAWG), including domestic abuse, within a decade, and we will treat it as the national emergency that it is. We will go further than any Government has before to deliver a cross-Government transformative approach to tackling VAWG, underpinned by a new strategy to be published later this year.We have already set out a number of measures to strengthen the police response to domestic abuse, increase protections for victims, and hold perpetrators to account. Starting in early 2025, a new approach called "Raneem's Law" will place domestic abuse specialists within 999 control rooms to advise on risk assessments, collaborate closely with officers on the ground, and expedite referrals to appropriate support services for victims. We are working with the police to develop a national framework utilising data-driven tools and algorithms to track and target high-harm offenders involved in domestic abuse, sexual assault, harassment, and stalking.In December, we also we set out a new package of six measures to tackle stalking including statutory guidance to empower the police to release the identities of online stalkers to protect victims, and a review of the stalking legislation to ensure it is fit for purpose.These measures are important steps in tackling domestic abuse and violence against women and girls across the country, including in Beckenham and Penge.

Communities and Local Government, what steps her Department is taking with (a) local councils and (b) Bromley Council to tackle homelessness.

Homelessness levels are far too high. This can have a devastating impact on those affected.We must address this and deliver long term solutions. The Government is looking at these issues carefully and will develop a new cross government strategy, working with mayors and councils across the country to get us back on track to ending homelessness once and for all.We are already taking the first steps to get back on track to ending homelessness. In December, MHCLG announced that £633.2 million will be provided to councils in England through the Homelessness Prevention Grant 25/26, of which £6,499,229 has been allocated to Bromley. This funding represents an uplift of £1,595,200 for Bromley compared with 24/25 allocations, an increase of 32.5%, and will help to prevent rises in the number of families in temporary accommodation and help to prevent rough sleeping.This brings total spend on homelessness services to nearly £1 billion in 25/26, a record level of funding.More widely, we are taking action to tackle the root causes of homelessness, including: delivering the biggest increase in social and affordable housebuilding in a generation and building 1.5 million new homes over the next parliament; and abolishing Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions, preventing private renters being exploited and discriminated against, and empowering people to challenge unreasonable rent increases.

Communities and Local Government, what steps she has taken with Cabinet colleagues to increase the supply of affordable housing (a) in Beckenham and Penge constituency and (b) generally.

I refer my Hon Friend to my answer to Question UIN 11383 on 31 October 2024.

Communities and Local Government, steps her Department is taking to help improve housing standards in the private rented sector.

The Renters’ Rights Bill includes provisions that will apply a Decent Homes Standard to the private rented sector for the first time and ensure that local councils have proportionate and effective enforcement powers. We are also introducing Awaab’s Law into the private rented sector. We will launch a consultation this year on the content of the Decent Homes Standard for social and privately rented homes.

What steps her Department is taking to help increase access to high street banking services in Beckenham and Penge constituency.

The Government understands the importance of face-to-face banking to communities and high streets in Beckenham and Penge, and across the UK, and is committed to championing sufficient access for all as a priority. This is why the Government is working closely with banks to roll out 350 banking hubs by the end of this Parliament. These will provide individuals and businesses up and down the country with critical cash and banking services. Over 100 banking hubs are already open.

Communities and Local Government, what steps her Department is taking to support community ownership of local assets.

I refer my hon Friend to the answer given to Question UIN 22675 on 17 January 2025.