Every parliamentary written question tabled by Liz Jarvis this session, with the full answer and department. Back to the MP page.
Showing 181–200 of 498 · this parliament
What assessment she has made of the effectiveness in meeting the 8-week processing deadline for applications under the Ukraine Permission Extension Scheme.
UKVI are currently assessing Ukraine Permission Extension Scheme (UPE) visas within the published processing times. Information on visa processing times can be found at Visa processing times: applications inside the UK - GOV.UK
What assessment her Department has made of the effectiveness of measures taken to raise public awareness of changes to the Highway Code made in 2022, and whether increasing understanding of those changes will be reflected in the implementation of the Road Safety Strategy.
Following updates to the Highway Code in 2022, the department ran a THINK! campaign to raise awareness of the changes. This was followed by broader behaviour change campaigns in 2022 and 2023, to help embed the changes and encourage understanding and uptake of the guidance.The percentage of road users reporting to know either a little or a lot about the Highway Code changes increased from 36% in January 2022 to over 50% in August 2022 and 70% in September 2023, with 86% of road users having heard of the changes by that time.The Government's new road safety strategy identifies that more work is needed to continue embedding these changes.The THINK! campaign will continue to run three radio filler adverts encouraging compliance with the guidance to improve safety for those walking, cycling and horse riding. We will also continue to promote the changes via THINK! and Department for Transport social media channels, as well as through partner organisations.The Road Safety Strategy also sets out further actions to enable safer active travel including supporting councils to provide high-quality, easily accessible active travel schemes across England, and the development of its third Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy (CWIS 3).As our road environment and technologies evolve, providing education for all road users throughout their lifetime is vital to improving road safety.To support a Lifelong Learning approach in the UK, the government will publish for the first time national guidance on the development and delivery of road safety education, training and publicity.Alongside this, the government will publish a manual to support the implementation of a Lifelong Learning approach for road safety.
How her Department will monitor and evaluate the effects of the DVSA’s move to individualised booking of driving tests.
Measures were announced on 12 November that will restrict the booking and management of practical car driving tests to learner drivers, and limit test swaps and location changes. This decision follows a call for evidence and a public consultation that many in the driving instructor industry responded to. These measures take into account the views of those who responded to the consultation and are designed to make the test booking process fairer, providing all learners with equal access to the booking system and ensuring that everyone pays the prescribed fee. The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) will continually monitor the effectiveness of these measures.
What assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of Local Housing Allowance for residents in Eastleigh constituency.
Local Housing Allowance (LHA) determines the maximum levels of housing support for households claiming Housing Benefit or the housing element of Universal Credit and who rent in the private rented sector. LHA is not intended to cover all rents in all areas. In April 2024 LHA rates were increased to the 30th percentile of local market rents, (including in the Eastleigh area), costing £1.2bn across Great Britain (GB) in 2024/25 and £7bn over 5 years. LHA rates were reviewed at Autumn Budget and will remain at current levels in 2026/27. A range of factors were considered, such as rental levels across GB, the challenging fiscal context, and the impact of current levels of housing support For those renters who require additional support to meet a shortfall in rent costs, Discretionary Housing Payments are available from local authorities.
What steps he is taking to ensure that the Keep Britain Working Vanguard Taskforce will adequately factor in the challenges of living with fluctuating conditions.
We are bringing together a Vanguard Taskforce to steer the Keep Britain Working Vanguard Phase and are committed to listening to disabled people and those with long-term health conditions, these voices will be reflected in the outputs of the phase. This Taskforce will advise on the development of a Healthy Working Lifecycle Standard over the Vanguard Phase. The Standard will focus developing the best practices and approaches to drive better outcomes for all those managing health conditions or living with impairments, and as such the challenges of living with fluctuating conditions will be a key consideration.
What assessment she has made of the potential impact of proposed changes to Salary Sacrifice Pension arrangements from 2029 on employer National Insurance costs for charities.
A Tax Information and Impact Note (TIIN) was published alongside the introduction of the Bill containing the changes to pensions salary sacrifice. Everyone using salary sacrifice will still benefit from the tax advantages available up to the £2,000 cap, including employers who can make up to £320 employer NICs savings per employee. Most salary sacrifice contributions are well below the £2,000 cap. This applies for all employers, including employers in the charity sector. Employer pension contributions outside of salary sacrifice will continue to be NICs-free. The Government also provides support for charities via our wider tax regime. It is among the most generous anywhere in the world, with tax reliefs for charities and their donors worth just over £6 billion for the tax year to April 2024.
What steps she is taking to support families of disadvantaged pupils with the cost of school trips.
It is for schools to decide whether to offer school trips to their pupils. Schools receive pupil premium funding to improve educational outcomes for disadvantaged pupils, which may be used to support extracurricular activities, including school trips.Schools must comply with the law on charging for school activities, which prohibits charging for education provided during school hours. This means they may not make compulsory charges for a trip which takes place during school hours but they may ask parents for voluntary contributions towards the cost of the trip.
What steps he is taking to help improve the recruitment and retention of staff in women’s health services in Hampshire.
Decisions about recruitment are a matter for individual National Health Service employers, who manage this at a local level to ensure they have the staff they need to deliver safe and effective care.The 10 Year Workforce Plan will ensure the NHS has the right people in the right places, with the right skills to care for patients, when they need it.As set out in the 10-Year Health Plan, the Government is committed to making the NHS the best place to work, by supporting and retaining our hardworking and dedicated healthcare professionals.To support this ambition, the Government plans to introduce a new set of standards for modern employment in April 2026. The new standards will reaffirm our commitment to improving retention by tackling the issues that matter to staff including promoting flexible working, improving staff health and wellbeing, and dealing with violence, racism, and sexual harassment in the NHS workplace. They will provide a framework for leaders across the NHS to build a supportive culture that embeds retention.
If he will make an assessment of potential merits of establishing a single National Dementia Care Pathway supported by minimum service standards in the forthcoming Dementia and Frailty Modern Service Framework.
To develop the content for the modern service framework for dementia and frailty, we intend to engage with a range of partners over the coming months to enable us to build a framework which is both ambitious and practical, to ensure we can improve system performance for people with dementia both now and in the future.We have already published the D100: Assessment Tool Pathway programme, which brings together multiple resources into a single, consolidated tool to help simplify best practice for system leaders and help create communities and services where the best possible care and support is available to those with dementia. The D100: Pathway Assessment Tool is available at the following link:https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/improving-care/nccmh/service-design-and-development/dementia-100-pathway-assessment-toolBy helping places and systems identify where improvement needs to be targeted, the tool continues the work of the Dementia Care Pathway, covering all elements of the Well Pathway from Prevention through to Dying Well. Further information is available at the following link:https://www.england.nhs.uk/mentalhealth/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/2016/03/dementia-well-pathway.pdf
What discussions she has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the potential merits of increasing the 3- and 4-year-old childcare funded hours rate.
The department will provide over £9.5 billion for the early years entitlements in 2026/27. This will fund a full year of the expanded entitlements and an above inflation increase to funding rates. This increase ensures funding for the entitlements reflects forecasts of average earnings and inflation next year, and the national living wage announced at the Autumn Budget. On average, nationally, we are increasing the 3- and 4-year-old hourly funding rate by 4.95%. Since the introduction of the Early Years National Funding Formula in 2017, the national average funding rate to local authorities for 2-year-olds has been higher than that for 3-4-year-olds. We know, from listening to the sector and from our own regular research, that the cost of delivery is highest for younger children due to tighter staffing ratios and, consequently, higher staff costs, as staffing makes up the most significant proportion of provider costs. Our funding rates are set to reflect this.
Whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of publishing national dementia outcomes for neighbourhood health services and requiring integrated care boards to demonstrate timely access to specialist, community-based dementia support.
NHS England already collect and publish data about people with dementia at each general practice in England, to enable National Health Service general practitioners (GPs) and commissioners to make informed choices about how to plan their dementia services around patients’ needs.The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities Dementia Intelligence Network has also developed a tool for local systems, which includes an assessment of population characteristics such as rurality and socio-economic deprivation. This enables systems to investigate local variation in diagnosis and take informed action to enhance their diagnosis rates. The tool is available via the NHS Futures Collaboration platform.This Government is empowering local leaders with the autonomy they need to provide the best services to their local community, including those with dementia. That is why we have published the D100: Assessment Tool Pathway programme, which brings together multiple resources into a single, consolidated tool. This will help simplify best practice for system leaders and help create communities and services where the best possible care and support is available to those with dementia. The D100: Pathway Assessment Tool is available at the following link:https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/improving-care/nccmh/service-design-and-development/dementia-100-pathway-assessment-toolWe are making progress on building a National Care Service based on higher quality of care, greater choice and control, and joined-up neighbourhood services, with around £4.6 billion of additional funding available for adult social care by 2028/29 compared to 2025/26.We are strengthening join-up between health and social care services, so that people experience more integrated and person-centred care, by developing neighbourhood health services and reforming the Better Care Fund. This will be fortified by improved national data and digital infrastructure to ensure health and care staff can access real-time information to improve the safety and quality of care.
If he will take steps to reduce delays in cancer diagnosis, specifically for blood cancers such as leukaemia.
It is a priority for the Government to support the National Health Service to diagnose cancer, including blood cancers, as early and quickly as possible, and to treat it faster, to improve outcomes.To tackle the late diagnoses of blood cancers, the NHS is implementing non-specific symptom pathways for patients who present with symptoms such as weight loss and fatigue, which do not clearly align to a tumour type. We will get the NHS diagnosing blood cancers earlier and treating them faster, and we will support the NHS to increase capacity to meet the demand for diagnostic services through investment, including for magnetic resonance imaging and computed tomography scanners.The National Cancer Plan will have patients at its heart and will cover the entirety of the cancer pathway, from referral and diagnosis to treatment and ongoing care, as well as prevention, and research and innovation. It will seek to improve every aspect of cancer care to better the experience and outcomes for people with cancer. Our goal is to reduce the number of lives lost to cancer over the next 10 years. This will benefit all cancer patients, including leukaemia and myeloma patients.
Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment has her department made of exisiting legislation to restrict illegal trade of birds of prey.
All wild birds of prey and their eggs are protected under UK legislation, including the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. Offences can result in up to a six-month custodial sentence and/or an unlimited fine. Restrictions on the commercial use or trade of birds of prey are also in place under the UK Wildlife Trade Regulations (UK WTRs). Options for improving protections for birds of prey under the UK WTRs are being considered following a recent government consultation. Crimes involving birds of prey are a national wildlife crime priority. To support enforcement of legislation and help prevent and detect wildlife crime more broadly, Defra provided £494,000 to the National Wildlife Crime Unit in 2025/26.
Food and Rural Affairs, what progress her Department has made on introducing measures to end the use of peat in horticulture.
The Government plans to legislate for a ban on the sale of peat and peat containing products when parliamentary time allows. This commitment is embedded within our Carbon Budget planning and, most recently, reflected in the latest iteration of the Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP).
What assessment his Department has made of the availability and quality of data held by Integrated Care Boards on the prevalence of clinically diagnosed allergic conditions and the specialist allergy workforce in their local areas; and what consideration has he given to the potential merits of establishing a National Allergy Register, embedded within the planned Single Patient Record in improving patient safety and reducing regional inequalities in allergy care.
In conducting health needs assessments to inform their commissioning decisions, integrated care boards (ICBs) will have access to a wide range of data sources, including public health data, hospital statistics, primary care data, and social care metrics.NHS England is working with the UK Fatal Anaphylaxis Register (UKFAR) to develop a mechanism for sharing relevant patient safety anaphylaxis incidents, including the reporting of anaphylaxis in hospitals. The aim will be for the UKFAR to extract and share patient safety incidents reported to the national databases, the National Reporting and Learning System and Learn from Patient Safety Events, relating to severe allergic reactions. Work has been progressing on this.The National Allergy Strategy Group, an external group of stakeholders, is developing a UK National Allergy Strategy 2025-2035. The Department will carefully consider and respond to it when we receive it next year.
Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the regulatory and charitable framework governing housing associations that operate shared ownership schemes.
The majority of Shared Ownership providers are registered with the Regulator of Social Housing. This means that they are required to meet the applicable regulatory standards. These include standards relating to governance and financial viability, alongside relevant consumer standards, including those relating to transparency, influence, and accountability. Where they are registered charities, not for profit registered providers are also required to adhere to charity law principles, to ensure that their purpose serves the public interest. As part of the new Social and Affordable Homes Programme, we are placing new expectations on providers to improve the experience of shared owners. These include giving greater consideration to long-term customer affordability, increasing transparency and fairness on costs, and giving customers the ability to opt out of fees for services that are optional.
When she will confirm funding for perpetrator intervention services for the next financial year.
The scale of violence against women and girls in our country is intolerable and this Government is treating it as the national emergency that it is. We have committed to several measures in the recently published Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy that aim to disrupt perpetrators in the community and reduce revictimisation. We will:Significantly expand access to tailored interventions for domestic abuse and stalking perpetrators, for first-time offenders to higher-risk perpetrators.Prioritise rapid expansion of the Drive Project, investing £53 million over four years, ensuring that there is access to a proven response for the most dangerous domestic abuse perpetrators across England and Wales within three years. This landmark investment into disrupting the behaviour of perpetrators is about shifting the way we combat domestic abuse, putting the responsibility for ending abuse on those who cause it. We have confirmed continuation of funding of the current Domestic Abuse and Stalking Perpetrator Intervention Fund for a period of six months from April 2026 to provide continuity ahead of anticipated competitions.
Whether the proposed Modern Service Frameworks for palliative and end of life care will mandate Integrated Care Boards to commission hospice services in an equitable way.
The Government is developing a Palliative Care and End of Life Care Modern Service Framework (MSF) for England. The MSF will drive improvements in the services that patients and their families receive at the end of life and enable integrated care boards (ICBs) to address challenges in access, quality and sustainability through the delivery of high-quality, personalised care. This will be aligned with the ambitions set out in the recently published 10-Year Health Plan.We will consider contracting and commissioning arrangements as part of our MSF. We recognise that there is currently a mix of contracting models in the hospice sector. Equity is at the heart of this government’s approach to strategic commissioning and, by supporting ICBs to commission more strategically, we can move away from grant and block contract models. In the long term, this will aid sustainability and help hospices’ ability to plan ahead.It would not be right to pre-empt exactly what will be in the final MSF at this time, as we develop it with our palliative care and end of life stakeholders.I refer the Hon. Member to the Written Ministerial Statement HCWS1087 I gave to the House on 24 November 2025.
What steps he is taking to ascertain the position of Chartered Institute of Legal Executives practitioners who qualified through work-based routes, following the judgement in Mazur v Charles Russell Speechlys [2025] EWHC 2341.
The Ministry of Justice recognises that the Mazur v Charles Russell Speechlys [2025] EWHC 2341 judgement and its potential implications have created concern and uncertainty within parts of the legal profession, particularly among Chartered Institute of Legal Executive (CILEX) professionals.Whilst the legal profession and its regulators operate independently of government, I have been proactively engaging with frontline regulators and representative bodies on the judgement’s implications and the action being taken in response. I convened a meeting with the Legal Services Board (LSB) and relevant frontline regulators to discuss the judgement, its implications, and the steps taken and underway. I have also met members of CILEX’s senior leadership team to discuss the judgement and attended the recent CILEX conference.CILEx Regulation (CRL) has issued updated guidance, arranged webinars for practitioners, and secured approval from the LSB to allow standalone litigation practice rights. It has also been ensuring readiness for practice rights applications and working with partners to support practitioners. CILEX has been providing regular updates to its members on these actions, and the Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Law Society have also published guidance to support professionals. The LSB is also reviewing how regulators ensured information and guidance provided to the profession on conducting litigation was accurate and reliable. It has published the scope and timings for this review on its website. Separately from these steps, CILEX has also been granted permission to appeal the judgment to the Court of Appeal.While I am satisfied that appropriate practical steps are being taken to address the issues raised by the judgement and provide clarity and support for affected CILEX professionals, we will continue to work closely with the LSB, frontline regulators, and representative bodies to monitor whether further action is required.
Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment her Department has made of trends in the level of dog attacks on postal workers.
Defra does not hold data on the number of dog attacks on postal workers. This information may be collected by the NHS, individual police forces and local authorities.