Written questions by Foord.

Innovation and Technology, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of rural broadband coverage.

Rural broadband coverage is not good enough. We are delivering nationwide gigabit broadband, through Project Gigabit.Between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025, 89% of premises benefitting from government broadband schemes were in rural areas.

Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what assessment he has made of the potential implications for his policies of recent reports of the shelling of civilian infrastructure in Thailand by Cambodian forces; and if he will support a UN investigation into potential breaches of international humanitarian law.

The Government continues to monitor the Cambodia-Thailand border dispute closely with officials from our Embassies in Bangkok and Phnom Penh conducting site visits to affected areas to better understand the impact on local populations. We urge all parties to uphold international humanitarian law and take all necessary steps to protect civilians.As set out in our public statements of 28 July and 7 August, the agreement of a framework for a full ceasefire between Cambodia and Thailand is a welcome development. It is essential that both sides now work together to implement and maintain this agreement. This message has been conveyed directly to both governments.We support the Association of South East Asian Nations' leadership in working with Cambodia and Thailand to resolve the border conflict, including its efforts to deploy an Observer Mission. We believe this can play an important role in providing an independent assessment of the situation and in de-escalating tensions on the border.

What assessment she has made of the potential implications for her policies of the difference in per capita bus funding between rural and urban areas.

The Government recognises that different areas have different characteristics and needs for their local bus network. The Government has committed to reforming bus funding to create a fairer and simpler system for bus funding that takes into account local needs. The Government took the first step towards a fairer allocation system by using a formula to determine Local Authority Bus Grant allocations for 25/26 based on need, including population, the distance that buses travel, and the levels of deprivation. Under this formula, Devon County Council was allocated £11.6 million. This is an increase in funding compared to the £8.7 million allocated to the Council in equivalent funding under the previous Government in 24/25. The formula used in 25/26 is an interim formula. We are currently reviewing this formula to ensure funding is allocated as fairly as possible, including engaging with stakeholders on any revisions.

Whether she plans to sign the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance; and for what reason the UK has not yet signed that Convention.

The Government considers that the current domestic framework and legislation already prevent arbitrary arrests, prohibits torture and degrading treatment, and holds the Security and Intelligence Agencies to account.We therefore currently have no plans to sign or ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances.We strongly condemn any instances of enforced disappearance internationally. We urge states to fully investigate any allegations, prosecute those responsible and provide justice to victims.

Innovation and Technology, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that internet-connected smart TVs do not monitor users’ activity without prior, informed consent; and if she will consider requiring such devices to use an opt-in system for data collection.

All organisations in the UK that process personal data must comply with the requirements of the UK GDPR, including ensuring any processing is lawful, fair and transparent. Providers of smart devices must consider how their products implement these principles effectively and include appropriate safeguards to protect people's rights.In addition, the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 include more specific rules on the use of technologies such as cookies on people’s smart devices. This is prevented unless an exception applies, for example, where the user has given their consent.The Information Commissioner is currently consulting on a revised version of guidance on the use of storage and access technologies.

What estimate she has made of the cost to the public purse of providing protection and support during Donald Trump's visit to Scotland.

We were delighted to welcome the President to the UK earlier this year. The visit supported our deep and enduring alliance with the United States, which is vital for both our economic and security interests.As is the case for many visits from high profile individuals, the President’s visit was in part funded by the taxpayer.It is right that the Government and policing partners take appropriate steps to ensure the safety of foreign dignitaries when on UK soil.

Food and Rural Affairs, if his Department will consider introducing a national scheme offering small grants to private individuals for the creation of climate-resilient, wildlife-friendly gardens.

We recognise the importance of individual action and the contribution that wildlife-friendly gardens can make to nature recovery and climate resilience. Our Land Use Consultation this year asked about approaches to support such outcomes in urban areas. We are considering the responses we received, which will inform the upcoming Land Use Framework. We also coordinate and work with a range of partners to promote guidance and support for individuals. For example, the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew’s Grow Wild programme inspires and supports individual and community gardening, and Defra’s annual Bees’ Needs Week and Bees’ Needs Champions Awards celebrate action and promote simple actions everyone can take to benefit pollinators. We encourage individuals to participate in and contribute to the preparation of Local Nature Recovery Strategies to help shape nature recovery in their area.

What assessment she has made of the potential impact of Making Tax Digital for Income Tax Self-Assessment on (a) small business owners and (b) unrepresented taxpayers; and if she will consider delaying implementation until issues associated with the (i) cost, (ii) software availability, (iii) administrative burden and (iv) digital exclusion have been addressed.

HMRC are on track to implement Making Tax Digital (MTD) for Income Tax for those with income over £50,000 from April 2026, with a wide range of customers already testing the service in live running. MTD modernises the tax system and will help self-employed individuals and landlords keep on top of their tax affairs, making their annual tax returns easier. While many users will incur some cost in moving to MTD for Income Tax, many will also experience wider productivity gains through time savings and greater accuracy. We continually monitor the impacts of MTD and the latest published assessment is available at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/extension-of-making-tax-digital-for-income-tax-self-assessment-to-sole-traders-and-landlords The government has worked with the software industry to ensure there are free and low-cost software options available to support taxpayers, both represented and unrepresented, alongside a wider range of software choices to suit varying needs and budgets. HMRC's software choices page can be found here: www.gov.uk/guidance/find-software-thats-compatible-with-making-tax-digital-for-income-tax#software-available-now The government recognises that not everyone is able to interact with HMRC digitally. Taxpayers who are digitally excluded will be able to apply for an exemption from MTD. HMRC will provide further information about the exemption process in due course.

What estimate her Department has made of the potential savings to the public purse of issuing the Winter Fuel Payment on a per-household basis.

No such estimate has been made. The Winter Fuel Payment is already a household payment paid on an individual basis. Winter Fuel Payments are typically £200 for a household with someone of State Pension age and £300 for a household with someone aged 80 or over.Winter Fuel Payments are paid automatically, without the need to claim, based on information held by DWP. Where a pensioner is receiving a relevant income-related benefit such as Pension Credit, whether as a single person or as part of a couple, one payment of £200 or £300 (depending on age) is made to that household. This is because Pension Credit is assessed and paid on a household basis. State Pension is not assessed or paid on a household basis, so shared payments are made to individuals to reflect the household effect. For example, a couple, each under 80 and not on Pension Credit will receive a shared payment amount of £100 each.

Whether his Department has made an assessment of the reasons for the price differential between (a) ciclosporin and (b) other generic immunosuppressant drugs sold in UK pharmacies compared to the same drugs available overseas; and if he will take steps to review (i) NHS procurement and (ii) pricing arrangements to ensure better value for money.

The Department has made no assessment of the reasons for the price difference between ciclosporin and other generic immunosuppressant drugs sold in United Kingdom pharmacies compared to other countries.The UK has well established mechanisms to control the level of spend on branded medicines. The voluntary scheme for branded medicines pricing, access, and growth and the statutory scheme for branded medicines, control the growth in sales of branded medicines, and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s evaluations ensure that spend on new medicines represents a clinically and cost-effective use of National Health Service resources.For generic medicines, the Government’s policy is freedom of pricing. Community pharmacies buy the drugs they need to dispense against NHS prescriptions and are reimbursed for these according to the prices and ‘rules’ as set out in the Drug Tariff. The reimbursement arrangements include an amount of medicines margin in 2025/26, as allowed for as part of Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework funding. The system incentivises pharmacy contractors to source items as cheaply as possible, so they individually get to keep more medicine margin. This leads to competition and downward pressure on selling prices, which in turn leads to lower reimbursement prices and lower costs to the NHS.

If she will set out what (a) support and (b) safeguards are in place to assist adults with intellectual disabilities in completing benefit application forms; and whether information provided when applying for a welfare benefit can be (a) transferred and (b) reused in subsequent applications.

The Department is committed to pursuing a just, equal and inclusive society, ensuring independence and control for all customers, including all disabled people and those with complex needs. This means we need to ensure that our customers have access to reasonable adjustments or additional support, to enable them to access benefits and our services. We aim to support customers to access services independently but recognise some customers need the support of an appointee. The Department has a robust end-to-end process to fully assess both the customer and the proposed appointee to ensure suitability and prevent financial abuse. For customers without an appointee, and unable to complete forms through other channels, the DWP Visiting service can conduct home visits to provide support. Support is also offered within our Job centres. The national DWP Visiting Service provides additional support across all service lines to customers who cannot access DWP services in any other way. A visit can be arranged for a customer if they need extra help to claim benefits, for example because they have complex needs, are disabled, are a vulnerable young person making a claim for the first time, have nobody else to support them or cannot claim benefits in any other way. Support visits if you need help to claim benefits - GOV.UK. Where further specialist help is required, DWP has a national network of 37 Advanced Customer Support Senior Leaders who can provide additional advice and support through the local networks they have built with external partners and organisations. In some benefits there is an opportunity to share information. For example, Case Managers will occasionally cross reference information held on previous Employment Support Allowance (ESA) claims to build a more complete picture, where it is felt there are gaps or inconsistencies in evidence provided. However, specific information is required to support a Personal Independence Payment (PIP) claim to assess functionality across a range of activities. In this scenario, information provided for the purposes of other benefit claims would not be sufficient for this purpose. A further example of where information is shared across benefits would relate to an SR1 claim - special rules for end of life. The Department continues to review the experience of users of its services and seeks to balance application simplicity with obtaining the information needed for an accurate award. A key objective of the DWPs Service Modernisation Programme is assessing how people locate, access, and navigate support, including making new applications and ensuring that services are designed around the needs of DWP customers and joined up wherever it is possible to do so.

When the Minister of State for Care plans to respond to the letter from the hon. Member for Honiton and Sidmouth dated 18 March 2025 on NHS dentistry in the South West.

I replied to the hon. Member on 25 June 2025.

If she will extend the deadline for the national Childminder Start-Up Grant scheme.

Childminders are a key part of the early years workforce. They offer high quality and flexible early education and care that can be tailored to the needs of parents and children. Attracting childminders to join the workforce and retaining them is of vital importance.The Childminder Start-up Grant scheme provides eligible new childminders, registered on or after 15 March 2023, with payments of up to £1,200 to help with the costs of setting up their business. The scheme was announced at the Spring Budget 2023 and was planned to run for two years.To qualify for a grant, new childminders had to have completed their childminder registration with either Ofsted or a childminder agency by 31 March 2025, and they must apply to the grant scheme within two months of confirmation of their childminder registration.Childminders provide more than 158,000 registered early years childcare places and the department is working with the sector to expand the number of childminders, and to make it easier for them to operate, including through increased funding rates. From 1 November 2024, there have also been new flexibilities for childminders to work with more people and spend more time working from non-domestic premises if they want to.

What steps her Department is taking to increase the availability of practical driving tests in rural Devon.

The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency’s (DVSA) main priority is upholding road safety standards while it works hard to reduce car practical driving test waiting times. In recent months, DVSA has recruited new driving examiners into driving test centres that serve customers in Devon. On the 23 April, the Secretary of State for Transport appeared before the Transport Select Committee and announced that DVSA will take further actions to reduce waiting times for all customers across the country. Further information on these actions and progress on the DVSA’s 7-point plan, which was set out last year, can be found on GOV.UK.

Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of classifying water companies as public authorities for the purposes of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Defra has not made an assessment.

Whether she is taking steps to extend (a) bursaries and (b) other forms of financial support to trainee primary school teachers.

The bursaries the department offers are designed to incentivise more applications to initial teacher training (ITT) courses. We review bursaries each year before deciding the offer for trainees starting ITT the following academic year. In doing this, we take account of several factors including historic recruitment, forecast economic conditions, and teacher supply need in each subject.Although recruitment of primary trainee teachers has been slightly below the postgraduate ITT target in recent years, there has been a consistent trend of higher ITT recruitment against target in primary compared to secondary over the last ten years. This is why bursaries are currently focussed on secondary subjects where teacher recruitment is more challenging and the need for new teachers is greater.Primary trainee teachers on tuition fee-funded ITT routes can apply for a tuition fee loan and maintenance loan to support their living costs. Additional student finance is also available depending on individual circumstances, such as the Childcare Grant. Alternatively, prospective primary teachers can apply for salaried ITT routes, such as the postgraduate teaching apprenticeship.

What recent discussions he has had with the Scottish Government on support for the farming industry.

We have been working hard to positively reset relations. Earlier this month, I joined the Scottish Government’s Employment and Investment Minister, at the opening of a dairy innovation centre. This was the first project to be delivered through the joint Borderlands Growth Deal, providing new collaboration opportunities to progress the dairy sector towards a more sustainable and profitable future. The Secretary of State meets with the Deputy First Minister on a regular basis, and the Inter-Ministerial Group on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs convenes regularly to discuss important issues, including agriculture. I look forward to meeting with Scottish farming stakeholders alongside Scottish Government and Defra Ministers at the Scotland Office’s upcoming Food and Farming roundtable.

Whether she has considered changes to the benefits system to reflect increases in costs for (a) building and contents insurance, (b) home maintenance, (c) boiler servicing and (d) other homeowner-related costs, in the context of those costs not usually applying to renters.

The Department has not recently considered changes to the benefit system to reflect increases in costs for (a) building and contents insurance, (b) home maintenance, (c) boiler servicing and (d) other homeowner-related costs.

Food and Rural Affairs, how much funding South West Water was required to contribute to infrastructure to meet (a) environmental and (b) water quality standards between 2013 and 2025.

Since 2015 Ofwat has set total expenditure allowances which allow for companies to meet their obligations under the environment and water quality programmes. Based on data provided by Ofwat, the figures for South West Water are set out below. South West Water expenditure on the environment and water quality programmes since 20152023-24 prices:2015-202020-24Environment programme£75.0 million£174.2 millionWater quality£45.8 million£107.4 millionTotal£402.4 million Between 2015 and 2024 the environment programme allowance for South West Water was £249.2 million and the water quality allowance was £153.2 million. Due to figures being unable to be split between two price control periods, figures for 2013-15 cannot be provided.

What steps his Department taking to ensure that maternity hospitals are adequately staffed to ensure high quality care for pregnant women in Devon.

The Government is committed to tackling the retention and recruitment challenges that face the National Health Service. Bringing in the staff we need will take time, but this is an absolute priority for the Government.NHS England is leading a range of initiatives to boost retention of existing staff and ensure that the NHS remains an attractive career choice for new recruits. This includes building a compassionate and inclusive culture, supporting staff wellbeing, and promoting flexible working opportunities.Targeted retention work for midwives is being undertaken by NHS England, led by the Chief Nursing Officer. This work contains a range of measures, including creation of a midwifery and nursing retention self-assessment tool, mentoring schemes, strengthened advice and support on pensions, and embedding flexible retirement options. NHS England has also invested in unit-based retention leads which, alongside investment in workforce capacity, has seen a reduction in vacancy, leaver, and turnover rates.Decisions around local recruitment remain the responsibility of individual NHS trusts, who are responsible for ensuring they have the right number of staff in place, with the right skill mix, to deliver safe and effective care.