Written questions by Slade.

Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the amendments made in Schedule 6, Part 2, Clause 41 of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill relating to the Protection of Badgers Act 1992 on (a) the potential number of badgers killed and (b) local wildlife populations.

These amendments standardise licences for development purposes under the Protection of Badgers Act 1992 with those for other species under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations, 2017. This is intended to facilitate strategic-level Environmental Delivery Plans. We are legislating that all badger licences will be subject to strict tests required by the Bern Convention, which set a high bar. For licences under the Nature Restoration Fund, an overall improvement in the conservation status of badgers will be required. The impact of these provisions will depend on practical application by Natural England through EDPs or individual licences.

Innovation and Technology, what steps he is taking to help support small landowners in accessing (a) legal and (b) technical advice when negotiating agreements under the Electronic Communications Code.

The Government is keen that negotiations for Electronic Communications Code agreements are developed as collaboratively as possible. We recognise the benefits of all parties having access to sufficient information and advice to support this.We endorse the work of the National Connectivity Alliance, an alliance of telecommunications providers, infrastructure providers, landowners and their professional advisers who are brought together to collaborate on areas of mutual interest. Their activity includes a working group specifically aimed at developing guidance notes to provide education around issues in telecoms leases, with a view to assisting in the timely conclusion of wayleaves and code agreements for mobile sites.

Communities and Local Government, what assessment she has made of the funding available to (a) housing associations, (b) property owners and (c) local authorities for the provision of infrastructure for the secure storage of (i) mobility scooters, (ii) e-bikes and (iii) e-scooters, in the context of the (A) potential fire risk posed by lithium ion batteries and (B) needs of people who use mobility scooters who do not live on the ground floor.

No such specific assessment has been made.

Innovation and Technology, what steps his Department is taking to ensure the effective roll out of broadband infrastructure in rural areas.

Project Gigabit is designed to deliver gigabit-capable broadband to premises that will not be built to by the market without subsidy. The significant majority of these premises will be in rural areas.More than £2.3 billion of Project Gigabit contracts have already been signed to connect over 1 million more premises with gigabit-capable broadband. This includes two contracts being delivered by Wessex Internet benefiting the Mid Dorset and North Poole constituency.

What steps her Department is taking to review the system for bereavement damages.

The Government is working to deliver a major series of reforms to the civil justice system and while the issue of bereavement damages is being kept under review, there are no immediate plans to undertake a formal review of this issue.

What steps her Department is taking to ensure that it conducts a full review of the requester's (a) case and (b) complaint when Access to Work reconsideration requests are made.

The Access to Work process for reviewing reconsideration requests, as well as complaints, includes a full review of the original case, including all relevant documentation and communications relating to the original decision. To help ensure impartiality, these reviews are conducted by staff there were not involved in the original decision.

Communities and Local Government, what steps she is taking to help local authorities with the costs for the provision of temporary accommodation.

The Government has invested £1 billion in homelessness and rough sleeping services in 2025/26, a £233 million increase on the previous year. The 2025 Spending Review has protected this record level of investment. Where families do end up in temporary accommodation, it should be high quality and affordable for local authorities. The Government is providing £950 million of investment for the fourth round of the Local Authority Housing Fund – the largest investment in the fund to date - to support local authorities to increase the supply of good quality temporary accommodation and drive down the use of inappropriate and costly bed and breakfasts and hotels.

What assessment she has made of the potential impact of the housing benefit taper rate on young people in supported housing who increase working hours.

The income taper in Housing Benefit ensures people in work are better off than someone wholly reliant on benefits. In addition to any financial advantage, there are important non-financial benefits of working. These include learning new skills, improved confidence and independence as well as a positive effect on an individual's mental and physical health. Notwithstanding these positive outcomes from work, the Department acknowledges there is a challenge presented by the interaction between Universal Credit and Housing Benefit for those residing in Supported Housing and Temporary Accommodation and receiving their housing support through Housing Benefit. The department is considering the issue carefully in partnership with stakeholders.

Communities and Local Government, whether she plans to include youth homelessness in the cross-government homelessness strategy.

I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to Question 52307 on 14 May 2025.

What discussions the Office for National Statistics has had with local government stakeholders on the 2031 census.

The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority. A response to the Hon Lady’s Parliamentary Question of 17th June is attached.

Communities and Local Government, what steps she is taking to support local authorities in receipt of exceptional financial support to resolve funding issues in the long term.

The Government recognises the significant pressures that councils are facing. The Spending Review provides over £5 billion of new grant funding over the next three years for local services that communities rely on. The £3.4 billion, when taken together with a 3% core council tax referendum principle and a 2% adult social care precept, results in an average overall real terms increase in local authority core spending power of 2.6% per year over the next multi-year settlement (2026-27 to 2028-29).The government is committed to fixing the foundations of local government through ambitious reform. The Fair Funding Review 2.0 is open from 20 June to 15 August and seeks views on the approach to local authority funding reform through the Local Government Finance Settlement from 2026-27.In line with our commitment to support councils’ receiving Exceptional Financial Support to improve, as a condition of the support agreed councils will be subject to additional external assurance to give them independent and expert help to drive local improvement and manage their financial position.Finally, we also followed through on our commitment to not make borrowing more expensive for those councils in the most financial difficulty, by removing the condition requiring a 1% premium on borrowing from the Public Works Loan Board (PWLB).

Innovation and Technology, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of duplicate fibre broadband cabling on the (a) distribution of fibre coverage nationally, (b) environment and (c) infrastructure for residents on roads with duplicate cabling.

Competition in the broadband market leads to positive outcomes for consumers, including widespread coverage and competitive pricing. We do not intervene in commercial deployment decisions.We are aware that having multiple operators can mean deployment of overlapping networks. The sharing of ducts and poles between operators can minimise the disruption this can cause. To support, this Ofcom has put regulations in place to require Openreach to give access to its physical infrastructure to other networks. The Access to Infrastructure (ATI) Regulations 2016 also gives operators the right to request access to another operator’s physical infrastructure to facilitate sharing across utility, transport and communications sectors.

If his Department will take steps with the Food Standards Agency to (a) review the standards for baby food products and (b) ensure that those standards are updated to include (i) new baby foods made available in the last 20 years, (ii) a limit on the total sugar content of baby foods and (iii) standards for health claims made by manufacturers on baby food packaging.

Children’s early years provide an important foundation for their future health and strongly influences many aspects of wellbeing in later life.It is vital that we maintain the highest standards for foods consumed by babies and infants, which is why we have regulations in place that set nutritional, compositional, and labelling standards for commercial baby food. These ensure that the ingredients used in commercial baby food are suitable for the nutritional needs of infants and require businesses to ensure that labelling in clear and not misleading. The regulations also set labelling standards to ensure consumers have clear and accurate information about the products they buy. We continue to keep these regulations under review to ensure they reflect the latest scientific and dietary guidelines.

With reference to the Driving and Vehicle Standards Agency's consultation entitled Improving car driving test booking rules, published on 28 May 2025, what her Department's planned timeline is for making changes to car driving test booking rules.

As part of the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency’s (DVSA) plan to reduce driving test waiting times, announced in December 2024, the agency launched a call for evidence seeking views and experiences of booking and managing practical car driving tests, which received almost 27,000 responses. The DVSA analysed the evidence from this and developed proposals on improving processes. On the 23 April, the Secretary of State for Transport appeared before the Transport Select Committee and announced the consultation, following on from the call for evidence, had been fast-tracked. As acknowledged in the announcement regarding these measures, DVSA understands the potential impact on learner drivers, including younger drivers, and the importance of helping learners pass quickly. The consultation launched on 28 May. Views are being sought from the driver training industry, learner drivers and other interested parties. The consultation will close at 11:59pm on 23 July 2025. The consultation has already seen a large number of responses. Once closed, and all responses analysed, DVSA will announce next steps as soon as possible.

What assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of the process for booking a driving test through the DVLA test booking system on the mental health of young people.

As part of the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency’s (DVSA) plan to reduce driving test waiting times, announced in December 2024, the agency launched a call for evidence seeking views and experiences of booking and managing practical car driving tests, which received almost 27,000 responses. The DVSA analysed the evidence from this and developed proposals on improving processes. On the 23 April, the Secretary of State for Transport appeared before the Transport Select Committee and announced the consultation, following on from the call for evidence, had been fast-tracked. As acknowledged in the announcement regarding these measures, DVSA understands the potential impact on learner drivers, including younger drivers, and the importance of helping learners pass quickly. The consultation launched on 28 May. Views are being sought from the driver training industry, learner drivers and other interested parties. The consultation will close at 11:59pm on 23 July 2025. The consultation has already seen a large number of responses. Once closed, and all responses analysed, DVSA will announce next steps as soon as possible.

Communities and Local Government, with reference to the Spending Review 2025, published on 11 June 2025, which local authorities will be allocated additional funding for the Affordable Homes Programme; and how much each of those local authorities will receive.

As under the existing Affordable Homes Programme, registered providers will need to bid for the grant funding announced at the Spending Review. The government will confirm further details, including the timing and process for bids to the new fund, in due course.

Media and Sport, whether her Department plans to require (a) tree houses, (b) shepherds huts, (c) farm buildings and (d) other properties not suitable for (i) long-term and (ii) residential letting to be added to the national mandatory register for short-term lets.

Decisions on the specific scope of accommodation types covered by the registration scheme are still being finalised. Now that the second phase of development is underway, the Government is collaborating with industry leaders, including platforms, local authorities, and trade bodies, to create a robust scheme. Secondary legislation will be required to enact the scheme, and we aim to roll this out as efficiently as possible. Further details on which accommodation types will be included will be confirmed when an Impact Assessment has been completed.

What assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of dispensing GPs matching the terms of the drug reimbursement agreement in place for pharmacies.

Dispensing doctors are reimbursed in line with the Statement of Financial Entitlement Directions, which sets out the reimbursements general practices (GPs), including dispensing GPs, are entitled to.Dispensing practices receive a dispensing fee, approximately £2.00 to £2.30 per item, which is intended to cover dispensing costs. This fee is calculated based on forecasted volumes of prescriptions to be dispensed and the size of the funding envelope, according to a methodology agreed by the Department, the GP committee of the British Medical Association (BMA), NHS Employers, and the Welsh administration. An updated methodology was agreed between the BMA and NHS England to address the issue of continuing fluctuation between over and underspend year on year, the alternating pattern of over and under spends, and was implemented in October 2023.

What assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of providing funding for dispensing GPs to offer electronic prescribing.

Following its launch in 2005, the Electronic Prescribing Service (EPS) is now used in more than 96% of general practices (GPs). While GP IT services and funding do not cover dispensing services provided by dispensing doctors, EPS is used in prescribing and dispensing, so currently a dispensing doctor practice will receive funding for the prescribing element of its EPS systems but not the dispensing element.Dispensing practices receive a dispensing fee, approximately £2.00 to £2.30 per item, which is intended to cover dispensing costs. This fee is calculated based on the forecasted volumes of prescriptions to be dispensed and the size of the funding envelope, according to a methodology agreed by the Department, the General Practitioners Committee of the British Medical Association, NHS Employers, and the Welsh administration.

Communities and Local Government, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the planned transition period for moving from the fire door safety testing standard BS 476-22 to standard EN 1634-1 on timber fire door manufacturers.

The government recognised the potential economic impact that could result from the withdrawal of testing standard BS 476-22 and the transition to the European Standard (BS EN 13501), including on timber fire door manufacturers, through the consultation response impact analysis. In response, an extended five-year transition period was introduced for fire resistance classifications, running from 2 September 2024 to 2 September 2029. This extended period was developed in consultation with industry to allow sufficient time for retesting and certification under the new standard. While concerns have been raised about the timing of the transition, we remain committed to the planned timeline. The Building Safety Regulator (BSR) will continue to monitor the impact of the change and support industry through the transition. BSR will keep these standards under review as part of their continuous review of Approved Document B, in line with their duty under the Building Safety Act to keep the safety and standard of building under review in England.