Adam Dance

The government has not made an assessment of the merits of bringing social media companies into the scope of UK publishing law. Instead, the Online Safety Act 2023 imposes a range of duties on social media providers, requiring them to proactively mitigate risk of use for illegal activity and must address illegal content when it appears. Providers must also prevent children from encountering the most harmful content and must implement age-appropriate measures to protect children from other kinds of harmful content.

Ofcom’s guidance, ‘A safer online for women and girls’, sets out measures that companies, including dating platforms, can take to reduce online misogynistic abuse, harassment, stalking and image based sexual abuse. We expect platforms to implement this guidance as well as complying with their safety duties.

Under the Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme (Clare's Law), the police have the power to disclose information to a victim or potential victim of domestic abuse, about their partner or ex-partner's abusive or violent offending. The Government is exploring how this could be extended to other forms of VAWG, including its use within online dating platforms.

As set out in Youth Matters: Your National Youth Strategy, this Government is committed to providing young people with more meaningful and enriching activities outside of school, with the ambition to halve the gap in participation between disadvantaged young people and their peers by 2035.

Every Child Can, an investment of £132.5 million of Dormant Assets, will increase access to high-quality enrichment across the five categories of enrichment: civic engagement; arts and culture; nature, outdoor and adventure; sport and physical activities; and developing wider life skills across some of the most disadvantaged areas in the country. As part of the package, £12.5 million will deliver opportunities for young people to make and enjoy music in their local area, and £10 million will enable thousands of care experienced young people to form trusted relationships with creative practitioners through bespoke 1:1 support. The funding criteria, eligibility requirements and application processes will be announced in the coming months, and we are working with TNLCF to design the remaining funding.

The Government's support for enriching activities is also funded through Arms Length Bodies. Yeovil’s Octagon Theatre (an Arts Council National Portfolio Organisation) provides a wide range of creative opportunities for children and young people outside of school settings. In the last year, activities have included youth dance, choir and youth theatre delivering 29,865 hours of active participation. The Octagon Theatre also manages the Music Hub for Somerset and Dorset, funded by the Department for Education and Arts Council England. The Hub works with partners across the region to provide accessible arts and music opportunities outside school, including targeted provision for young people with SEND and subsidised or free places for those facing barriers to participation.

The constituency of Yeovil is covered by the active partnership Somerset Activity and Sports Partnership, which receives Sport England funding to increase activity levels across the whole population. In 2025/26, the constituency of Yeovil received £27,716 through Sport England's Movement Fund, which aims to reduce the number of inactive people and tackle long-standing inequalities in communities, including for young people.

We recognise the benefits of having a trusted adult. The National Youth Strategy Youth Matters committed to increase the opportunities available for young people to connect with a trusted adult in their community.

Wider research shows that having a trusted adult is associated with stronger social and emotional capabilities: resilience, self-esteem, communication, sense of agency. Some studies also show that trusted adult support is associated with improved mental health/wellbeing.

The Department has not undertaken analysis to estimate wellbeing benefits of ensuring access to a trusted adult for every young person in (a) Yeovil constituency (b) Somerset and (c) England had access to a trusted adult.

We provide the majority of support for culture and grassroots sport through our arm’s length bodies, including Arts Council England, Sport England and Historic England.

We will continue to work closely with local leaders to design funds. Our public bodies have responsibility for decisions on funding allocations and will continue to share eligibility criteria and transparent data on allocations on their websites.

The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 provides a legislative framework for emergency preparedness across the UK. This includes supporting preparedness for situations which cause, or may cause, a disruption of a supply of food.

We are currently undertaking a Post-Implementation Review of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, which is required to be presented to Parliament by March 2027. Through this review we will assess whether the Act is delivering its objectives and consider any changes to the legislation or accompanying guidance, which are required to strengthen the Act. A Call for Views was launched on 14 July 2026 to gather evidence from across the resilience community to inform the review's conclusions.

While the review does not explicitly consider the merits of including additional measures related to food shortages, we will consider, based on the evidence gathered, what changes could support increased preparedness for emergencies, including disruption to food supplies.

The administration of the Civil Service Pension Scheme is the responsibility of the Cabinet Office. The Cabinet Office awarded the contract to administer the Civil Service Pension Scheme to Capita in November 2023 under the previous government.

The issues and delays facing a number of civil servants and pension scheme members in receiving their pension quotes are unacceptable. I want to reassure you that this Government has taken firm action to help put things right as soon as possible. We have agreed a clear recovery plan with Capita, which includes specific milestones and accountability targets for delivery. Existing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) have been enhanced and strengthened to deliver improved performance and higher penalties for failure, including financial penalties. These have already been applied in respect to Capita's performance with recent issues and delays in administering the Civil Service Pension Scheme.

The Cabinet Office has addressed the data breach of 30 March 2026, where a technical failure during a surge of 60,000 access requests allowed 138 members to view others' benefit statements. Investigations confirmed this was a session management malfunction and not a cyber-attack.

Following the Cabinet Office’s notification to the Information Commissioner’s Office, Capita performed a root cause analysis and strengthened system controls to prevent a recurrence. The Cabinet Office has further mandated that Capita provide formal accounts to the Public Accounts Committee and the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee to ensure the provider remains fully accountable for the security of member information.

The administration of the Civil Service Pension Scheme is the responsibility of the Cabinet Office. While the scheme does not publicly report overpayments due to administrator errors, in the last ten years overpayments caused solely by ‘administrative errors’, resulted in a total of 381.

The scheme follows the HM Treasury guidance on “Managing Public Money” which requires the scheme, where possible, to recover any money that a member is not entitled to. Recognising that recovery of overpayments may cause distress we work closely with individual members to ensure that payment recovery plans are affordable, take account of hardship and minimise the impact for the member both in terms of finances and wellbeing. This usually includes setting payment plans to recover monies owed over a reasonable period of time.

The administration of the Civil Service Pension Scheme is the responsibility of the Cabinet Office. However, the government has a duty to recover overpaid public money to ensure the scheme remains fair and sustainable for all taxpayers.

The Civil Service Pension Scheme pays out 732,000 pensions per month, and processes in excess of 1,000,000 member transactions each month. There have been, on average, 40 cases a year where human or administrative error led to a member being overpaid since 2014. While many overpayments in the scheme occur due to the late notification of a member's death, these specific cases do not relate to processing mistakes. Under current contracts, if the scheme cannot recover these funds from the member, it seeks recovery from the pension administrator.

We recognise that being asked to repay funds can be stressful. To manage the impact on retired civil servants, the scheme administrator works individually with those affected to create manageable recovery plans. These plans focus on the member's specific ability to pay, often spreading repayments over a long period to ensure that no undue financial hardship is caused.

The Government’s Parental Leave and Pay Review is considering all current parental leave and pay entitlements, as well as the needs of working families who do not qualify for existing leave and pay entitlements, such as kinship carers. We are engaging with a broad range of stakeholders and considering a wide range of evidence as part of the Review. The Review will conclude in early 2027 with findings which will outline next steps for any potential reforms.

The Government is supporting employment opportunities in Yeovil and across Somerset through its Industrial Strategy and investment in the region’s growth-driving sectors.

In Yeovil, Leonardo UK has been selected for a £1 billion contract to provide 23 new battlefield helicopters. The agreement supports 3,300 jobs at Leonardo’s Yeovil facility and sets up Yeovil as the company’s future centre of excellence for autonomous helicopters. Yeovil College has also been selected as a Defence Technical Excellence College.

Across Somerset, the Government is providing Agratas with a grant of up to £380 million, securing approximately £5 billion of private investment in its battery gigafactory near Bridgwater. The facility is expected to support around 4,200 jobs once fully operational. It is also supporting University College Somerset’s work with Agratas, to deliver training so people across Somerset have the practical, hands-on skills they need to seize the opportunities created by this investment. Somerset hosts two Technical Excellence Colleges: University Centre Somerset College Group, appointed as a Clean Energy Technical Excellence College, and Weston College (in North Somerset) appointed as an Advanced Manufacturing College. Together with Yeovil College, they are among 29 new Technical Excellence Colleges delivering high-quality training in key sectors, backed by £295 million of government investment over the course of this Parliament. This is in addition to wider skills and employment support, including the government’s £2.5bn youth employment package, which will help over 1 million young people by 2029.

The government recognises that high energy prices are a concern for SMEs across the country, including rural businesses in Yeovil.

We are cutting energy bills by up to 25% for manufacturers from April 2027 through the British Industrial Competitiveness Scheme. We have increased the Boiler Upgrade Scheme grant to help SMEs transition to more stable, lower-cost heating. Through the UK Business Climate Hub, we are helping SMEs cut bills, improve resilience, and invest in long-term sustainability.

Government is also working with Ofgem to reform the non‑domestic energy market, improving transparency and complaint handling.

We are developing a Construction Jobs Plan as part of the Industrial Strategy, which will set out the activities to address current skills shortages construction faces in delivering construction and government commitments, including the National Infrastructure Pipeline, which projects an investment of £725 billion over the next decade, alongside the delivery of 1.5 million new homes.

Government is investing £625 million in construction skills over this Parliament to support delivery of 60,000 additional skilled workers and encourage employers to invest in training.

This includes Foundation Apprenticeships, expanded Skills Bootcamps, and the launch of Construction Technical Excellence Colleges.

The government has committed to clarifying the law in relation to fully virtual Annual General Meetings (AGMs). Officials are engaging with investors and business across the country on the practicalities of this and a full assessment will be undertaken as part of our Modernising Corporate Reporting programme. This will include consulting on the shareholder safeguards that should accompany the change, including consideration of digital access. This will ensure that fully virtual meetings only take place where shareholders agree, preserving the option for physical or hybrid attendance where it is shareholders’ preferred format.

The government published its formal response to the CMA heating oil report on 13 October.

A Written Ministerial Statement can be found here: Written statements - Written questions, answers and statements - UK Parliament

The full response can be found here: Government response to the CMA heating oil market study - GOV.UK

Fuel markets are governed by competition and consumer protection law, overseen by the Competition Market Authority (CMA). The Government and the CMA are closely monitoring petrol and diesel prices in light of instability in the Middle East, and the Chancellor and Secretary of State recently met with fuel retailers to set out a clear message: unfair practices will not be tolerated.

We are also engaging regularly with refiners, importers and distributors to ensure any emerging risks are identified and managed promptly. The UK benefits from strong and diverse security of energy supplies, and there are no issues with fuel supply.

The Department of Energy Security and Net Zero closely monitors live fuel stock levels to ensure we have an accurate picture of the supply situation, and current indications show that petrol station forecourts across the UK remain well stocked. We also maintain regular engagement with industry, who confirm that the road fuel supply chain is operating across the UK as normal.

The Government does not measure stock levels at individual forecourts so localised concerns will not always show on our data. However, the government continues to liaise with industry to closely monitor the situation and will act should the situation require it.

The government has published a consultation on alternative heating solutions which seeks to gather evidence on the role that these technologies, including renewable liquid fuels (RLFs) such as hydrotreated vegetable oil, could play in ensuring that every household has a low-carbon option that is right for them. The consultation will run until 10 February and can be found here: Exploring the role of alternative clean heating solutions - GOV.UK.

UK clean energy and related supply chain jobs are projected to rise from around 440,000 in 2023 to around 860,000 by 2030.

In April, we announced plans to train up to 18,000 skilled workers to install heat pumps, solar panels, insulation and work on heat networks through the Heat Training Grant and Warm Homes Skills Programme.

We have established the industry led Construction Skills Mission Board, tasked with developing and delivering a comprehensive industry skills led action plan. Further initiatives to support SMEs in the retrofit supply chain across the country in the Warm Homes Plan which will be published soon.

Government is committed to ensuring that children have the best start in life. Preventing social media companies from offering their services to under-16s will help children have a healthier relationship with technology.

We will monitor closely how these new measures work in practice and change children’s online experiences. We will use surveys, media monitoring data, justice and health statistics to understand effects on children’s attitudes, time online, and potential harms they face. Insights from parents, young people, platforms and experts will also be critical to evaluate these policies.

We will also work with Wellcome Trust, who will be funding independent nationwide studies of the impact of the social media ban on youth mental health, with research teams working with tens of thousands of teenagers across the UK.

DSIT is committed to addressing the ageing digital infrastructure across the UK public sector.

DSIT has worked closely with HMT to ensure that organisations are receiving the funding they require to modernise their infrastructure and will monitor this progress through its regular Digital Business reviews.

In addition, DSIT is undertaking discovery work to identify the most cost-effective methods for addressing outdated systems. This will be integrated into the technology modernisation action plan taking place later this year. The plan aims to better understand the public sector’s legacy landscape, leveraging AI and automation to improve data quality and processes for civil servants.

The Secretary of State and I have acted to prevent platforms hosting child sexual abuse material and material that contributes to violence against women and girls by banning AI nudification apps and requiring platforms to take down non-consensual intimate images 48 hours after they are reported. We have always been clear that there is still more to do.

Under the Online Safety Act, services must have proportionate systems and processes in place to prevent users from encountering illegal content including online harassment and threatening or coercive communications. These duties are enforced by Ofcom, which can hold companies to account where they fail to protect users.

The Act also strengthened the criminal law, including new offences for threatening and false communications , enabling law enforcement to take action against online abusers.

It is crucial every woman and girl can access trusted health information online. The government is committed to promoting trusted sources of health information. The Online Safety Act does not prevent adults or children from accessing legal content about women’s health. The largest services will also have additional duties meaning they cannot arbitrarily remove content. Users will also have access to effective complaints procedures to appeal when content is unduly taken down. DSIT will continue to engage with Ofcom and industry to ensure the Online Safety Act is being implemented as we expect.

The Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Bill was introduced in November 2025 to increase UK defences against cyber attacks. These reforms will ensure the UK economy is better protected than ever by securing the most important essential and digital services and suppliers which businesses and public services rely on.

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology produced an Impact Assessment for the introduction of the Bill that identifies the expected impact the legislation will have on regulated entities. The assessment highlights that cyber security is a critical enabler of economic growth, and it is expected that the improved security resulting from businesses adhering to the regulations will mean the benefits of adherence outweigh the cost of adherence. Further analysis will be undertaken for relevant secondary legislation to support the implementation of the Bill, and the Impact Assessment will be updated upon Royal Assent.

The government's forthcoming Modernising Corporate Reporting consultation will provide an opportunity for users of corporate reporting to comment on the effectiveness of the existing risk reporting framework which includes businesses' cyber risk reporting and the Department for Business and Trade will consider the impact on business growth of any changes to risk reporting following this consultation.

The Government recognises the importance of ensuring public access to leisure facilities, which are great spaces for people of all ages to stay fit and healthy, and play an important role within communities. Physical activity is important in helping people live longer, healthier lives, playing a critical role in preventing chronic diseases, supporting treatment and management of long-term conditions, and boosting general health and wellbeing, helping relieve NHS pressures through an estimated £10.5 billion in savings a year. Building movement back into people’s lives is a key part of the Health Mission shift from treatment to prevention, with the 10-Year Plan setting out the government’s plan to work across sectors to get millions moving more.

The ongoing responsibility of providing access to public leisure facilities lies at local authority level, with funding levels set as part of the Local Government Finance Settlement. The Government encourages local authorities to make investments which offer the right opportunities and facilities for the communities they serve, investing in sport and physical activity with a place-based approach, to meet the needs of individual communities.

In June last year, we committed £400 million to transform sports facilities, including public leisure, across the whole of the UK over the next four years, supporting the Government's Plan for Change. We are working closely with sporting bodies and local leaders to establish what communities need, before setting out further plans on how future funding will be allocated.

The Government recognises the importance of ensuring public access to leisure facilities, which are great spaces for people of all ages to stay fit and healthy, and play an important role within communities. Physical activity is important in helping people live longer, healthier lives, playing a critical role in preventing chronic diseases, supporting treatment and management of long-term conditions, and boosting general health and wellbeing, helping relieve NHS pressures through an estimated £10.5 billion in savings a year. Building movement back into people’s lives is a key part of the Health Mission shift from treatment to prevention, with the 10-Year Plan setting out the government’s plan to work across sectors to get millions moving more.

The ongoing responsibility of providing access to public leisure facilities lies at local authority level, with funding levels set as part of the Local Government Finance Settlement. The Government encourages local authorities to make investments which offer the right opportunities and facilities for the communities they serve, investing in sport and physical activity with a place-based approach, to meet the needs of individual communities.

In June last year, we committed £400 million to transform sports facilities, including public leisure, across the whole of the UK over the next four years, supporting the Government's Plan for Change. We are working closely with sporting bodies and local leaders to establish what communities need, before setting out further plans on how future funding will be allocated.

The Government recognises the importance of ensuring public access to leisure facilities, which are great spaces for people of all ages to stay fit and healthy, and play an important role within communities. Physical activity is important in helping people live longer, healthier lives, playing a critical role in preventing chronic diseases, supporting treatment and management of long-term conditions, and boosting general health and wellbeing, helping relieve NHS pressures through an estimated £10.5 billion in savings a year. Building movement back into people’s lives is a key part of the Health Mission shift from treatment to prevention, with the 10-Year Plan setting out the government’s plan to work across sectors to get millions moving more.

The ongoing responsibility of providing access to public leisure facilities lies at local authority level, with funding levels set as part of the Local Government Finance Settlement. The Government encourages local authorities to make investments which offer the right opportunities and facilities for the communities they serve, investing in sport and physical activity with a place-based approach, to meet the needs of individual communities.

In June last year, we committed £400 million to transform sports facilities, including public leisure, across the whole of the UK over the next four years, supporting the Government's Plan for Change. We are working closely with sporting bodies and local leaders to establish what communities need, before setting out further plans on how future funding will be allocated.