Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the phasing out of landlines in (a) Yeovil constituency and (b) Somerset on residents.

Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)

Landlines are not being phased out. The analogue technology underpinning the landline network, the Public Switched Telephone Network, is being upgraded to digital Voice over Internet Protocol, which is more reliable and resilient. We want to ensure that all customers, including those in Yeovil and Somerset, are migrated safely.

A voluntary charter, agreed in December 2023, committed communications providers to protecting vulnerable consumers during the migration. The Government secured new safeguards from providers in November 2024, as set out in the non-voluntary migrations checklist.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to improve training on cleft in (a) undergraduate dental education and (b) ongoing dental professional development.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The standard of training for dentists is the responsibility of the General Dental Council (GDC) who set the outcome standards expected at undergraduate level and approve courses and dental schools to write and teach the curricula content that enables their students to meet the GDC’s outcome standards.

Whilst not all curricula may necessarily highlight a specific condition, they all nevertheless emphasise the skills and approaches a dentist must develop in order to ensure accurate and timely diagnoses and treatment plans for their patients.

NHS England commissions services for children, young people, and adults with a cleft lip and/or palate. The patient pathway can start from pre-birth and continues into adulthood. Cleft services provide care through multi-disciplinary teams, and the comprehensive care pathway will include elements such as paediatric dentistry, restorative dentistry, and orthodontics. Further information is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/d07-cleft-lip.pdf

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to reduce waste crime in Yeovil constituency.

Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

This Government is committed to tackling waste crime from the fly-tippers who blight our towns and villages to the serious and organised crime groups who are exploiting the waste sector. We are making policy and regulatory reforms to close loopholes exploited by criminals and have increased the Environment Agency’s (EA’s) budget for waste crime enforcement by over 50% this year to £15.6m.

The EA focuses on tackling large-scale waste crime, often linked to organised criminal activity. While fly-tipping is managed by local authorities, the EA works proactively with partners including the police, HMRC, DVSA, Local authorities and National Farmers Union through intelligence-led “days of action” at locations such as Cartgate roundabout near Yeovil. These operations target unregistered waste carriers and ensure compliance with licensing requirements and robust enforcement for non-compliance.

Representatives from the EA sit on the Avon and Somerset Rural Affairs Forum which is a partnership to address rural crime including waste crime. The Agency is also part of the South-West Regional Organised Crime Unit, which focuses on serious and organised waste crime. This unit assesses reports of illegal waste activity, undertaking triage and determining the response, based on a range of risk and public interest factors.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to review the adequacy of the £30,000 grant cap for the Disabled Facilities Grant in England.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

In England, the Government continues to fund the locally administered Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG) which helps eligible older and disabled people on low incomes to adapt their homes.

We have provided an additional £172 million across the current and previous financial years to uplift the DFG, which could provide approximately 15,600 home adaptations to give older and disabled people more independence in their homes. This brings the total funding for the DFG to £711 million in 2024/25 and 2025/26.

We continue to keep all aspects of the DFG under consideration. Recently, we carried out a review of the upper limit for the DFG. We are currently considering the findings.

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to support a reduction of incidents of fly-tipping in (a) Yeovil constituency and (b) South Somerset.

Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

Local councils are responsible for tackling fly-tipping in their area and have a range of enforcement powers to help them do so. These include fixed penalty notices of up to £1000, seizing and crushing of vehicles and prosecution action. We encourage councils to make good use of their enforcement powers and are taking steps to develop statutory fly-tipping enforcement guidance to support councils to consistently, appropriately and effectively exercise these existing powers.  We are also conducting a review of council powers to seize and crush vehicles of fly-tippers, to identify how we could help them make better use of this tool.

In our manifesto we committed to forcing fly-tippers to clean up the mess that they have created. We will provide further details on this commitment in due course.

In the meantime, Defra continues to chair the National Fly-Tipping Prevention Group through which we work with a wide range of stakeholders, such as local authorities, National Farmers Union and the Environment Agency, to share good practice on preventing fly-tipping, including on private land. Various practical tools are available from their webpage at: https://nftpg.com/

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to improve access to NHS dental care for people with clefts in Yeovil constituency.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

We recognise that certain groups of patients may be more vulnerable to oral health problems, including patients with clefts.

NHS England commissions services for children, young people, and adults with a cleft lip and/or palate. The patient pathway can start from pre-birth and continues into adulthood. Cleft services provide care through multi-disciplinary teams, and the comprehensive care pathway will include elements such as paediatric dentistry, restorative dentistry, and orthodontics. Further information is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/d07-cleft-lip.pdf

Regarding access to general primary care National Health Service dentistry, the responsibility for commissioning primary care services, including NHS dentistry, to meet the needs of the local population has been delegated to the integrated care boards (ICBs) across England. We have asked ICBs to commission extra urgent dental appointments. ICBs have been making extra appointments available from 1 April 2025.

ICBs are also recruiting dentists through the Golden Hello scheme. This recruitment incentive will see dentists receiving payments of £20,000 to work in those areas that need them most for three years.

Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps she is taking to (a) expand broadband coverage for rural communities and (b) encourage market competition for such coverage.

Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)

Through Project Gigabit we are rolling out fast, reliable broadband to UK premises not included in suppliers’ commercial plans. These premises are predominantly in rural areas. As of the end of March 2025, over 1.2 million premises had been upgraded to gigabit-capable broadband through government-funded programmes. In addition, more than one million further premises have been included within contracts to provide access to gigabit-capable broadband, with funding of over £2.4 billion through Project Gigabit.

In July, we published a consultation on a draft updated Statement of Strategic Priorities that sets out the Government’s view on the key role of competition to support the fibre roll-out. Competition across the UK is necessary to promote investment as well as foster innovation, and will help ensure low prices and more choice for consumers in the long-term. We are currently reviewing responses to the consultation and will publish our response in due course.

Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps she is taking to ensure that the Physical Infrastructure Access pricing model encourages investment by network providers in full fibre provision in rural areas in Yeovil constituency.

Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)

As the independent regulator for telecommunications, Ofcom is responsible for making regulatory decisions in the fixed telecoms sector, including on the Physical Infrastructure Access (PIA) product.

In July, we published our draft Statement of Strategic Priorities for telecommunications, the management of radio spectrum, and postal services that sets out the Government’s view on infrastructure sharing in the fixed telecoms sector, including asking Ofcom to demonstrate greater transparency in how they calculate and set PIA prices.

The draft Statement also sets out how Ofcom can continue to support the roll-out of broadband across the UK, including in rural areas, by promoting competition.

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