Asked by: Adam Dance (Liberal Democrat - Yeovil)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the decision not to fully fund the (a) 4 per cent teacher pay award for September 2025 or (b) 3.2 per cent pay award for school support staff on schools' budgets in Yeovil constituency.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
School funding is increasing by £3.7 billion in financial year 2025/26. In May, the department announced that it is providing schools with £615 million in additional funding to support them with overall costs, including the costs of the 4% schools teacher pay award and the 3.2% local government services pay award in respect of support staff in financial year 2025/26.
Somerset local authority (which allocates funding for schools in Yeovil constituency) is receiving £418.4 million for mainstream schools in financial year 2025/26 through the Dedicated Schools Grant, an increase of 2.4% per pupil compared to financial year 2024/25. On top of that, all schools will receive additional funding through the Schools Budget Support Grant, to support them with overall costs, including the costs of teacher and support staff pay awards.
Schools will be expected to find approximately the first 1 percentage point of pay awards through improved productivity and smarter spending to make every pound count. This is in line with asks to the rest of the public sector to drive better value from existing budgets to help rebuild public services. Schools are not alone in making these decisions, and the department is supporting them through a suite of existing and new productivity initiatives. Our Energy for Schools service, for example, enabled the 400 schools who participated to save on average 36% compared to their previous contracts.
Asked by: Adam Dance (Liberal Democrat - Yeovil)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to support schools to better identify pupils' range of additional needs outside of the classroom.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
This government’s ambition is that all children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) receive the right support to succeed in their education.
Schools, further education colleges, sixth form colleges, and 16 to 19 academies are required to identify and address the special educational needs (SEN) of the pupils they support and, in the case of mainstream settings, to use their ‘best endeavours’ to make sure that a child or young person who has SEN gets the support they need.
All schools should apply the ‘graduated approach’ that is outlined in the ‘SEND code of practice: 0 to 25 years’, which means identifying a child’s needs, planning appropriate support, implementing and reviewing the support regularly to ensure it continues to meet the identified needs. Through this, schools should develop personalised approaches to supporting the unique needs of individual pupils. The code of practice can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/send-code-of-practice-0-to-25.
To support settings to identify need early, we are strengthening the evidence base of what works to improve early identification in mainstream settings. For example, evidence reviews from University College London have recently been published. These will help to drive inclusive practices as they highlight what the best available evidence suggests are the most effective tools, strategies and approaches for teachers and other relevant staff in mainstream settings to identify and support children and young people with different types of needs.
Asked by: Adam Dance (Liberal Democrat - Yeovil)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she plans to take to help protect the data of home educated children, in the context of provisions in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill contains provisions requiring local authorities to maintain registers of children who are not in school. These registers are intended to aid local authorities in identifying children who are missing education and support them.
The department is aware of the importance of protecting personal data. Existing laws, including the Data Protection Act and UK-GDPR, will apply to all data that is processed as part of the duty to maintain registers. These laws put in place robust restrictions on data collection, storage and sharing as well as respecting the rights of the individuals to access, rectification and erasure. However, there are circumstances where data sharing is essential, particularly when it concerns a child’s safety or wellbeing. The Bill provides a restricted list of individuals and agencies with whom data may be shared, solely for the purposes of safeguarding a child’s education or welfare. Any breach of these protections by a local authority could be subject to penalties or regulatory action by the Information Commissioner.
We will outline in statutory guidance how local authorities must balance the need to share data for safeguarding and educational support purposes with individuals’ right to privacy.
Asked by: Adam Dance (Liberal Democrat - Yeovil)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to support homeless people in Yeovil constituency.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Government is committed to getting back on track to ending all forms of homelessness across the country. Our cross-Government homelessness strategy will set out the actions needed across central and local government and the homelessness sector to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping.
The Government is supporting people at risk of and experiencing homelessness and rough sleeping across the country with more than £1 billion funding, a £316 million increase on last year. This includes £84 million new funding announced on 10 October 2025. Councils are able to use this funding to meet the needs of people in their area, and local authority allocations are published on gov.uk.
Asked by: Adam Dance (Liberal Democrat - Yeovil)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to support Somerset Council with the provision of the Disabled Facilities Grant in Yeovil constituency.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The government recognises the importance of home adaptations, to enable older and disabled people to live as independently as possible in a safe and suitable environment. Local authorities have a statutory duty to provide adaptations for people who satisfy a needs assessment, eligibility criteria and a means test, and have powers to agree a more generous local policy. To support this duty, government have boosted funding for the Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG) by £86 million per year to £711 million for both 2024-25 and 2025-26.
Government provides guidance to local authorities on the effective delivery of the grant, which can be found on gov.uk here. This guidance also outlines how councils can develop a local housing assistance policy to improve efficiency and better address the needs of their local communities.
Government also funds a national body for DFGs and home improvement agencies, currently Foundations, to provide support and advice to local authorities to help them deliver the DFG as efficiently as possible.
Asked by: Adam Dance (Liberal Democrat - Yeovil)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps she is taking to ensure there is consistent onboard information on request stops on rail services across the South West.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The process for request stops is standard for all stations on Great Western Railway’s (GWR) network. Alighting passengers must inform the conductor to request the stop, and boarding passengers need to signal the driver by raising their hand as the train approaches. However, I am aware that the operator has issues with some of their older fleet specifically for onboard information as the Passenger Information System is not always working as it should be. GWR are working with their technology supplier to improve the consistency of passenger information.
Asked by: Adam Dance (Liberal Democrat - Yeovil)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 20 January 2025 to Question 23770 on Motor Vehicles: Lighting, whether she plans to publish the findings of the Government-commissioned independent research into headlamp glare.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Researchers are currently finalising the headlamp glare report so that it can be published in the autumn.
Asked by: Adam Dance (Liberal Democrat - Yeovil)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when she plans to publish the conclusions of the research project on operational challenges preventing some cats from being reunited with their keepers after road traffic accidents.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The research report for the project entitled "Impact of waste management processes on reunifying owners with their dead cats and dogs found by the roadside" is undergoing review. A report will be published once those procedures have concluded.
Asked by: Adam Dance (Liberal Democrat - Yeovil)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps he is taking to help improve mobile phone signal in (a) Yeovil constituency and (b) other rural communities.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
In Ofcom’s Connected Nations Spring Update, published on 8 May 2025, it is reported that 4G is available across 96% of the Yeovil constituency from all four mobile network operators (MNOs), while 5G is available outside 97% of premises in the constituency from at least one operator.
Our ambition is for all populated areas, including rural areas, to have access to higher quality standalone 5G by 2030. Government continues to work closely with the MNOs, ensuring that we have the right policy and regulatory framework in place to support investment into mobile networks and competition in the market. This includes removing barriers to deployment where they exist.
We also continue to work with the MNOs to deliver the Shared Rural Network to boost 4G mobile coverage in rural communities.
Asked by: Adam Dance (Liberal Democrat - Yeovil)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of introducing government testing of period products for harmful chemical residues.
Answered by Kate Dearden - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The General Product Safety Regulations 2005 require that only safe products, in their normal or reasonably foreseeable use, are placed on the market. There are obligations on Producers and distributors to where reasonable, sample test products to check safety. The Government employs a risk-based approach to product testing, targeting categories with a high potential for danger and do not test period products. During the passage of the Product Regulation and Metrology Act 2025, the Government committed to consult on period product safety. Officials are currently reviewing the need for any further research and testing in this area to complement the consultation.