Asked by: Alex Baker (Labour - Aldershot)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment her Department has made of the potential implications for her policies of trends in the number of people living in overcrowded housing in Aldershot constituency.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Department does not collect data on overcrowding at a constituency level. The government’s Plan for Change milestone of building 1.5 million new homes in this Parliament will help tackle overcrowding across the country.
Asked by: Alex Baker (Labour - Aldershot)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to help (a) farmers and (b) food producers use sustainable farming methods in Aldershot constituency.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This Government’s commitment to farmers and food producers remains steadfast. We will always champion British farming to boost rural economic growth, strengthen food security and improve the environment.
Defra has allocated £5 billion for the farming budget over two years. This will include the largest ever budget directed at sustainable food production and nature’s recovery in our country’s history: £1.8 billion for environmental land management schemes. This enables us to keep momentum on the path to a more resilient and sustainable farming sector, with the Sustainable Farming Incentive, Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier and Landscape Recovery all continuing. This funding will deliver improvements to food security as well as the environment, in the Aldershot constituency and across the country.
Publicly funded research and innovation, including investments under the Farming Innovation Programme, an innovation programme which aims to drive up productivity and enhance environmental sustainability, is enabling us to adapt to climate change more effectively, while improving levels of food security.
Asked by: Alex Baker (Labour - Aldershot)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent steps he has taken to help tackle illegal waste in Aldershot constituency.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government is committed to tackling waste crime, which is a blight on our local communities and the environment and damages legitimate businesses. My department is considering what further measures to pursue to tackle waste crime, including regulatory reform.
The Environment Agency assesses all reports of suspected waste crime. All information and any intelligence is recorded and used to target resources where the offending poses the greatest risk and harm to people and the environment. The Environment Agency do not currently have any active high risk illegal waste sites recorded in the Aldershot constituency. Due to concerns about ongoing criminal activity in the area, a number of vulnerable landowners in the constituency have been contacted proactively to reduce the risk of thousands of tonnes of waste being illegally deposited on their land. Waste crime is borderless, those carrying waste have been stopped on multi-agency days of action in Hampshire and neighbouring Surrey to ensure they are compliant with the law.
Asked by: Alex Baker (Labour - Aldershot)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to help increase the availability of childcare in Aldershot constituency.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Giving children the best start in life is key to the government’s Opportunity Mission. Good parenting and high-quality early education provide the foundation for children to achieve and thrive. This government is determined to ensure that parents have access to high-quality, affordable and flexible early education and childcare.
The department is rolling out more government-funded childcare entitlements to help millions of families, working hand in hand with the early years sector to build a system that works for them, parents and above all, children. This includes delivering 3,000 new and expanded school-based nurseries to make high-quality childcare accessible and available. As a first step, primary schools can now apply for up to £150,000 of £15 million capital funding for nursery places to open from September 2025. High-quality, school-based nursery provision is popular with parents, especially families with multiple children. It can help schools upgrade spare space whilst also providing early support to children and families, supporting their transition into primary school. School-based nursery settings have proportionally higher qualified staff and see lower staff turnover, providing more consistency of care for children. Proportionally, school-based nurseries also look after more children with special educational needs and disabilities and offer a higher proportion of places in the most deprived areas.
In the 2024/2025 financial year, early years providers are set to benefit from over £2 billion extra investment compared to last year, to support the rollout of 30 hours of government-funded early education from next September, rising in 2027/28 to over £4.1 billion. As announced in the Autumn Budget 2024, the department expects to provide over £8 billion for the early years entitlements in 2025/2026, which is around a 30% increase compared to 2024/25, as we continue to deliver the expansion to eligible working parents of children aged from nine months. Departmental hourly funding rates for Hampshire have been confirmed at, for 3 to 4-year-olds: £5.98 for 2-year-olds: £8.32 and for under 2s: £11:30.
The planned September 2025 childcare rollout of 30 funded hours per week will go ahead, but there will be challenges including providers securing enough staff and places to meet demand, with the capacity needed varying across the country. The department is supporting the sector to attract talented staff and childminders to join the workforce by creating conditions for improved recruitment. The department is urging the public to ‘do something BIG’ and start a career working with small children through our national recruitment campaign. Our dedicated website also helps people find out more about gaining qualifications and search for existing job vacancies.
Skills Bootcamps for the early years are available and lead to an accelerated apprenticeship, and we are funding Early Years Initial Teacher Training as a route for new and existing staff to gain Early Years Teacher Status. To support childminders to join and stay in the profession, the department has implemented new flexibilities to work with more people and spend more time working from non-domestic premises.
The department is working closely with local areas and the early years sector to do everything we can to ensure there are enough places and the sector has the workforce it needs to provide those places and to bridge local gaps ahead of September 2025.
Asked by: Alex Baker (Labour - Aldershot)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department has allocated funding to flood defences in Aldershot.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
To ensure we protect the country from the devastating impacts of flooding, we will invest £2.4 billion in 2024/25 and 2025/26 to improve flood resilience, by maintaining, repairing and building flood defences.
The projects to receive Government funding in 2025/26 will be consented over the coming months in the usual way through Regional Flood and Coastal Committees with local representation.
Asked by: Alex Baker (Labour - Aldershot)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to help reduce sewage discharges in Aldershot constituency.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
For too long, water companies have discharged record levels of sewage into our rivers, lakes and seas.
That is why we are placing water companies under special measures through the Water (Special Measures) Bill, which will strengthen regulation, including delivering new powers to ban the payment of bonuses for polluting water bosses and bringing criminal charges against persistent law breakers.
We are also carrying out a full review of the water sector to shape further legislation that will transform how our water system works and clean up rivers, lakes and seas for good.
The Water Industry National Environment Programme (WINEP) will continue to drive investment and improvement at a range of Thames Water Sewage Treatment Works and Storm Overflows. Several schemes were funded between 2020-2025 in the Aldershot constituency, including to monitor spills at storm tanks and to monitor the flow at Sewage Treatment Works from the inlet to full treatment.
The final determination for the next Price Review by Ofwat, due on the 19 December, will confirm additional investment planned by Thames Water for 2025-2030 to reduce pollution and improve storm overflows.
Asked by: Alex Baker (Labour - Aldershot)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department plans to take to help reduce the risk of flooding in Hampshire.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
To ensure we protect the country from the devastating impacts of flooding, we will invest £2.4 billion in 2024/25 and 2025/26 to improve flood resilience, by maintaining, repairing and building flood defences.
The Environment Agency, Hampshire County Council and the Southern Regional Flood and Coastal Committee have jointly funded a Property Flood Resilience programme to help small communities across Hampshire become more flood-resilient.
Asked by: Alex Baker (Labour - Aldershot)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how many high street businesses in (a) England and (b) Aldershot constituency closed in each of the last five years; and whether she plans to make changes to the business rates system.
Answered by Jim McMahon - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Whilst there is no strict definition for a high street business, the Office for National Statistics publishes business demographic information on an annual basis. The latest release was published on 18 November: Business demography, UK - Office for National Statistics.
At Budget 2024, the government published ‘Transforming Business Rates,’ this sets out the government’s first steps to reform the business rates system.
As part of this reform plan, the government has announced that it intends to introduce permanently lower tax rates for high street retail, hospitality, and leisure properties, with rateable values below £500,000, from 2026-27, and has introduced primary legislation to deliver on this commitment.
Asked by: Alex Baker (Labour - Aldershot)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many degree apprenticeships were (a) advertised and (b) completed in (i) Aldershot constituency, (ii) Hampshire and (iii) London in each of the last five years.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The table below provides details of degree level apprenticeship (level 6 and 7) vacancies in Aldershot constituency, Hampshire and London that were advertised on the Find an Apprenticeship (FAA) service on GOV.UK in each of the last five years.
The department encourages employers to advertise on FAA to maximise engagement with their vacancies and to ensure that they are accessible to all potential apprentices. However, not all choose to use the service. Employers may choose to recruit apprentices through their own channels, for example via their own websites, which the department does not monitor. The figures below therefore do not represent the total number of degree level apprenticeship vacancies advertised.
Academic year | Aldershot | Hampshire | London |
2019/2020 | 0 | 110 | 990 |
2020/2021 | 20 | 340 | 1,130 |
2021/2022 | 20 | 290 | 3,060 |
2022/2023 | 30 | 130 | 2,740 |
2023/2024 | 40 | 310 | 2,450 |
To note
The table below provides details of degree level (level 6 and 7) apprenticeships that have been achieved in Aldershot constituency, Hampshire and London in each of the last five years, as published in the apprenticeships statistics publication.
Academic year | Aldershot | Hampshire | London |
2019/20 | low | 70 | 450 |
2020/21 | 20 | 210 | 1,160 |
2021/22 | 20 | 360 | 1,790 |
2022/23 | 40 | 550 | 2,890 |
2023/24 | 60 | 830 | 3,880 |
To note
Asked by: Alex Baker (Labour - Aldershot)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, whether he plans to increase funding for renewable energy sources in Aldershot constituency.
Answered by Michael Shanks - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
We've already had £34.8 billion of private investment announced into the UK’s clean energy industries since July. Significant investment in our energy system is required no matter what, to replace retiring generation capacity and meet increasing demand. This investment is therefore one we cannot afford not to make. Our 2030 mission will ensure this investment is directed at the technologies, places and people that provide the most affordable, secure and prosperous future for the British public.