Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps her Department is taking to enforce stricter penalties for (a) unsafe driving and (b) speeding.

Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

Since the general election, the Department has begun work on a new Road Safety Strategy, the first in over a decade. The Department will share more details in due course.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to tackle medication shortages.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

We have inherited ongoing global supply problems that continue to impact medicine availability. We know how frustrating and distressing this can be for patients, and we are working closely with industry, the National Health Service, manufacturers, and other partners in the supply chain to resolve issues as quickly as possible, to make sure patients can access the medicines they need.

Medicine supply chains are complex, global, and highly regulated, and there are a number of reasons why supply can be disrupted, many of which are not specific to the United Kingdom and outside of Government control, including manufacturing difficulties, access to raw materials, sudden demand spikes or distribution issues, and regulatory issues. There are approximately 14,000 licensed medicines and the overwhelming majority are in good supply.

While we can’t always prevent supply issues from occurring, we have a range of well-established processes and tools to manage them when they arise and mitigate risks to patients. These include close and regular engagement with suppliers, use of alternative strengths or forms of a medicine to allow patients to remain on the same product, expediting regulatory procedures, sourcing unlicensed imports from abroad, adding products to the restricted exports and hoarding list, use of Serious Shortage Protocols, and issuing NHS communications to provide management advice and information on the issue to healthcare professionals, including pharmacists, so they can advise and support their patients.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to reduce medication wastage.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

Medicine wastage can be reduced by ensuring that medicines are not overprescribed and those that are prescribed are taken as intended, resulting in the best outcomes for patients.

Overprescribing can be addressed by taking a shared decision-making approach and optimising a person's medicines, ensuring that patients are prescribed the right medicines, at the right time, in the right doses. The National Health Service is driving changes in this area by:

• improving the repeat prescription processes, as this will reduce the oversupply of medicines which contributes to waste;
• implementing the National Medicines Optimisation Opportunities for integrated care boards, with further information available at the following link: https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/national-medicines-optimisation-opportunities-2023-24/;
• addressing problematic polypharmacy; and
• delivering Structured Medication Reviews, with further information available at the following link: https://www.england.nhs.uk/primary-care/pharmacy/smr/.

In addition, the New Medicines Service in Community Pharmacy supports patients with newly prescribed medication for long term conditions in understanding how to take the medication effectively, and improves adherence and health gains.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to improve early detection of breast cancer in women under 50 who do not routinely undergo mammogram screenings.

Answered by Andrew Gwynne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

Improving early diagnosis of cancer, including breast cancer, is a priority for NHS England. We will improve cancer survival rates and hit all National Health Service cancer waiting time targets, so that no patient waits longer than they should.

Screening is also crucial to improving early diagnosis, and current United Kingdom guidelines recommend that women with a moderate or high risk of breast cancer because of their family history should start having screening mammograms every year in their forties. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s guidance on the management of people with a family history of breast cancer was introduced in 2004, and has changed over time. The current version of this guidance is available at the following link:

https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg164

We currently do not screen those younger than 50 years old for breast cancer due to the lower risk of women under this age developing breast cancer, and the fact that women below 50 years old tend to have denser breast tissue, which reduces the ability of getting an accurate mammogram. It may also increase the risk of overtreatment and distress for women who do not have breast cancer, but would be subject to invasive and painful medical treatments and diagnostic tests.

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps her Department is taking to reduce the number of road fatalities.

Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

Since the general election, the Department has begun work on a new Road Safety Strategy, the first in over a decade. The Department will share more details in due course.

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if she will make an assessment of the potential implications for her policies of the Motorcycle Industry Association’s publication entitled A Licence to Net Zero, published in October 2023.

Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

My Department will be meeting the Motorcycle Industry Association at the Motorcycle Strategic Focus Group later this month to discuss the A Licence to Net Zero plan, alongside other ideas put forward by the motorcycle industry.

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent discussions she has had with the Motorcycle Industry Association on user licensing for powered light vehicles.

Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

My Department will be meeting the Motorcycle Industry Association at the Motorcycle Strategic Focus Group later this month to discuss the A Licence to Net Zero plan, alongside other ideas put forward by the motorcycle industry.

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the total number of passes for the AM moped licence was in 2024; and what assessment she has made of the potential merits of conducting a review of user licensing for powered light vehicles.

Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

The Government is considering plans to review existing requirements for motorcycle training, testing and licensing, taking account of long-standing Department for Transport and Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency plans and recent sector proposals.

Those wishing to ride a moped will first need to pass a theory test. After which they will need to pass an off-road riding test (known as the ‘module 1 test’) and an on-road riding test (known as the ‘module 2 test’).

The table below show the number of Module 1 and Module 2 AM category practical riding tests conducted by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency and the number of tests passed between 1 January and 31 December 2024.

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether she plans to consult on introducing licence upgrade courses for powered light vehicles.

Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

The Government is considering plans to review existing requirements for motorcycle training, testing and licensing, taking account of long-standing Department for Transport and Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency plans and recent sector proposals.

Those wishing to ride a moped will first need to pass a theory test. After which they will need to pass an off-road riding test (known as the ‘module 1 test’) and an on-road riding test (known as the ‘module 2 test’).

The table below show the number of Module 1 and Module 2 AM category practical riding tests conducted by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency and the number of tests passed between 1 January and 31 December 2024.

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps her Department is taking to tackle issues related to falsified (a) driving licences and (b) other transport-related documents created by AI.

Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) has processes in place to identify fake and forged documents including genuine documents that may have been altered. These measures help to make original documents difficult to counterfeit and forgeries easier to identify. DVLA documents, including the driving licence, contain a number of security features to prevent misuse. These features are regularly reviewed and periodically updated to help keep documents secure and to help tackle fraud.

The DVLA also provides the police with information about these security features to help them to identify genuine documents.

1st Halesowen Scout Group Christmas lunch

Found: Watch the meeting Members present: Emily Thornberry (Chair); Alex Ballinger; Aphra Brandreth; Phil Brickell

No description available

This inquiry will explore the extent and effectiveness of the UK’s soft power in what is an increasingly challenging global environment. The inquiry will consider the UK’s unique soft power strengths and ask how the UK might best measure and actualise the benefits it accrues from its soft power. This inquiry will also scrutinise the work of the Government’s new Soft Power Council and any subsequent strategy to strengthen UK soft power.

Submit Evidence (by 24 Feb 2025)

Misinformation and disinformation campaigns are increasingly weaponised by hostile state and non-state actors and this inquiry will seek to understand which actors are primarily responsible, and which channels and technologies are being used. It will seek to map motivations, sources and locations of the most pressing disinformation threats to democracy, and to understand the impact of artificial intelligence. The inquiry will examine how the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) can work with allies and multilateral organisations to combat the spread of disinformation that seeks to undermine democratic values and institutions. The inquiry will also ask how the Government can coordinate its counter-disinformation work across departments and best work with private organisations. This inquiry will take a regional approach by examining disinformation campaigns within Europe, the Americas, Indo-Pacific and Africa, to understand how the UK can better counter disinformation from malign actors.