Asked by: Andrew Ranger (Labour - Wrexham)
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 tackle illegal waste dumping.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This Government is committed to tackling illegal waste dumping. The Waste Crime Action Plan is ensuring we pursue offenders and clean-up the most egregious illegal waste sites. This includes reforms to the waste carrier regime, the introduction of digital waste tracking and strengthened enforcement activity to identify and act against waste criminals.
Asked by: Andrew Ranger (Labour - Wrexham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that specialist powered wheelchairs and essential adaptations are recognised and funded as essential medical equipment.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for the provision and commissioning of local wheelchair services based on the needs of their local population, including specialist powered wheelchairs.
NHS England supports integrated care boards to commission effective, efficient, and personalised wheelchair services. This includes publishing a Wheelchair Quality Framework which sets out quality standards and statutory requirements for ICBs such as offering personal wheelchair budgets. The framework is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/wheelchair-quality-framework/
Asked by: Andrew Ranger (Labour - Wrexham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps her Department is taking to promote the safe and responsible use of electric bicycles, including tackling illegally modified e-bikes that do not comply with speed and power restrictions.
Answered by Justin Madders - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department has published advice for consumers on the safe use of legally compliant e-bikes. This guidance has recently been updated to refer to the industry-led "E-Bike Positive" campaign.
Where e-bikes have been modified to overcome the power and speed restrictions set out in the Electrically Assisted Pedal Cycle Regulations, they are motor vehicles and must therefore be registered, taxed and insured. The rider must also wear a safety helmet and hold a driving licence. The Department has published further advice making this clear, and ultimately the police can seize such e-bikes where they are used on the road without being properly registered as motor vehicles.
Asked by: Andrew Ranger (Labour - Wrexham)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps HM Revenue and Customs is taking to reduce duplication in the processes required of carers and older taxpayers; and what assessment HMRC has made of the potential impact of these requirements on those taxpayers.
Answered by James Murray - Financial Secretary to the Treasury and Paymaster General
In July 2025, the government published HMRC’s Transformation Roadmap. The roadmap sets our vision for tax administration to happen with minimal effort thanks to simplified tax processes, the application of new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and more digital self-serve options for customers. This will mean compliance is easy for the majority who want to get their tax and customs duties right, minimising opportunities for inadvertent errors.
HMRC assesses the impact on customers as a standard part of changes to policy and process, and routinely publishes the results as part of tax information and impact notes for tax policy changes. These also set out where impacts have been identified on customers by virtue of characteristics protected under the Equality Act 2010, including age.
Most customers are able to deal with their tax affairs on their own or with the support of their agent, though some customers have a temporary or enduring need for extra help. HMRC is committed to identifying and supporting all customers who need extra help and has published a set of commitments to support these customers in the HMRC Charter and the Principles of Support for Customers Who Need Extra Help.
Asked by: Andrew Ranger (Labour - Wrexham)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether the Government is considering the potential merits of the return of Venezuelan gold reserves held by the Bank of England as part of international efforts to support Venezuela's recovery following the earthquakes in June 2026.
Answered by Chris Elmore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
His Majesty's Government (HMG) is not party to the legal case to determine who should have control of Venezuelan gold held in the Bank of England. UK Courts and the Bank of England are independent of HMG.
Asked by: Andrew Ranger (Labour - Wrexham)
Question to the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the description of the Start Up Loans Scheme as Government Backed in providing clarity to prospective applicants about the Government’s financial support for the scheme, including whether the Government (a) underwrites and (b) guarantees the lending provided.
Answered by Chris McDonald - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Start Up Loans programme provides access to finance for individuals seeking to start or grow a business. The programme is described as government-backed because the programme and its lending are funded by government through the British Business Bank. A Start Up Loan is an unsecured personal loan, rather than a government guarantee of borrowing from another lender. The individual borrower remains personally responsible for repaying the loan, and this is made clear to prospective applicants. Lending decisions are made by Start Up Loans’ finance providers, following assessment of an applicant’s business plan, affordability and creditworthiness.
Asked by: Andrew Ranger (Labour - Wrexham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will assess the potential merits of introducing an annualised earnings assessment for recipients of Carer's Allowance employed on zero-hours and other irregular contracts to ensure that fluctuations in working hours and holiday pay do not result in the loss of Carer's Allowance and associated National Insurance credits for carers whose overall annual earnings remain below the equivalent annual earnings threshold.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government) (Equalities)
The Government is committed to improving and modernising how earnings are treated in Carer's Allowance. It has increased the weekly earnings limit to match 16 hours at the National Living Wage, improved guidance, and is exploring longer-term changes to the benefit, including automation of earnings and the possibility of an earnings taper. A Call for Evidence to support this work was launched on 7 July 2026 and is open until 18 August 2026: Carer's Allowance: call for evidence - GOV.UK.
Where Carer's Allowance recipients undertake paid work, there is flexibility for Decision Makers to average earnings where these fluctuate in a regular pattern, using a period that best reflects the individual's working pattern.
Asked by: Andrew Ranger (Labour - Wrexham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of the mandatory fortification of non-wholemeal wheat flour with folic acid on people with pernicious anaemia and other medical conditions for whom folic acid supplementation may not be appropriate.
Answered by Sharon Hodgson
Folic acid fortification was recommended by the Committee on Medical Aspects of Food and Nutrition Policy in 2000 and by its successor the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) in 2006, after an extensive review of the evidence on folate and health. The SACN has further considered the evidence in its 2009 report to the Chief Medical Officer on folic acid and colorectal cancer risk and its 2017 update on folic acid. The tolerable upper limit was also re-considered by the Committee on Toxicity (COT) in 2018.
In its 2006 report on folate and disease prevention, the SACN considered data from hospital discharge surveys in the United States of America, where mandatory fortification of enriched cereal grain products with folic acid was authorised in 1996 and fully implemented in 1998. The data suggested that the number of cases of pernicious anaemia or subacute combined degeneration of the spinal cord had not increased post-fortification. This suggests that mandatory fortification had not led to a delay in the detection of vitamin B12 deficiency by masking the diagnosis of pernicious anaemia.
In the SACN’s extensive review of the evidence on folate and health it considered other medical conditions for whom folic acid supplementation may not be appropriate including epileptic patients on phenytoin, an epileptic drug, pregnant women in the context of multiple births and embryo selection and anti-folate chemotherapy. For each, the SACN noted that there is no evidence or no substantive evidence to suggest that folic acid fortification would cause adverse health outcomes.
The policy was developed with Government’s public consultations on both the impact assessment and legislation. This issue was considered as part of the consultation and impact assessment process.
The level of folic acid chosen for fortification, 250 micro grams per 100 grams of flour, was based on modelling carried out by Food Standards Scotland. The level of fortification has been chosen in order to minimise the risk of the population exceeding the tolerable upper intake level and therefore the risk of masking the diagnosis of pernicious anaemia. COT concluded in 2018 that “Further work is needed to identify the maximum level of folic acid intake at which masking would not occur. However, it is very unlikely that this would be such that the [upper limit] for intake would be less than 1 mg/day, as at present.”
The Government is planning an evaluation on the impact of the policy to assess the effectiveness of the level of mandatory folic acid fortification for both the prevention of neural tube defect affected pregnancies but also to check that the population are not routinely exceeding a tolerable intake and identify any further unintended consequences.
Asked by: Andrew Ranger (Labour - Wrexham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the proposed changes to the Nutrient Profiling Model, including the adoption of a free sugars methodology, on (a) the availability of fortified breakfast cereals in schools and breakfast clubs, (b) levels of fibre and micronutrient intake among children and (c) UK food manufacturers that have invested in product reformulation to reduce sugar, salt and fat content.
Answered by Sharon Hodgson
In the 10-Year Health Plan, the Government committed to updating the standards behind the advertising and promotions restrictions on ‘less healthy’ food and drink products by applying the new Nutrient Profiling Model (NPM). The Government published the new NPM on 27 January. The new NPM is built on the latest science and has been updated in line with the latest dietary advice, especially on reducing children’s consumption of free sugars. Children are consuming twice the level of free sugars as recommended which can contribute to tooth decay and obesity.
Breakfast cereals can contribute to fibre and micronutrient intakes, but this needs to be balanced against their contribution to free sugars intake in children. Breakfast cereals are often fortified with micronutrients, and can make useful contributions to riboflavin, folate, vitamin D, and iron where intakes are low in older children aged 11 to 18 years old. However, the contribution made by breakfast cereals to children’s free sugars intake is similar to contributions from ‘sweet biscuits’, from ‘buns, cakes, pastries and fruit pies’ or from ‘sugars, preserves and sweet spreads’.
There are breakfast cereals that are higher in fibre and lower in free sugars that pass the new NPM.
The consultation on updating the school food standards, which includes standards for breakfast cereals, closed on 12 June. The Department for Education and the Department of Health and Social Care are currently considering the responses.
Like the current NPM, NPM 2004/5, the new NPM uses a scoring system in which points are allocated for nutrients or ingredients within a food or drink per 100 grams. The model balances the contribution made by ‘beneficial’ nutrients, that is, protein, fibre, fruit, vegetables, nuts and seeds, to a child’s diet, alongside the ‘negative’ contributions from nutrients, that is, energy, saturated fat, free sugars and salt, of which children’s intakes are higher than recommended. The protein component of the model acts as a marker for micronutrients. The new NPM also awards more positive points to fibre than the current model.
The NPM is not about restricting reformulation. The aim is to stop the targeting of ‘less healthy’ food and drink marketing to children and encourage further reformulation and the promotion of healthier options. While some products previously reformulated to meet the NPM 2004/05 may need to go further, the new NPM continues to incentivise reformulation and to support industry to deliver healthier products over time by allowing greater credit for fibre. A full public consultation on the proposed application of the new NPM to the advertising and promotions restrictions closed on 17 June. This consultation sought feedback on the impact and challenges of applying the new NPM.
We will use evidence from the consultation to inform final policy decisions and the final impact assessment which, subject to the outcome of the consultation, would be published ahead of any changes being made.
Asked by: Andrew Ranger (Labour - Wrexham)
Question
To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, what recent progress she has made towards implementing the socio-economic duty under section 1 of the Equality Act 2010.
Answered by Olivia Bailey
This Government is committed to ensuring that everyone, no matter their background, can thrive. To support this, we will commence the socio-economic duty on public bodies in Section 1 of the Equality Act 2010. We are currently working toward commencement of the duty, which includes drafting statutory guidance that will clarify how the duty can be applied effectively. As part of this process, we are working with listed public bodies to ensure the guidance supports them effectively.