Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what engagement her Department has had with counterparts in Sri Lanka regarding Storm Ditwah.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
I refer the Hon. Member to the answer provided on 18 December in response to Question 99464.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the Department has assessed the potential benefits of enabling GPs to issue automatic repeat prescriptions for patients on stable, long-term medication.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Responsibility for prescribing, including the issue of repeat prescribing and the duration of prescriptions, rests with the prescriber who has clinical responsibility for that particular aspect of a patient’s care.
Electronic repeat dispensing is already implemented in the National Health Service and allows prescribers to authorise and issue a batch of repeat prescriptions for up to 12 months with just one digital signature. Since April 2019, the GP Contract has stated that electronic repeat dispensing should be used for all patients for whom it is clinically appropriate.
Prescriptions for longer periods of time may be more appropriate and more convenient for some patients with stable long-term conditions. However, for some patients, issuing shorter prescriptions may be appropriate to give the prescriber the opportunity to review the patient’s medicines, which is important for some treatment courses that require greater scrutiny or monitoring to be managed appropriately.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, which level of local authority will be responsible for collecting the proposed tourist tax; and what estimate his Department has made of the administrative costs of implementing and collecting the tax.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The design and scope of the new visitor levy power is still under development. The government is consulting on whether local authorities or a national authority should be responsible for administering the Visitor Levy in England. The administrative costs of implementing and collecting any levies will depend on the decisions taken by Mayors, including whether they choose to bring forward a levy in their area. We are proposing that, should the levy be locally-administered, a small proportion of levy income be used to cover administrative costs, including staffing, systems and compliance activity.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many benefit claims in the last five years have involved individuals presenting as part of a polygamous household; and what the outcomes of those claims were.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Polygamous households are not recognised in Universal Credit. In claims where the claimant identifies as polygamous, the first spousal couple (the two partners who have been married longest) in the relationship could form a claim as a couple. However, all extant members of the relationship living in the household would need to make separate claims.
Benefits such as Income Support, Jobseeker's Allowance, Employment and Support Allowance and Housing Benefit do recognise a small number of polygamous marriages which took place in a jurisdiction where polygamy is permitted. This number is very small and declining. Since the Immigration Act 1988, it has not been possible for people polygamously married overseas to bring second wives to the UK through the spouse visa route.
As such, statistics are not held regarding numbers of claimants presenting as part of a polygamous household and would be disproportionate in cost to produce.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the press notice of 15 December 2025 entitled Ofqual fines Pearson £2 million for rule breaches affecting thousands of students, how many students were affected by each of the three cases for which Ofqual fined Pearson, broken down by qualification and year.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
This is a matter for Ofqual, the Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation. I have asked its Chief Regulator, Sir Ian Bauckham, to write to the hon. Member for Fylde directly, and a copy of his reply will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many children (i) in Fylde and (ii) across Lancashire are expected to benefit from the increased Early Years Pupil Premium.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
On the 15 December we announced the local authority funding rates for 2026/2027. From April 2026, the Early Years Pupil Premium (EYPP) will be increased by an additional 15% to £1.15 an hour, equivalent to up to £655 a year. Statistics at a parliamentary constituency level are not readily available, but in January 2025 there were 3,149 children in Lancashire who received EYPP. Figures for children in receipt of the early years pupil premium in Lancashire from 2018 to 2025 can be accessed here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/dd3e2106-cef2-4e89-49e4-08de398c3998.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many families (i) in Fylde and (ii) across Lancashire are expected to receive the additional £736.06 per child in childcare support as a result of changes to universal credit rules.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The requested information is not readily available and to provide it would be at disproportionate cost.
The monthly statistics for the number of Children in households on Universal Credit in Great Britain by Parliamentary Constituency and Local Authority are published quarterly on Stat-Xplore(opens in a new tab).
Universal Credit statistics are available from August 2015 to August 2025 in the Households on Universal Credit(opens in a new tab) dataset.
Users can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest and, if needed, can access guidance(opens in a new tab) on how to extract the information required. There is also a Universal Credit Official Statistics: Stat-Xplore user guide(opens in a new tab)
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, when she expects to announce whether the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme will be renewed beyond 31 March 2026.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Future funding beyond March 2026 will be considered as we work through the output of the Spending Review and Departmental business planning process. An announcement will be made once this decision is finalised.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate she has made of the potential impact of increasing the bus travel fare cap from £2 in July 2024 to £3 on the accessibility of services in Fylde constituency.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department is currently undertaking an evaluation of the £3 bus fare cap and its impacts. This will include analysis of bus usage. The evaluation will focus on understanding the national impacts of the scheme. The final monitoring and evaluation report into the impact of the £2 bus fare cap, including analysis on bus usage, was published on 12 February.
Trends in bus usage will continue to be monitored and reported through the Department’s national statistics which are published annually. The Department also publishes statistics on daily bus passenger journeys across local authorities in England outside London. This can be found on GOV.UK at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/developing-faster-indicators-of-transport-activity.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether (a) families and (b) attorneys holding Power of Attorney are notified immediately when a DNR notice is added to a vulnerable adult’s medical record.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department remains clear that it is unacceptable for Do Not Attempt Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (DNACPR) decisions to be applied in a blanket fashion to any group of people and should be fully discussed with the individual and their family where possible and appropriate. NHS England clinical leaders have issued a number of statements and letters to health and care providers which emphasise personalised approaches to care and treatment and which reiterate that there has never been an instruction or directive issued by the National Health Service to put in place a DNACPR solely on the basis of disability, learning disability, or special needs.
Agreement to a DNACPR is an individual decision and should involve the person concerned or, where the person lacks capacity, their families, carers, guardians, or other legally recognised advocates. Guidance from clinical bodies such as the British Medical Association, the Resuscitation Council UK, and Royal College of Nursing reflects this. These decisions should take into account the patient’s wishes, or those of people close to the patient, informed by a sensitive explanation of the risks and burdens associated with giving cardiopulmonary resuscitation. The treating doctor should try to reach agreement with the patient or those close to the patient. If, after discussion, the doctor remains of the view that cardiopulmonary resuscitation would not be clinically appropriate, there is not an obligation to attempt it. However, the rationale for not doing so should be clearly articulated. NHS England has published public-facing guidance on DNACPR decisions on the NHS.UK website. This includes advice on asking for a second opinion or review if patients, or their families, disagree with a DNACPR decision.
The Department has not received any complaints regarding DNACPR decisions being applied without consent in the last five years.