Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
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 increase the reporting of waste crime in rural communities.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Local authorities in England are required to report fly-tipping incidents and enforcement actions to Defra, which are published annually at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/fly-tipping-in-england, this data excludes the majority of private-land incidents.
We continue to work with stakeholders, such as the National Farmers Union and local authorities, through the National Fly-Tipping Prevention Group to share good practice, including how to prevent fly-tipping on private land.
Suspected illegal waste activity can be reported anonymously to Crimestoppers through their dedicated website https://crimestoppers-uk.org/give-information/forms/give-information-anonymously or by calling 0800 555 111. Alternatively, the Environment Agency’s 24-hour incident hotline is available on 0800 80 70 60 and fly-tipping can be reported here https://www.gov.uk/report-flytipping.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many prosecutions have been brought against waste operators in (a) Fylde and (b) Lancashire since July 2024; and how many resulted in custodial sentences.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Environment Agency (EA) has brought prosecutions against six waste operators in Lancashire since July 2024. In one of these cases, illegal activity at a site in Fylde was part of the case. None of these prosecutions resulted in custodial sentences. This information only relates to action taken by the EA.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
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 plans to publish annual updates of regional waste crime heatmaps produced by the Environment Agency.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Environment Agency have had a positive response to their recent article that included regional waste crime heatmaps and have committed to publishing future updates.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what recent assessment he has made of the potential impact of inflation on small and medium businesses in (a) Fylde constituency and (b) Lancashire.
Answered by Gareth Thomas - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
DBT monitors the financial health of the SME population using a wide range of sources, including the SME Finance Monitor which stated that in 2024, 35% of SMEs rated costs as a major obstacle to running business in the next 12 months, compared with 38% in 2023. The Bank of England is responsible for controlling inflation through monetary policy tools. It has cut the interest rates four times since August 2024 as inflationary pressures eased from their recent peak, working to sustainably returning inflation to the 2% target rate.
In addition, the government is establishing trade agreements that will help reduce cost. Supermarkets have said publicly that the recently announced UK-EU SPS Agreement will help to ease the pressure on food prices.
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, pursuant to the Answer of 3 April 2025 to Question 42350 on General Practitioners: Employers' Contributions, how much and what proportion of the £22.6 billion will be allocated to (a) frontline health services, (b) primary care and (c) other services.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The £22.6 billion funding increase announced in the 2024 Autumn Budget provided an above inflation increase for all health spending, with an average growth of 3.4% across 2024/25 and 2025/26.
The funding is not ringfenced and becomes part of the overall Department’s budget. It is therefore not possible to easily track how it has been deployed in a way that is distinct to how the overall budget is allocated. In primary care, we’ve made recent announcements to uplift the general practice and community pharmacy contracts, and on front line services we’ve provided an additional £1.8 billion in 2024/25 for elective care, which then rolls forward into 2025/26, which has helped the National Health Service to deliver two million additional operations, scans, and appointments in our first year of the Government.
The £22.6 billion does not include the additional funding that HM Treasury is providing to departments for employer National Insurance contributions.
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, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of short-term holiday lets on local housing availability in (a) Fylde constituency and (b) Lancashire.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Whilst second homes and short-term lets can benefit local economies, the government appreciate that excessive concentrations in some areas of the country can impact the availability and affordability of homes, both to rent and buy.
We remain committed to introducing a registration scheme for short-term lets and removing the furnished holiday lets rules to ensure all income from property will be treated the same for tax purposes.
We also recognise that more needs to be done and are considering what additional powers we might give local authorities to enable them to respond to the pressures created by short term lets.
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, what steps her Department is taking to ensure adequate (a) infrastructure is and (b) public services are in place before the approval of large-scale housing developments in (i) Fylde constituency and (ii) Lancashire.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to Question UIN 26106 on 5 February 2025.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps his Department is taking to help protect small and medium enterprises from cybersecurity threats in (a) Fylde and (b) Lancashire.
Answered by Feryal Clark - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The cyber security of the UK is a priority for the Government. The Government offers free guidance, tools and training to help businesses improve their cyber resilience. This includes a new Cyber Governance Code of Practice to help boards and directors manage digital risks, and the Cyber Essentials scheme which is highly effective in protecting businesses against cyber attacks. This year the Government will introduce the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill to improve UK cyber defences and better secure our essential services and the IT infrastructure they rely upon. The PSTI Act, along with codes of practice on cyber security of AI, software and apps are helping protect organisations at scale by making technology in the UK secure by design.
In Lancashire, the Cyber Resilience Centre for the North West is part of a nationwide police-led collaboration helping strengthen cyber resilience in small and medium-sized businesses. The Government’s Stop! Think Fraud campaign provides the public and small businesses with advice on how to prevent fraud and cyber crime.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
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 improve mobile connectivity in (a) rural and (b) semi-rural areas in (i) Fylde constituency and (ii) Lancashire.
Answered by Chris Bryant - Minister of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
We base our assessment of coverage in rural and urban areas on Ofcom's rurality definition. Ofcom reports that 5G (standalone and non-standalone) is available outside 92% of rural premises in the Fylde constituency from at least one operator. Our ambition is for all populated areas to have higher quality standalone 5G by 2030, we continue to work with the mobile industry to achieve this.
I have raised my concerns about the accuracy of their coverage reporting with Ofcom and I welcome the improvements they have made to their online coverage checker which will go live in the second half of June.
We are working with the Mobile Network Operators to improve poor mobile signal in rural areas. The Shared Rural Network is delivering 4G coverage to places where there is either limited or no 4G coverage at all.
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, what steps his Department is taking to ensure consistent enforcement of food hygiene certification standards by local authorities in England.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
To support food law enforcement consistency, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) publishes a Food Law Code of Practice. This provides statutory guidance to local authorities on how to meet their legal obligations as regulators of food law.
The FSA operates the Food Hygiene Rating Scheme in partnership with local authorities. The scheme protects public health by publishing a clear rating to indicate how compliant a business is with food hygiene law.
To be an effective incentive, the scheme must be operated consistently. The FSA expects all local authorities to operate the scheme in line with its guidance. The FSA monitors local authority compliance and will intervene when evidence suggests a lack of consistency. The FSA coordinates regular consistency training in which all local authorities are expected to participate.