Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 20 November 2024 to Question 13929 on Water Abstraction: Licensing, what the regional breakdown of these water abstraction licences was in each of the last 10 financial years.

Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

The number of water abstraction licences (temporary, full and transfer) live for all or part of the financial year for each of the last ten financial years is shown in the tables below. This data is shown by former Environment Agency (EA) regions.

This had been done by former EA regions to ensure consistency and allow comparison, as the EA changed its area boundaries in 2016.

For the purposes of this analysis, the boundary of each former EA region is river catchment based.

Also, these figures are for the country of England only. Figures for the former ‘Wales’ and ‘Midlands’ EA regions only include water abstraction licences with abstraction points located in England.

Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what recent estimate he has made of the number of households that are in fuel poverty in (a) South Norfolk constituency and (b) Norfolk.

Answered by Miatta Fahnbulleh - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)

The latest statistics for the number of households in fuel poverty in 2022 in administrative areas and parliamentary constituencies in England can be found in the published sub-regional fuel poverty statistics, in Tables 2 and 4: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/fuel-poverty-statistics

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 ensure that there is adequate funding for (a) innovation and (b) development in technology in South Norfolk constituency.

Answered by Feryal Clark - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)

In 2021/22, UKRI invested £478 million in East Anglia.

For example, Innovate UK’s Launchpad programme is allocating up to £7.5 million to help SMEs in the East of England agri-tech and food technology cluster to grow. Norfolk County Council is one of the Launchpad’s partners.

Other UKRI investments in the region include the Next Generation Infrastructure programme, delivered jointly by the John Innes Centre and The Sainsbury Laboratory; and the Earlham Institute-coordinated BioFAIR, which will establish a transformative digital research infrastructure for life sciences.

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate she has made of the potential impact of the bus fare cap on the average annual reduction in bus fares for people in South Norfolk constituency in each of the next three financial years.

Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

In the Budget on 30 October, the government confirmed it will invest over £150 million to introduce a new £3 cap on single bus fares in England outside London from 1 January until 31 December 2025. Under the plans of the previous administration, the current £2 cap on bus fares had been due to expire on 31 December 2024, and prior to the Budget, there was no further funding available to maintain the cap beyond this point.

The published interim evaluation of the £2 fare cap showed that patronage continued to recover following the COVID 19 pandemic. The final evaluation of the £2 fare cap will be published in due course.

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many Sustainable Farming Incentive payments were made (a) within and (b) after four months.

Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

The Sustainable Farming Incentive has a rolling application window with the first payment normally issued four months after the start of the agreement and quarterly thereafter.

As of 21 November 26,329, payments have been made within fourth months and 371 not within four months.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps she is taking to help ensure value for money in public spending.

Answered by Darren Jones - Chief Secretary to the Treasury

At Autumn Budget, we launched the Office for Value for Money to realise benefits from every pound of public spending. We set out plans for a Covid Corruption Commissioner to recover public funds and we have cancelled the migration partnership with Rwanda.

Through Phase 1 of the Spending Review, departments were set a 2% productivity, efficiency and savings target to ensure that every pound of taxpayer money is well spent.

The next phase of the Spending Review will also have a clear focus on delivering value for money, driving efficiency and rooting out government waste.