Asked by: Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru - Ceredigion Preseli)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps her Department is taking to improve recruitment of HGV drivers.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
To improve working conditions for HGV drivers, the Department and industry are jointly investing up to £43.5 million to upgrade truckstops across England. This is on top of up to £26 million joint investment by National Highways and industry in lorry parking facilities along the strategic roads network. This funding is supporting operators across 30 counties in England to improve security, showers and refreshment facilities and increase lorry parking spaces.
In addition, the Department has been working with the insurance and road haulage trade associations to raise awareness of fleet insurance policies that can provide cover for newly qualified drivers without higher premiums.
To support drivers in returning to the sector, the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency has introduced more flexible Driver Certificate of Professional Competence (CPC) requirements for those driving in the UK. The requirement removes the need to complete 35 hours of training prior to a return to driving and replaces it with a 7-hour ‘return to driving’ training module, and a requirement to complete the 28 hours of other CPC training within 12 months.
The Department for Transport is also a strong supporter of the Generation Logistics campaign. Led by the industry, this initiative aims to raise awareness and enhance perceptions of careers in logistics, particularly among young people and underrepresented groups.
Asked by: Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru - Ceredigion Preseli)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps her Department is taking to improve truck stop facilities for HGV drivers.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department and industry are jointly investing up to £43.5 million to upgrade truckstops across England. This is on top of up to £26 million joint investment by National Highways and industry in lorry parking facilities along the strategic roads network.
This investment is supporting operators across 30 counties in England to improve security, toilets, showers and refreshment facilities and increase lorry parking spaces.
Asked by: Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru - Ceredigion Preseli)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what plans her Department has to support the Welsh road freight industry.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
At Autumn Budget 2024, the Government announced continued support for people and businesses, by extending the temporary 5p fuel duty cut and cancelling the planned inflation increase for 2025-26. This maintains fuel duty rates at the levels set on 23 March 2022 for an additional 12 months, and represents a saving for drivers next year of overall around £3 billion. Vans will see an average saving of £126 and heavy goods vehicles will see an average saving of nearly £1,100.
The Chancellor makes decisions on tax policy at fiscal events in the context of public finances.
It is for the Welsh Government to allocate funding in devolved policy areas, including to support the Welsh road freight industry; they are accountable to the Senedd for those decisions. The Welsh Government will receive funding through the Barnett formula for any changes to UK Government department budgets in the usual way. This is the normal operation of the funding arrangements as set out in the Statement of Funding Policy.
Asked by: Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru - Ceredigion Preseli)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether her Department plans to extend full expensing to leased vehicles to support the road haulage industry in Wales.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The UK has one of the most generous and competitive capital allowances regimes in the world and is the only major economy with permanent full expensing.
The government recognises the case to extend full expensing to leasing and will explore making this change when fiscal conditions allow.
Asked by: Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru - Ceredigion Preseli)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if she will make a comparative assessment of the potential impact of (a) external lottery managers, (b) bookmakers and (c) other gambling providers on the (i) forms and (ii) levels of gambling harms.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Gambling Survey for Great Britain (GSGB) collects data from its respondents on the gambling activities they participate in and the types of consequences they experience. Rates of gambling harm, measured by the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI), are reported by type of gambling activity (such as lotteries or betting), rather than by supplier (such as external lottery manager or bookmaker).
The PGSI nonetheless captures a range of harms experienced among those who gamble. The GSGB 2023 annual report found that 4.7% of respondents who had participated in society lotteries had a PGSI score of 8+ (representing ‘problem gambling’ by which a person will have experienced adverse consequences from gambling and may have lost control of their behaviour.) This captures society lotteries run by charities themselves and through external lottery managers. The equivalent rate for other gambling providers varies significantly, from 4.2% to 41.2%.
Asked by: Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru - Ceredigion Preseli)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of (a) Paying Parents and (b) Receiving Parents using the Child Maintenance Service disclosed domestic abuse in 2023-24.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Child Maintenance Service (CMS) did not capture the data requested on proportion of (a) Paying Parents and (b) Receiving Parents using the Child Maintenance Service who disclosed domestic abuse in 2023-24. Therefore, this information is not readily available to provide. To extract this data would involve the manual review of all CMS cases, at a significant cost to the department and taxpayer.
The Department is assessing how it can provide statistics on domestic abuse now the application fee exemption statistics are no longer published. The Department's Chief Statistician will oversee the development of these statistics to make sure they meet the Code of Practice for Statistics.
Asked by: Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru - Ceredigion Preseli)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of child maintenance service cases are being dealt with by the specialist domestic abuse caseworker team.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Child Maintenance Service takes the issue of domestic abuse extremely seriously and is committed to ensuring victims of abuse get the help and support they need to access and use the service safely and securely.
CMS caseworkers are provided with domestic abuse training to ensure they understand, recognise and respond safely and appropriately to customers who are experiencing domestic abuse, or are survivors of domestic abuse. In July 2024, the training was updated with input from external stakeholders, and covers different types of abuse, including economic, post-separation, coercive and controlling behaviour.
Specialist Case Team is one of the measures CMS have introduced to manage cases with the most challenging or complex domestic abuse concerns. This has minimised the need for parents to recount their history of domestic abuse and caseworkers to deliver support to some of the most vulnerable customers.
As of February 2025, the volume of cases in the Specialist Case Team was 301, this equates to 0.04% of CMS total customer caseload.
Asked by: Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru - Ceredigion Preseli)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many inquests were launched in Ceredigion in each of the past ten years.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The requested information is set out in the table below or can be extrapolated from the data published at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/coroners-statistics-2023.
Year | Number of inquests opened | Number of inquests concluded within 6 months | Average length of inquest process (in weeks) | |||
| Ceredigion | Carmarthenshire & Pembrokeshire* | Ceredigion | Carmarthenshire & Pembrokeshire* | Ceredigion | Carmarthenshire & Pembrokeshire* |
2023 | 12 | 170 | 4 | 102 | 14 | 34 |
2022 | 22 | 210 | 6 | 106 | 35 | 30 |
2021 | 15 | 143 | 8 | 18 | 38 | 22 |
2020 | 32 | 126 | 7 | 27 | 36 | 32 |
2019 | 32 | 145 | 21 | 106 | 23 | 28 |
2018 | 41 | 147 | 18 | 127 |
|
|
2017 | 28 | 161 | 21 | 148 |
|
|
2016 | 33 | 221 | 36 | 221 |
|
|
2015 | 37 | 226 | 37 | 204 |
|
|
2014 | 19 | 109 | 9 | 70 |
|
|
* The Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire coroner area includes both the Carmarthenshire County Council and Pembrokeshire County Council areas, and it is not possible to provide information for Pembrokeshire only.
Asked by: Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru - Ceredigion Preseli)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the average time taken was for an inquest to be concluded in Pembrokeshire in each of the last five years.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The requested information is set out in the table below or can be extrapolated from the data published at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/coroners-statistics-2023.
Year | Number of inquests opened | Number of inquests concluded within 6 months | Average length of inquest process (in weeks) | |||
| Ceredigion | Carmarthenshire & Pembrokeshire* | Ceredigion | Carmarthenshire & Pembrokeshire* | Ceredigion | Carmarthenshire & Pembrokeshire* |
2023 | 12 | 170 | 4 | 102 | 14 | 34 |
2022 | 22 | 210 | 6 | 106 | 35 | 30 |
2021 | 15 | 143 | 8 | 18 | 38 | 22 |
2020 | 32 | 126 | 7 | 27 | 36 | 32 |
2019 | 32 | 145 | 21 | 106 | 23 | 28 |
2018 | 41 | 147 | 18 | 127 |
|
|
2017 | 28 | 161 | 21 | 148 |
|
|
2016 | 33 | 221 | 36 | 221 |
|
|
2015 | 37 | 226 | 37 | 204 |
|
|
2014 | 19 | 109 | 9 | 70 |
|
|
* The Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire coroner area includes both the Carmarthenshire County Council and Pembrokeshire County Council areas, and it is not possible to provide information for Pembrokeshire only.
Asked by: Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru - Ceredigion Preseli)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, of the inquests launched in Pembrokeshire in each of the past ten years, how many were concluded within 6 months.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The requested information is set out in the table below or can be extrapolated from the data published at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/coroners-statistics-2023.
Year | Number of inquests opened | Number of inquests concluded within 6 months | Average length of inquest process (in weeks) | |||
| Ceredigion | Carmarthenshire & Pembrokeshire* | Ceredigion | Carmarthenshire & Pembrokeshire* | Ceredigion | Carmarthenshire & Pembrokeshire* |
2023 | 12 | 170 | 4 | 102 | 14 | 34 |
2022 | 22 | 210 | 6 | 106 | 35 | 30 |
2021 | 15 | 143 | 8 | 18 | 38 | 22 |
2020 | 32 | 126 | 7 | 27 | 36 | 32 |
2019 | 32 | 145 | 21 | 106 | 23 | 28 |
2018 | 41 | 147 | 18 | 127 |
|
|
2017 | 28 | 161 | 21 | 148 |
|
|
2016 | 33 | 221 | 36 | 221 |
|
|
2015 | 37 | 226 | 37 | 204 |
|
|
2014 | 19 | 109 | 9 | 70 |
|
|
* The Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire coroner area includes both the Carmarthenshire County Council and Pembrokeshire County Council areas, and it is not possible to provide information for Pembrokeshire only.