Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of the Aggregates levy on the marine environment.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
Aggregates Levy is an environmental tax which aims to encourage the more efficient extraction and use of all aggregates. There are no current plans to undertake a specific assessment of its impact on the marine environment, but the government keeps all taxes under review.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to her Department's press release entitled No child left behind in plans to narrow the digital divide in education, published on 21 March 2025, whether schools in areas without full fibre broadband will receive funding.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The government is investing £45 million to boost school infrastructure, including £20 million to upgrade fibre connections to a further 343 schools this year in areas without full fibre broadband, helping get schools online and boosting standards where it is most needed. This is the latest phase of funding for the programme that has so far improved connectivity for more than 1,000 schools.
The department is going further, having launched a consultation to gather views on a long-term ambition for all schools and colleges to meet six core digital standards by 2030, which cover the foundations of good tech ensuring essential technology infrastructure and connectivity, digital security and leadership.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to her Department's publication entitled Employer National Insurance Contributions Grant – Explanatory Note, published on 3 February 2025, which councils were invited to submit their estimates of 2023-24 expenditure.
Answered by Jim McMahon - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
When determining allocations for the 2024-25 Employer National Insurance Contributions grant, government lacked the relevant, published Revenue Outturn (RO) data for a small number of councils, and we have therefore used councils’ self-submitted expenditure data for 2023-24 where there were gaps. The relevant list of councils with published RO data for 2023-24 is available here.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the average cost to a school of providing a meal to a child eligible for Universal Infant Free School Meals.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
All pupils in reception, year 1 and year 2 in England’s state-funded schools are entitled to universal infant free school meals. The department spends approximately £600 million per year ensuring that around 1.3 million infant pupils receive a nutritious lunchtime meal.
Funding is not ring-fenced, meaning that schools have autonomy over delivery, including entering into contracts with suppliers and allocation of funding within their budgets. The department continues to work closely with the school food industry to monitor sector challenges.
As with all government programmes, including universal infant free school meals, we will keep our approach under continued review.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how schools in Bedfordshire can apply to the Great British Energy Solar project.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department and Great British Energy have launched an £80 million partnership to provide rooftop solar panels across 200 schools and colleges.
This investment will cut school energy bills, support our transition to clean energy and create new opportunities for students.
The project demonstrates our commitment to making Britain a clean energy superpower while supporting educational excellence.
With 200 projects in this first year of the programme, the department is not proposing a bidding round to select schools and colleges. Each of the nine government office regions in England will have a minimum of ten schools and there will be larger clusters of schools in the North West, North East and West Midlands in areas of deprivation.
Each cluster will include a further education college, which will also work with the contractors appointed to promote careers in renewables and construction to students and support growth in the workforce.
Once the delivery partners are appointed, they will work through a long list, the department has devised, of possible schools based on criteria including deprivation, roof condition and location to produce the final list of projects. The delivery partners will visit the schools and colleges and survey the site before final decisions are made on which to include.
The programme has been designed so that it could be scaled up in the future. Any funding for future years, however, will be decided as part of the multi-year spending review.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether she will take steps to amend Gift Aid regulations to allow charitable (a) zoos and (b) aquariums to claim on the price of admission.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government recognises the important work the charity sector does in the UK, which is why we currently provide tax reliefs to charities and their donors worth over £6 billion per year, including over £1.6 billion in Gift Aid.
Gift Aid is intended to be claimed only on freely given donations rather than on payments for goods or services such as admission fees. This is why charitable zoos or aquariums may not claim gift aid on the price of a single admission. However, they can claim gift aid on donations that go beyond the 'goods and services' element of a single admission and are given freely to support the charity's purpose. Such charities may claim Gift Aid on the sale of a ticket where either: the ticket gives the buyer access to view charity property (which by definition includes plants and animals) for a full year; or the buyer pays a freely given 10% Gift Aid ‘premium’ on top of the standard admission price.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 20 March 2025 to Question 37781 on Voting Rights: Young People, whether her Department plans to instruct the Boundary Commissions to perform an early boundary review of Parliamentary Constituencies to ensure electoral equality at the General Election 2029 with the addition of voters aged 16 and 17.
Answered by Rushanara Ali - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Government has no plans to amend the timing of the next Parliamentary Boundary Review.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of Level 7 Apprenticeships on social mobility.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The government is committed to spreading opportunities and economic growth supported by a strong skills system.
This government has an extremely challenging fiscal inheritance. There are tough choices that need to be taken on how funding should be prioritised in order to generate opportunities for young people that enable them to make a start in good, fulfilling careers, and the department will therefore be asking more employers to step forward and fund a significant number of level 7 apprenticeships themselves outside of the levy-funded growth and skills offer.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
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 provisions outlined in his Department's press release entitled Crack teams get patients off waiting lists at twice the speed, published on 16 March 2025, on people in Bedfordshire.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to putting patients first, and we have wasted no time in getting to work cutting National Health Service waiting lists and ensuring people have the best possible experience during their care.
Further Faster 20 (FF20) is a scheme to tackle waiting lists through targeted support to improve and streamline pathways for patients at 20 trusts in areas with high levels of economic inactivity. The latest data from October 2024 to January 2025 shows that waiting lists in areas with an FF20 trust have, on average, been reduced at more than double the rate of the rest of the country, falling 130% faster in areas where the Government’s scheme is in action, compared to the national average. A total of 37,000 cases have been removed from waiting lists in those 20 areas, averaging almost 2,000 patients per local trust. Following the success of the programme, the Government has confirmed that this initiative will be rolled out to additional providers this year, to boost NHS productivity and cut waiting times.
The Bedfordshire Hospital NHS Foundation Trust was not one of the 20 trusts targeted through the FF20 scheme, though the trust may access the resources of the wider Further Faster programme, which was rolled out to all trusts in March 2024.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, pursuant to the Answer of 20 March 2025 to Question 35851 on Stellantis: Luton, if he will publish details of the package of measures to support all workers facing redundancy.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The full package of support for workers facing redundancy was agreed directly between Stellantis and Unite the Union as the recognised trade union; as such Government cannot publish these details as it was not party to the negotiations.
In addition to the support being provided by Stellantis, Government is ensuring workers are fully aware of the options available to them, including through the Jobcentre Plus Rapid Response Service – further information on this service is available here:
https://www.gov.uk/redundancy-your-rights/get-help-finding-a-new-job