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, if he will estimate the cost to the public purse of (a) redundancies and (b) all other costs arising from the proposed abolition of NHS England.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We recognise that there may be some short-term upfront costs as we undertake the integration of NHS England and the Department, but these costs and more will be recouped in future years because of a smaller and leaner centre. By the end of the process, we estimate that these changes will save hundreds of millions of pounds a year, which will be reinvested in frontline services.
As we work to return many of NHS England’s current functions to the Department, we will ensure that we continue to evaluate impacts of all kinds.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of endometriosis on women in the workplace.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Backed by £240m investment, the Get Britain Working White Paper launched last November will drive forward approaches to tackling economic inactivity and work toward the long-term ambition of an 80% employment rate. We announced in the recent Pathways to Work Green Paper that we would establish a new guarantee of support for all disabled people and people with health conditions claiming out of work benefits who want help to get into or return to work, backed up by £1 billion of new funding.
In addition to this work, the Secretaries of State for Work and Pensions and Business and Trade have launched the Keep Britain Working Review. This review will consider how to support and enable employers to recruit and retain more disabled people and people with health conditions; promote healthy workplaces and support more people to stay in or return to work from periods of sickness absence.
The Department for Work and Pensions and Department for Health and Social Care are committed to supporting disabled people and people with health conditions, including women with endometriosis, with their employment journey.
The Disability Confident Scheme encourages employers to create disability inclusive workplaces and to support disabled people to get work and get on in work. A digital information service for employers, (Support with Employee Health and Disability), has been developed to offer guidance on making reasonable adjustments, supporting employees to remain in work, and understanding legal requirements.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 13 March 2025 to Question 35858 on Banks: closures, whether she has had discussions with retail banks on keeping high street bank branches open since 5 July 2024.
Answered by Emma Reynolds - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Chancellor of the Exchequer meets regularly with all major banks to discuss a wide variety of topics.
Banking has changed significantly in recent years with many customers benefiting from the ease and convenience of remote banking. While branch closures are commercial decisions for banks, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) guidance expects firms to carefully consider the impact of planned branch closures on their customers’ everyday banking and cash access needs and put in place alternatives where reasonable. This seeks to ensure that branch closures are implemented in a way that treats customers fairly.
The Government understands the importance of face-to-face banking to communities and high streets across the UK, and is committed to championing sufficient access for all as a priority. This is why the Government is working closely with industry to roll out 350 banking hubs across the UK. The UK banking sector has committed to deliver these hubs by the end of this Parliament. Over 220 hubs have been announced so far, and over 140 are already open.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to her Department's news story entitled New powers for police to tackle neighbourhood crime, published on 25 February 2025, where the 13,000 new officers will be deployed by county.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government has committed to restoring neighbourhood policing through the Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee. This includes putting thousands more police personnel on the beat in neighbourhood policing roles up and down the country. Every part of the country will benefit from this pledge, including Bedfordshire.
The delivery model for 2025/26 is designed to create an initial increase to the neighbourhood policing workforce in a manner that is flexible and can be adapted to the local context and varied crime demands. As such, the 13,000 additional neighbourhood officers will be spread across England and Wales, with specific delivery profiles to be published in due course.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the Regulatory Policy Committee's press release entitled Crime and Policing Bill: late publication of Home Office impact assessments, published on 10 March, for what reason those impact assessments were not published on 25 February 2025.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government has published four Economic Notes and two Economic Impact Assessments covering measures in the Crime and Policing Bill, which can be found here: https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3938/publications.
Two further Economic Impact Assessments, relating to the duty to report child sexual abuse, and the provisions in the Bill relating to SIM farms, the power to suspend IP addresses and domain names, and criminal liability of bodies corporate and partnerships, will be published soon.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, if he will make an estimate of the potential economic impact on Bedfordshire of increased defence spending.
Answered by Maria Eagle - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
We are ensuring UK defence is on the cutting-edge of technology and innovation, with Defence spending meeting our military needs, supporting 434,000 jobs across the breadth of the UK and increasing the productive capacity of the UK economy to drive sustainable, long-term growth. The Ministry of Defence’s allocation of the 2.5% uplift will be agreed as part of the Spending Review.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of Net Neutrality Regulations in England on the rate at which new (a) 5G and (b) 5GSA infrastructure is rolled out.
Answered by Chris Bryant - Minister of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government’s ambition is for the UK to have nationwide coverage of high-quality standalone 5G in all populated areas by 2030. From 2023 onwards, operators began deploying standalone 5G in locations across all four nations and are continuing to upgrade their networks.
The Government is committed to ensuring we have the right policy and regulatory framework to support operators to achieve this ambition. This includes working with operators to understand how net neutrality rules could support operators' ability to provide innovative forms of connectivity and not act as a barrier to investment in their networks.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of the time taken for decisions on planning applications to be made on the rollout of new (a) 5G and (b) 5GSA infrastructure.
Answered by Chris Bryant - Minister of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government’s ambition is to deliver nationwide coverage of standalone 5G to all populated areas by 2030.
Most wireless infrastructure, including ground-based masts and rooftop antennas, benefit from permitted development rights. This means that mobile operators can upgrade to 5G more quickly.
In addition, the Chancellor announced £46 million investment into the planning system for 2025-2026 to support the deployment of infrastructure. The Government has also committed to appointing 300 new planning officers into local planning authorities. As part of our determination to strip away unnecessary and disproportionate regulatory burden, the government is considering whether further changes to planning regulations are required to reduce barriers to digital infrastructure deployment.
Asked by: Blake Stephenson (Conservative - Mid Bedfordshire)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 13 March 2025 to Question 36218 on Film: Business Rates, if she will make an estimate of how many film studios have a rateable value of less than £500,000.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
This data is published on gov.uk as at 31 March 2024. In the 2024 stock of properties publication, the following zip file contains counts (rounded to the nearest 10) for each special category code, including film and tv studios, broken down by rateable value band in England and Wales:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/67a2038f7da1f1ac64e5fe4e/ndr_stock_scat_la_2024.zip
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, for what reason Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust was not included in the Great British Energy Solar project.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England received an extremely positive response to this scheme, with over 300 bids (covering 140 trusts) that could potentially have been taken forward.
The Department worked closely with NHS England and our partners at Great British Energy to apply a rigorous evaluation process to this longlist. This included a thorough deliverability screening, value for money assessment, and final assurance process to ensure that all projects were focused on core estate (to ensure the expected lifetime of the building matched or exceeded that of the new assets), alongside careful verification of the funding, value for money, and delivery data provided by trusts.
Regrettably, this meant that many projects missed out despite offering significant value.