Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people in (a) Milton Keynes and (b) Buckinghamshire are eligible for free NHS prescriptions under the low-income scheme.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The information requested is not held. Eligibility for the NHS Low Income Scheme and the amount of help an individual can get depends on their weekly income and necessary outgoings, plus any savings or investments they have at the time of application. Given this, it is not possible to know the total number of people eligible for the scheme at any given time.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many of the 3,000 farming businesses that started but did not submit applications to the Sustainable Farming Incentive 2024 scheme after 12 January 2025 are based in Buckinghamshire.

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

There are 34 farming businesses in Buckinghamshire that started but did not submit an application to the Sustainable Farming Incentive 2024 scheme after 12 January 2025.

Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, how many companies in the scale-up category have accessed British Business Bank-backed debt finance in the last 24 months.

Answered by Gareth Thomas - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)

The British Business Bank publishes performance data on the Growth Guarantee Scheme (GGS) on a quarterly basis. Up to 31 December 2024, GGS has been utilised by accredited lenders to enable 13,447 scheme facilities, totalling £2.11 billion. The data is broken down by facility status, lender, nation and region, sector, facility type and size, company size, turnover and age of business, but does not define facilities by scale-up category.

Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what estimate his Department has made of the proportion of SMEs in (a) Buckinghamshire and (b) Milton Keynes that have secured angel investment in the last 24 months.

Answered by Gareth Thomas - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)

Business angels are a significant source of equity investment for start-up and early-stage businesses. Angel investments are typically private arrangements and therefore there is no requirement for them to be publicly reported.

The British Business Bank supports angel investment through its Regional Angels Programme, which helps reduce regional imbalances in access to early-stage equity finance for smaller businesses across the UK. As at March 2024 the Regional Angels Programme has committed £219m and supported 593 businesses.

In late June the British Business Bank will publish its annual Small Business Equity Tracker 2025. The report will include an analysis of the UK Business Angel Market and will also provide detail on equity deals in the South East region.

Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, how many SMEs located in (a) Buckinghamshire and (b) Milton Keynes in receipt of British Business Bank support in the last 12 months also sought finance from high street banks.

Answered by Gareth Thomas - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)

The Department for Business and Trade does not hold data relating to businesses also seeking finance from high street banks.

Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what data his Department holds on the proportion of British Business Bank-backed loans which include personal guarantee requirements from borrowers.

Answered by Gareth Thomas - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)

The British Business Bank utilises accredited delivery partners to deliver its schemes. Under the Growth Guarantee Scheme (formerly the Recovery Loan Scheme), delivery partners are required to apply personal guarantees where they would in the course of their normal commercial lending. Under GGS and RLS 3, approximately 70% of facilities have been recorded by the lender as having a personal guarantee attached.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many live Sustainable Farming Incentive agreements were in place in Buckinghamshire as of 11 March 2025.

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

As of 11 March 2025, there are 323 farmers who have accepted a Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) agreement (SFI Pilot, SFI 23 and SFI EO) in Buckinghamshire.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many community pharmacies provide Pharmacy Contraception Services as of May 2025 in Buckingham and Bletchley constituency.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The most recent available data from January 2025 showed that there were 15 community pharmacies providing services in Buckingham and Bletchley. The contraception service is an additional service that contractors can choose to provide. The latest full set of data available shows that claims were submitted by 5,399 pharmacies for delivering this service, including five in Buckingham and Bletchley.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate her Department has made of the number of early years providers in England that may increase their capacity through the use of free flow outdoor space under the proposed changes to the early years foundation stage statutory framework.

Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

The expansion of funded childcare is continuing to support families. The department is exploring new ways to help providers offer more high-quality childcare places for working families, which includes access to outdoor space. Therefore, the department has launched a consultation on whether to introduce flexibility into the early years foundation stage (EYFS) statutory framework that will allow free-flow outdoor space to be included in the indoor space requirements, with a possible cap on the number of additional places that can be offered. The consultation can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/space-requirements-in-early-years-childcare-settings-in-england. The EYFS framework can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-years-foundation-stage-framework--2.

The department’s ‘Pulse surveys of childcare and early years providers’, which were published April 2024, found strong support for these proposals with the majority of providers, with 70 per cent (7 in 10), saying they would be likely to use these flexibilities. The survey results can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pulse-surveys-of-childcare-and-early-years-providers. The results of the consultation, and the department’s response, are expected to be published in autumn 2025.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what data her Department holds on the proportion of five-year-olds in (a) Milton Keynes and (b) Buckinghamshire who met a good level of development in the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile in the most recent year for which figures are available.

Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

Information on the proportion of five year-olds who have a good level of development by local authority is published annually in the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile results statistics release. The release is available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/early-years-foundation-stage-profile-results/2023-24.

The proportion of five year-olds in Milton Keynes and Buckinghamshire who had a good level of development in the latest academic year, 2023/24, can be accessed at the following link: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/c7642b61-084e-46e3-a412-08dd8e33d0bf.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of prescription items dispensed in (a) Milton Keynes and (b) Buckinghamshire were exempt from charges for each of the last three years.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The information requested has been provided by the NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA). It has not been possible to collate data for the Milton Keynes and Buckinghamshire area alone as this would require the NHSBSA to hold postcodes for all addresses in this area, however we do hold data for the two National Health Service integrated care boards (ICBs) which cover the Milton Keynes and Buckinghamshire area, namely the NHS Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes ICB and the NHS Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West ICB. Therefore, the following table shows the percentage of prescription items for which the patient held a prescription pre-payment certificate or did not pay a charge because the item was covered by an existing exemption that were dispensed for the NHS Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes ICB, for 2022, 2023, and 2024:

In addition, the following table shows the percentage of prescription items for which the patient held a prescription pre-payment certificate or did not pay a charge because the item was covered by an existing exemption that were dispensed for the NHS Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West ICB, for 2022, 2023, and 2024:

To note, prescriptions purchased using a prescription pre-payment certificate are recorded as exempt at the point of dispensing by the NHSBSA. Given this, prescription pre-payment certificate dispensing data is included in the above data set.

Found: Campbell Dame Siobhain McDonagh Kenneth Stevenson Maya Ellis Jack Rankin Richard Baker Callum Anderson

Found: Campbell Dame Siobhain McDonagh Kenneth Stevenson Maya Ellis Jack Rankin Richard Baker Callum Anderson

Found: Campbell Dame Siobhain McDonagh Kenneth Stevenson Maya Ellis Jack Rankin Richard Baker Callum Anderson

Found: Campbell Dame Siobhain McDonagh Kenneth Stevenson Maya Ellis Jack Rankin Richard Baker Callum Anderson

Found: Campbell Dame Siobhain McDonagh Kenneth Stevenson Maya Ellis Jack Rankin Richard Baker Callum Anderson

Found: Lords Amendments WEDNESDAY 14 MAY 2025 Members present: Sir Chris Bryant, in the Chair Callum Anderson