Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department plans to take to help ensure that school food standards contribute to reducing childhood obesity levels.

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

To ensure quality and nutrition in meals for children, the department is acting quickly with experts across the sector to revise the School Food Standards, so every school is supported with the latest nutrition guidance and the Standards support strategies around health.

The department is looking at the impact of the School Food Standards on obesity levels amongst children. More widely, the National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP) provides robust school age health and inequalities data to assess and monitor the impact of polices and plan services at a local level. NCMP data on child obesity prevalence in Blackpool is not available at Parliamentary Constituency level but is available at the local authority level.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of school food standards on obesity levels among children in Blackpool South constituency.

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

To ensure quality and nutrition in meals for children, the department is acting quickly with experts across the sector to revise the School Food Standards, so every school is supported with the latest nutrition guidance and the Standards support strategies around health.

The department is looking at the impact of the School Food Standards on obesity levels amongst children. More widely, the National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP) provides robust school age health and inequalities data to assess and monitor the impact of polices and plan services at a local level. NCMP data on child obesity prevalence in Blackpool is not available at Parliamentary Constituency level but is available at the local authority level.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many visitors accessed the Environment Agency’s Swimfo bathing water quality information platform in each of the last three years; and what assessment his Department has made of trends in the level of public engagement with that service.

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

The Environment Agency (EA) has provided the following figures for use of their Swimfo website in the previous three calendar years.

There has been a significant increase in the public’s engagement with the EA’s Swimfo website over the last three years, totalling almost 2.9 million views over that period. In 2022, there were 402,624 views from 93,920 users. In 2023, the website was viewed 830,637 times by 193,243 users. In 2024 these figures increased to 1,635,221 views with 308,567 users. These figures were collected from users who allow cookies, which indicates that usage is expected to be significantly higher than the numbers suggest. The Environment Agency has begun a programme of work to redevelop the Swimfo website over the next few years to improve the provision of information to the public.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many bathing waters were classified as poor in each of the last ten years, and what estimate his Department has made of the potential impact on domestic tourism trends.

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

The following table shows the number of bathing waters classified as poor over the previous 10 years.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department plans to collaborate with (a) VisitBritain, (b) local authorities and (c) tourism boards to measure the impact of water quality on destination attractiveness.

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

This Government has reset the water sector; we are stopping the sewage scandal and transforming the water industry from one of decline to one of opportunity. The Government has frequent discussions with a wide variety of stakeholders on its policies. For example, various Local Authorities and local tourist office responded to the consultation process for the Reform of the Bathing Waters Regulations 2013. Our bathing waters bring important social and health benefits to the local communities surrounding them, and help coastal towns prosper by attracting tourists from across the UK and the world.

Government policy on the Hillsborough Law

Found: Colum Eastwood, Emma Foody, Louise Haigh, Sally Jameson, Joe Morris, Sarah Owen, Laurence Turner, Chris Webb

Found: Richard Burgon Olivia Blake Dr Scott Arthur Lorraine Beavers Sorcha Eastwood Abtisam Mohamed Chris Webb

Found: Richard Burgon Olivia Blake Dr Scott Arthur Lorraine Beavers Sorcha Eastwood Abtisam Mohamed Chris Webb

Found: Richard Burgon Olivia Blake Dr Scott Arthur Lorraine Beavers Sorcha Eastwood Abtisam Mohamed Chris Webb

Found: Rachael Maskell Imran Hussain Richard Burgon Olivia Blake Dr Scott Arthur Lorraine Beavers Chris Webb

Found: Rachael Maskell Imran Hussain Richard Burgon Olivia Blake Dr Scott Arthur Lorraine Beavers Chris Webb

Found: Green Josh Babarinde Will Stone Marie Goldman Victoria Collins Steve Race Warinder Juss Chris Webb