Asked by: David Taylor (Labour - Hemel Hempstead)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if she will make an assessment of the adequacy of (a) signalling safety, (b) service reliability and (c) maintenance on the West Coast Mainline.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Government is clear that performance on the West Coast Main Line has not been good enough with too many cancellations and delays.
Ministers recently met with the Managing Director of Avanti West Coast and the Network Rail West Coast South Route Director to challenge them on poor performance and demand immediate action to deliver urgent improvements relating to service reliability. Ministers will be meeting them again next month to follow-up and to ensure progress.
In their capacity as the independent safety regulator, the Office of Rail and Road has not raised any concerns regarding signalling safety on the West Coast Mainline.
Asked by: David Taylor (Labour - Hemel Hempstead)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make an estimate of the number of sewage discharges into watercourses there have been in Hemel Hempstead constituency in the last 12 months.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Secretary of State recently met with water company bosses, including Thames Water, to make it clear that water firms will be held accountable for their performance for customers and the environment. Furthermore, after writing to Ofwat, the Secretary of State has secured agreement that funding for vital infrastructure investment is ringfenced and can only be spent on upgrades benefiting customers and the environment. Ofwat will also ensure that when money for investment is not spent, companies refund customers, with money never allowed to be diverted for bonuses, dividends or salary increases.
The Government also announced a new Water (Special Measures) Bill, which will turn around the performance of water companies, in the King’s Speech. The Bill will strengthen regulation, give the water regulator new powers to ban the payment of bonuses if environmental standards are not met and increase accountability for water executives. These are the first critical steps in enabling a long-term and transformative reset of the entire water sector.
I would also refer the hon. Member to the Written Statement made by the Secretary of State on 18 July, HCWS3.
The Environment Agency will publish the 2024 Event Duration Monitoring data, showing how long and how often storm overflows have been used, in March 2025. The data for previous years is available here.
Asked by: David Taylor (Labour - Hemel Hempstead)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs on reducing the use of Official Development Assistance on asylum accommodation.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government will update the House in due course on the UK’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) spending, including ODA-eligible spending to support asylum seekers and refugees within the UK.
Asked by: David Taylor (Labour - Hemel Hempstead)
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 adequacy of the provision of secondary care for residents in Hemel Hempstead constituency.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
No specific assessment has been made. The appropriate provision and configuration of local services to best meet the needs of the local population and patients is a matter for National Health Service commissioners to consider.
The Government has been clear that NHS services are currently not meeting the high standards that patients should expect, and is committed to supporting the NHS to return to the standards set out in the NHS Constitution.
As a first step, my Rt hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has appointed the Professor Lord Darzi to lead an independent investigation of NHS performance, which will report in September 2024.
Asked by: David Taylor (Labour - Hemel Hempstead)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what assessment he has made of the potential implications for asylum accommodation policy of using the overseas development budget to help fund asylum accommodation.
Answered by Anneliese Dodds - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The growth of asylum accommodation spending has led to difficult cuts to other UK aid programmes. This Government is committed to rebuilding Britain’s reputation on international development. The Home Secretary is committed to bringing order to the asylum system and has taken steps to unblock the backlog of claims, which will help reduce costs.