Asked by: Ian Roome (Liberal Democrat - North Devon)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if his Department, will take steps to ensure the workforce that produced the Eurofighter Typhoon is retained for future defence projects.
Answered by Maria Eagle - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
The Ministry of Defence (MOD) values the world class skills demonstrated by the Eurofighter consortium across partner nations in delivering the Typhoon aircraft. The MOD continues to invest in Typhoon to maintain the Royal Air Force's cutting edge military capability, as well as supporting our industry partners in pursuing export opportunities.
The Global Combat Air Programme, which is delivering the next generation combat air capability, is building on the Typhoon skills base. There are already over 3,500 skilled people working on the programme spread right across the UK, within the MOD and our industry partners.
Asked by: Ian Roome (Liberal Democrat - North Devon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of registration timeframes for new healthcare providers registering with the Care Quality Commission.
Answered by Andrew Gwynne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department is aware of delays experienced by new healthcare providers registering with the Care Quality Commission (CQC), and has increased its oversight of the CQC to ensure the backlog of applications that are over 10 weeks old, is reduced. The CQC is prioritising applications that increase the capacity to the health and social care system, and/or that help manage winter pressures in the National Health Service or social care.
The CQC is reviewing their IT systems to inform the changes it will need to implement to ensure the registration process is efficient.
Asked by: Ian Roome (Liberal Democrat - North Devon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the New Hospital Programme Review has been completed; and when he plans to announce the results of the review.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The review is complete, and we will publish the outcome of the review, including a new and realistic delivery schedule for the New Hospital Programme, shortly.
Asked by: Ian Roome (Liberal Democrat - North Devon)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment her Department has made of the effectiveness of AI road cameras at reducing road accidents in high risk areas.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department for Transport has not made an assessment of the effectiveness of AI road cameras at reducing road crashes in high-risk areas.
However, trials of new technology including the use of AI cameras in small scale operational activity has been carried out under the Roads Policing Review. Evidence from these is being considered.
National Highways has also worked with police forces to understand the role of technology to detect and enforce mobile phone and seatbelt violations.
Asked by: Ian Roome (Liberal Democrat - North Devon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to improve rates of persistent absence among pupils in state-funded (a) primary, (b) secondary and (c) special schools.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This government is determined to tackle the generational challenge of school absence, which is a fundamental barrier to learning and life chances. Missing school regularly is harmful to a child’s attainment, safety and physical and mental health, which limits their opportunity to succeed. There is evidence that more students are attending school this year compared to last, thanks to the efforts of families and school staff, although around 1.6 million children remain persistently absent and miss 10% or more of lessons.
Central to the department’s approach to tackling absence are stronger expectations of local authorities and schools, as set out in the ‘Working together to improve school attendance’ guidance, which was made statutory on 19 August 2024. The guidance promotes a 'support first' approach and sets out clear expectations on how schools, trusts, local authorities and wider services should work together and with families to address attendance barriers and provide the right support, including where a pupil is not attending due to special educational needs.
Every state school in England should now be sharing their daily attendance register data with the department, local authorities and trusts. These bodies can access this data through a secure, interactive dashboard which is maintained by the department, allowing them to target attendance interventions more effectively.
The department recognises the importance of creating opportunities within the sector to share existing best practice on how to improve attendance. This is why the department set up a network of 31 attendance hubs, who have offered support to 2000 primary, secondary and alternative provision schools and shared their strategies and resources for improving attendance.
In addition to this work, the department also aims to improve the existing evidence on which interventions work to improve attendance. Over £17 million is being invested across two mentoring projects that will support at least 12,000 pupils in 15 areas. These programmes will be evaluated and the effective practice will be shared with schools and local authorities nationally.
From early 2025, new Regional Improvement for Standards and Excellence (RISE) teams will support all state schools by facilitating networking, sharing best practice across areas including attendance and empowering schools to feel they can better access support and learn from one another. For schools requiring more intensive support, RISE teams and supporting organisations will work collaboratively with their responsible body to agree bespoke packages of targeted support, based on a school’s particular circumstances.
School attendance is also supported by broader investments, such as funded breakfast clubs across all primary schools to ensure children start their day ready to learn.
The department is working across government on plans to provide access to specialist mental health professionals in every school, new Young Futures hubs, access to mental health support workers and an additional 8,500 new mental health staff to treat children and adults.
Schools can also allocate pupil premium funding, which has now increased to over £2.9 billion for the 2024/25 financial year, to support pupils with identified needs to attend school regularly.
Asked by: Ian Roome (Liberal Democrat - North Devon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when the Migration Advisory Committee will conduct the next review of the Skilled Worker visa: immigration salary list.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) are currently undertaking a number of reviews. Their current review of shortages in IT and engineering occupations includes scope to consider whether the Immigration Salary List should remain in its current form. We will consider future reviews of the list once this review has been concluded.
Asked by: Ian Roome (Liberal Democrat - North Devon)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether her Department has issued guidance to (a) local authorities and (b) bus companies on the pricing of children's fares.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
At present, bus services in England outside London are predominantly run on a commercial basis by private operators, and the level at which bus operators set their fares is a commercial decision.
The government is committed to delivering better bus services for passengers, including making them more reliable and affordable, because we know how important this is for communities. The Department for Transport has issued to guidance to local transport authorities and bus operators to support the development of local Bus Service Improvement Plans (BSIPs). This makes clear that fares policy should be an integral part of BSIPs, and that they should set out ambitions and proposals for extending youth fares for younger people.
Asked by: Ian Roome (Liberal Democrat - North Devon)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what financial support her Department has given the Rugby Football Union to support the Women's Rugby World Cup in 2025.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
To date, DCMS has invested £20.65 million in the 2025 Women’s Rugby World Cup. This includes £12.13 million of funding towards the tournament's legacy and impact programme, ‘Impact 25’. This is supporting women's and girls' clubs across the country as part of the Rugby Football Union’s ambition to widen female participation in England. This is part of our strategic approach to ensuring we maximise the socio-economic benefits of major sporting events.
In addition, the Governments arm’s length body for grassroots sport, Sport England, has awarded the Rugby Football Union £13.8 million for the period 2022-27, as one of their long-term system partners who have responsibility to support grassroots rugby union.
Asked by: Ian Roome (Liberal Democrat - North Devon)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the ability of the carbon intensity calculations used by his Department to take into account the recent increase in the volume of liquified natural gas imported from the USA.
Answered by Michael Shanks - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The UK follows the agreed international approach for setting targets, and reporting greenhouse gas emissions, which is for countries to report the emissions produced within their territories.
However, consumption-based emissions, which factor in overseas emissions associated with imports, are reported by Defra (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uks-carbon-footprint ) and considered in policy making where relevant and material.
DESNZ also publish conversion factors for company reporting which include well-to-tank emissions factors for LNG (https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/government-conversion-factors-for-company-reporting). The latest published factors are based on 2022 data but the values are updated annually, allowing for changes in the sources of imported gas, particularly LNG, to be reflected.
Asked by: Ian Roome (Liberal Democrat - North Devon)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps his Department is taking with the Joint Civil Aid Corps (JCAC) to help improve the resiliency of the UK's civil defence.
Answered by Luke Pollard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
The Ministry of Defence engages with other Government Departments and civil authorities in the event that military aid is sought by them to respond to disruptive challenges to national resilience. Under the Military Aid to the Civil Authorities (MACA) process, mutual aid and commercial alternatives must have been exhausted before requesting military support. Such engagement with voluntary groups is the responsibility of the requesting organisation.