Joe Morris

The Supply of Machinery (Safety) Regulations 2008 set out the essential requirements that must be met before a machinery product is placed on the UK market, in order to protect users of that machinery from any undue harm. This includes agricultural vehicles in scope.

As part of those existing requirements, machinery must be designed and constructed in such a way as to avoid any risk of fire or overheating posed by the machinery itself or by gases, liquids, dust, vapours or other substances produced or used by the machinery.

Small businesses are the beating heart of our high streets, our communities, and essential to our economic success. This Government will hardwire the voice of small business into everything we do.

Businesses can access support through their local Growth Hubs, which provide businesses of all sizes and sectors with advice and support throughout the business journey. Growth hubs shape their offer around the unique needs, whether town or country.

The Government provides further support for small businesses through Business Support Service, Help to Grow, the UK Export Academy, International Trade Advisors, the Export Support Service, and the British Business Bank.

The Government is working cohesively to address carbon leakage risk across international and domestic actions.

The UK’s current main measure to address carbon leakage is free allocation under the UK Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), which is under review by the UK ETS Authority. The government is additionally introducing a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism on 1 January 2027, developing voluntary product standards and an embodied emissions reporting framework, and working to address carbon leakage risk internationally through existing fora such as the Climate Club and World Trade Organisation.

The Government publishes estimates of the sequestration of carbon in the Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry sector for a range of sector categories as part of its annual UK territorial greenhouse gas emissions statistics.

The Secretary of State has received letters and emails from members of the public and Members of Parliament on the collapse of BetIndex Ltd, the operator of the novel gambling product Football Index. The collapse had a significant impact on former customers, and we recognise that many people were affected, and that for some people financial losses were significant. The previous Government commissioned an Independent Review in June 2021, conducted by Malcom Sheehan KC and which reported in September 2021. The review looked at how the company had been regulated, and identified areas for improvement for the Financial Conduct Authority and the Gambling Commission. All recommendations of the report have since been implemented.

The government has set an ambitious target to halve violence against women and girls in a decade. To achieve this, we plan to reduce the current levels of offending and reoffending and prevent abuse from happening altogether.

This focus on prevention also sits at the heart of the Young Futures programme, which will establish a network of Young Futures Hubs and Young Futures prevention partnerships.

Young Futures Hubs will be set up across the country, bringing together services to improve access to opportunities and support for young people at community level, promoting positive outcomes and enabling young people to thrive.

Young Futures Prevention Partnerships will bring local partners together to intervene earlier to ensure that vulnerable children at-risk of being drawn into a variety of crime types (including anti-social behaviour, knife crime and violence against women and girls) are identified and offered support in a more systematic way.

Officials from across government, including my department, the Home Office, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Department for Health and Social Care and the Ministry of Justice are working together using their various bodies of evidence of what works to shape Young Futures Hubs.

The department publishes the number of pupils in primary schools who are eligible for free school meals (FSM). The most recent figures, including regional level data, can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-pupils-and-their-characteristics.

Parliamentary constituencies are based on their boundaries at the time of the January school census each year, therefore, the 2024 Parliamentary boundaries do not reflect the changes made in the summer of 2024.

​Where statistics were published prior to the changes in Parliamentary constituency boundaries, they will be updated to reflect the new boundaries in the next publication of statistics. This is expected to be in June 2025 for the ‘Schools, pupils and their characteristics’ publication.

FSM data is published at school level. This can be combined with information from ‘Get Information About Schools’ (GIAS) to identify parliamentary constituency. GIAS currently reflects the changes made following the general election Parliamentary constituency changes. Updates to geographical data are made on a quarterly basis using data published by the Office for National Statistics.

The requested information is not held centrally.

The department collects information on children who are electively home educated (EHE) from local authorities on a voluntary basis. The latest figures can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/elective-home-education.

The department also collects data on children missing education (CME) from local authorities on a voluntary basis. These are children of compulsory school age not registered at school or otherwise receiving suitable education. The latest figures can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/children-missing-education.

Information on the number of children in EHE in Northumberland between 2021/22 and 2022/23 is available in the following table: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/d158d673-76e2-4aab-a0f2-08dcfae39e23. Information on the number of CME in Northumberland between 2021/22 and 2022/23 is available in the following table: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/d86675e8-9537-4727-a0ed-08dcfae39e23. As data was collected from local authorities for the first time in autumn 2022, information is not held for prior time periods. Additionally, EHE and CME data is not available at council ward level.

In autumn 2023/24, 15% of all EHE children had an additional requirement of special educational needs (SEN) support and 8% of all CME had an additional requirement of SEN support. This compares with 13% for the overall school population in January 2023.

The Children’s Wellbeing Bill will legislate for local authority registers of children not in school. This will include a duty on parents to provide the necessary information for these registers if their child is eligible. These proposals are intended to help local authorities identify all children not in school in their areas, including those that may require SEN support, so they can ensure children are receiving a safe and suitable education.

Our ambitious food strategy will set and deliver clear long-term outcomes that create a healthier, fairer, and more resilient food system, and in doing so will consider elements of the food system that can contribute towards those outcomes.

Mandatory biodiversity net gain is an important means of ensuring development makes a net positive contribution to nature. It is in the early stages of implementation. The policy has been designed to achieve long-term benefits for biodiversity, with major biodiversity gains secured by legal contract for a minimum of 30 years. Because biodiversity net gain applies as a ‘post-permission requirement’, we are only now seeing the first permissions granted with the mandatory biodiversity gain condition.

Defra officials are monitoring the implementation of mandatory biodiversity net gain closely and regularly meet with local planning authorities, developers, and the land management sector, to ensure biodiversity net gain works effectively and proportionally.

Our ambitious food strategy will set and deliver clear long-term outcomes that create a healthier, fairer, and more resilient food system, and in doing so will consider elements of the food system that can contribute towards those outcomes.

The Government continues to have an ambition for half of all food supplied into the public sector to be sourced locally or certified to higher environmental standards, whilst being in line with WTO and domestic procurement obligations. Defra continues to engage across Government Departments to develop proposals which support this ambition, as well as driving net zero, public health and animal welfare outcomes.

The Government’s commitment to British farmers, including family farms, remains steadfast. We will always champion British farming to boost rural economic growth, strengthen food security and improve the environment.

Defra’s farming budget will be £2.4 billion in 2025/26. This will include the largest ever budget directed at sustainable food production and nature’s recovery in our country’s history: £1.8bn for environmental land management schemes. This funding will deliver improvements to food security, biodiversity, carbon emissions, water quality, air quality and flood resilience.

Additionally, across England, we will invest £2.4 billion over the next two years to improve flood resilience, by maintaining, repairing and building flood defences. We are prioritising investment in repairing and restoring critical assets, including investing an additional £36 million into maintaining key strategic assets in 2024-25 and £72 million in 2025-26.

All this funding enables us to keep momentum on the path to a more resilient and sustainable farming sector. We will work with the sector to continue to roll out, improve and evolve these schemes, to make them work for farming and nature.

Data on road injury collisions are reported by police using the STATS19 system. The number of personal injury road collisions in each of the areas requested in 2023 are shown in the table below.

The number of collisions by ward is not routinely available. Mapping tools to view the distribution of individual collisions across Northumberland are available alongside the latest published statistical release on GOV.UK.

Data on which fatal collisions were classified as accidental does not fall under the remit of the Department for Transport and is recorded by coroners.

Data on road injury collisions are reported by police using the STATS19 system. The number of personal injury road collisions in each of the areas requested in 2023 are shown in the table below.

The number of collisions by ward is not routinely available. Mapping tools to view the distribution of individual collisions across Northumberland are available alongside the latest published statistical release on GOV.UK.

Data on which fatal collisions were classified as accidental does not fall under the remit of the Department for Transport and is recorded by coroners.

We are supporting the hospice sector with a £100 million capital funding boost for adult and children’s hospices in England to ensure they have the best physical environment for care. We are working at great pace to get this year’s funding to hospices as soon as possible. We are currently finalising the delivery mechanisms, and are pleased that Hospice UK is standing ready to distribute the money to hospices throughout England, including to hospices in Hexham, Northumberland, Newcastle, and the North East.

We are also providing £26 million of revenue funding to support children and young people’s hospices. NHS England is currently making decisions on the allocation and administration mechanisms for the £26 million of revenue funding for children and young people’s hospices in 2025/26, and hopes to communicate plans to the sector later this month.

I met with key palliative and end of life care, including hospice, stakeholders on 3 February to discuss the long-term sustainability of palliative and end of life care, within the context of our 10-Year Health Plan.

Patients in England are not registered with a National Health Service dental practice, although many NHS dental practices do tend to see patients regularly. There is no geographical restriction on which practice a patient may attend. Some dental practices may operate local waiting list arrangements.

It is a contractual requirement for NHS dentists to update their NHS website profiles at least every 90 days to ensure patients have up-to-date information on where they can access care. This includes information on whether they are accepting new patients. Integrated care boards can review which practices in their area have not updated their profile in a 90-day period, and work with practices to ensure websites are up to date.

The Government plans to tackle the challenges for patients trying to access NHS dental care with a rescue plan to provide 700,000 more urgent dental appointments and recruit new dentists to the areas that need them most. To rebuild dentistry in the long term, we will reform the dental contract with the sector, with a shift to focus on prevention and the retention of NHS dentists.

Tackling waiting lists is a key part of our Health Mission and a top priority for the Government. On 6 January 2025, NHS England published the new Elective Reform Plan, part of the Government’s Plan for Change to ensure that patients are seen on time and have the best possible experience during their care, including those using National Health Services in the Hexham constituency, Northumberland, Newcastle and the North East. Further information on the Elective Reform Plan is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/reforming-elective-care-for-patients.pdf

We have set an ambition to make progress on the 18-week standard in 2025/26, to 65% of patients waiting no longer than 18 weeks from Referral to Treatment nationally. At the end of November 2024, the rate at the Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust was 80.3%, and the rate at the Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals was 68.4%. This compares to 59.1% nationally. These two trusts are performing better than the average, which is very much welcomed, but we are pressing to ensure we build on that, and have set out our expectation that all English trusts will deliver a minimum 5% improvement by March 2026.

To support this ambition, my Rt. Hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced £1.5 billion of capital funding, including for new surgical hubs and diagnostic scanners, at the Autumn Statement. This will build capacity for over 30,000 additional procedures and over 1.25 million diagnostic tests as they come online, as well as new beds which will create more treatment space and reduce waiting times.

The Elective Reform Plan sets out a number of ways which we will increase productivity and improve patient experience, including increasing the number of surgical hubs, and expanding and increasing the opening times of Community Diagnostic Centres (CDCs). Three hubs are currently operational in the North-East and North Cumbria Integrated Care System, which serves patients across Hexham, Northumberland, Newcastle and the North-East, with one due to open at the South Tees Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, namely the Friarage Hospital Elective Hub.

There are currently five CDCs located across the North East of England, including the Metrocentre CDC in Gateshead.

As part of our mission to build a National Health Service fit for the future, we launched a 10-Year Health Plan. The plan will set out an agenda to deliver on the three big shifts needed, to move healthcare from hospital to the community, from analogue to digital, and from sickness to prevention.

We are committed to moving towards a Neighbourhood Health Service, with more care delivered locally to create healthier communities, spot problems earlier, and support people to stay healthier and maintain their independence for longer.

Integrated care boards (ICB) are responsible for planning health services for their local area and are best placed to make decisions on care services in the community according to local need.

Neighbourhood Health Guidelines have been published alongside the 2025/26 NHS Operational Planning Guidance and 2025/26 Better Care Fund policy framework, published 30 January 2025, to help ICBs, local authorities, and health and care providers to continue to progress neighbourhood health in 2025/26, in advance of the publication of the 10-Year Health Plan.

We will provide further details of a National Implementation Programme in the coming months, designed for all parts of the health and social care system involved in delivering neighbourhood health. This programme will adopt a test and learn approach, to help identify what is working most effectively and the conditions required to deliver a set of target outcomes.

Community health services are an essential building block in developing a neighbourhood health service, working closely with primary care, social care, and other community services to provide more care in the community.

NHS England has advised that the information requested is not available in the format requested. This is because it is not possible to specifically identify avoidant restrictive food intake disorder in relation to other eating disorders within the Mental Health Services Dataset.

On 5 December, the Government announced work on a Financial Inclusion Strategy which will be developed alongside a supporting committee, chaired by me. The Financial Inclusion Committee’s mission is to tackle barriers to individual and households’ ability to access affordable and appropriate financial products and services.

The strategy will be published later this year.

Illegal money lenders — more commonly known as loan sharks — are dangerous criminals capable of inflicting terrible harm on their victims. To combat this, the Government funds specialist Illegal Money Lending Teams (IMLTs) operating across the UK. These teams investigate and prosecute illegal money lenders and offer support to their victims.

Because of the underground nature of illegal money lending, HM Treasury does not have data on the number of victims of illegal money lending each year. However, HM Treasury officials regularly engage with the IMLTs to receive updates on their work, including on prosecutions, support provided to victims, and any key trends. To learn more about the work of the IMLTs, visit the Stop Loan Sharks website: https://www.stoploansharks.co.uk/.

On 5 December, the Government convened a Financial Inclusion Committee which has been established to tackle the problems of financial exclusion. Through this committee, I will work with consumer groups and industry on the development of a Financial Inclusion Strategy.

I recognise the different impact of financial exclusion across regions, particularly when comparing urban and rural areas. As such, we will be working closely with organisations from across the UK to fully understand the barriers individuals are facing and ensure that the development of the strategy is informed by a range of perspectives and expertise.

Tackling VAWG in all of its forms, including when it takes place online, is a top priority for this Government, and that's why we have set out an unprecedented mission to halve VAWG within a decade.

The misuse of technology to abuse or harm others (including online) has a disproportionate impact on women and children and we know this is a significant and growing issue in the UK and worldwide.

We will go further than before to deliver a cross-Government transformative approach to halve all forms of violence against women and girls, underpinned by a new VAWG strategy to be published next year. In January 2025, the Government introduced new legislation which will make creating sexually explicit 'deepfake' images a criminal offence.

The Online Safety Act designates material relating to child sexual exploitation and abuse as a priority offence. Platforms must put in place systems and processes to minimise and remove this content. The Illegal Harms Codes, laid before Parliament in December and coming into force from 17 March this year, sets out the steps companies must take to meet their duties under the Act to tackle this content."

I regularly meet with Baroness Jones of Whitchurch, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) to discuss these matters.

My officials also engage regularly with DSIT and the Ministry of Justice to identify the most appropriate legislative vehicles to tackle technology-facilitated VAWG.

It is the responsibility of Fire and Rescue Authorities to set local priorities based on their Community Risk Management Plans to ensure that Fire and Rescue Services have the appropriate equipment and training needed to safely respond to the wide range of incidents which they attend.

The number of households on social housing registers (waiting lists) in (b) Northumberland, (c) Newcastle, (d) the North East and (e) England is available in live table 600 on gov.uk here.

The department does not collect this information by parliamentary constituency, so we do not have the information for (a) Hexham constituency.

The number of households on the housing register (waiting list) is not the same as the number of households waiting. Local authorities periodically review their registers to remove households who no longer require housing, so the total number of households on housing registers may overstate the number of households who still require social housing at any one time. The frequency of reviews varies between local authorities. Housing register size may also be affected by other factors. For example, there is the potential for some households to be on the housing register of more than one local authority.

This government is committed to the communities sector and community ownership through empowering communities to own and run those local assets which mean the most to them. The English Devolution Bill will empower communities with a strong new ‘right to buy’ beloved community assets, such as empty shops, pubs and community spaces.

We will make further announcements in due course.

I can confirm that monies are being released to those successful Community Ownership Fund projects that have been announced. Officials will be in touch with projects to ensure that they receive the funding as quickly as possible.

This Government was elected with a landmark mission to halve violence against women and girls (VAWG) in the next decade. We will use every tool within our power to target perpetrators and address the root causes of abuse and violence, including domestic abuse. In November, we launched Domestic Abuse Protection Orders in selected areas to provide more protection for victims, and early this year we will introduce domestic abuse experts in 999 control rooms. These are just some of the first steps we are taking to tackle VAWG and improve the justice system response to domestic abuse across England and Wales.

Through the upcoming Victims, Courts and Public Protection Bill, we have committed to strengthening the powers of the Victims’ Commissioner to further empower them to hold the system to account when the needs of victims, including victims of domestic abuse, are not being met.