Asked by: John Whitby (Labour - Derbyshire Dales)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 12 April 2025 to Question 57518 on Farms: Tenants, if she will make it her policy to prevent agricultural landlords participating in the (a) Sustainable Farming Incentive, (b) Countryside Stewardship Scheme, (c) Landscape Recovery Scheme and (d) other similar schemes for a period of 12 months after they have taken land back from a tenant farmer.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government remains committed to ensuring agricultural tenancies are fair and collaborative. Agricultural tenancy agreements grant tenant farmers statutory protections. Where tenancies end, all parties are encouraged to employ the Agricultural Landlord and Tenant Code of Practice, which sets out expected standards for constructive tenancy negotiations.
Asked by: John Whitby (Labour - Derbyshire Dales)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps she is taking to ensure that the proposed short-term let registration scheme will ensure all properties are clean and safe.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The registration scheme will make short-term let providers aware of their legal responsibilities, particularly around safety, helping to raise standards of accommodation, build consumer confidence, and support fair competition.
Asked by: John Whitby (Labour - Derbyshire Dales)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what recent steps his Department has taken to ensure that, with the exception of the F-35, no British arms being exported to Israel are being used in the conflict in Gaza.
Answered by Hamish Falconer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
All export licences are assessed on a case-by-case basis. All licences for exports to the Israeli Defence Forces are kept under careful ongoing review to ensure they are not being used for military operations in Gaza or the West Bank.
Asked by: John Whitby (Labour - Derbyshire Dales)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to support the provision of mobile breast cancer screening units.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government fully supports the use of mobile breast screening units where they are deemed appropriate. Mobile units support reduction of health inequalities by providing access to screening in areas where local people have difficulty accessing static screening units.
Asked by: John Whitby (Labour - Derbyshire Dales)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if she will make an assessment of the adequacy of the amount jurors can claim for jury service in the context of trends in the level of childcare costs in the last five years.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Government keeps under review all support provided to jurors throughout their service. Jury service is an important civic duty, and we want to ensure jurors feel supported as they undertake this important role. Jurors can claim childcare expenses for additional costs incurred due to jury service, as well as allowances for travel to and from court and subsistence during attendance. Additionally, expectant or new parents, including breastfeeding mothers, may request to be excused from jury duty if their caring responsibilities prevent them from serving within the next twelve months.
Asked by: John Whitby (Labour - Derbyshire Dales)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps she is taking to reduce differences between the level of tax applied to (a) physical and (b) online businesses.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
To provide stability and predictability to both physical and online businesses, the government published its Corporate Tax Roadmap at Autumn Budget 2024. The roadmap committed to maintaining the main rate of Corporation Tax at 25%, which is the lowest in the G7, as well as a maintaining the UK’s generous R&D tax reliefs and world-leading capital allowance offer.
The Government also wants to ensure that the business rates burden is permanently rebalanced. That is why we have announced our intention to introduce permanently lower tax rates for retail, hospitality, and leisure properties, with rateable values (RVs) below £500,000 from 2026-27. This permanent tax cut will ensure that they benefit from much-needed certainty and support.
We intend to fund these through introducing a higher multiplier for the highest value properties – those with RVs of £500,000 or above. These high-value properties cover the majority of large distribution warehouses, including those used by the online giants.
The final design of the new business rate multipliers, including their rates, will be set at Budget 2025 so that the Government can take into account the upcoming revaluation outcomes, as well as the economic and fiscal context.
To ensure that digital services providers pay their fair share of UK tax, the UK introduced the Digital Services Tax (DST) which is a 2 per cent tax levied on search engines, social media platforms, and online marketplaces to reflect the value they derive from UK users.
Asked by: John Whitby (Labour - Derbyshire Dales)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of reductions to the housing benefit taper rate on the number of young people in supported accommodation entering employment.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
It remains the department’s priority to ensure that those who can work are supported to enter the labour market and to sustain employment.
The Department acknowledges there is a challenge presented by the interaction between Universal Credit and Housing Benefit for those living in Supported Housing and Temporary Accommodation and receiving their housing support through Housing Benefit. The department will consider the issue carefully in partnership with stakeholders.
Like Universal Credit, Housing Benefit has an income taper. As Housing Benefit may be claimed by those both in work and out of work, there are no rules around the number of hours that someone may work; instead, there are income tapers which apply.
The income taper in Housing Benefit ensures people in work are better off than someone wholly reliant on benefits. In addition to any financial advantage, there are important non-financial benefits of working. These benefits include learning new skills, improved confidence and independence as well as a positive effect on an individual's mental and physical health. However, the treatment of earnings in Housing Benefit is less generous than that of Universal Credit. Therefore, although customers living in Supported Housing are better off working than doing no work at all, they can be financially better off limiting the hours they work to ensure they retain a small amount of Universal Credit entitlement.
Changing the current rules would require a fiscal event and funding at a Budget. As funding is required to allow a change, any future decisions will take account of the current fiscal context.
Asked by: John Whitby (Labour - Derbyshire Dales)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps she is taking to ensure that banks abide by the Payment Systems Regulator's new mandatory reimbursement framework and swiftly investigate cases of APP fraud.
Answered by Emma Reynolds - Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
The Government takes the issue of fraud very seriously and is dedicated to protecting the public from this appalling crime. The Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) is the independent regulator with responsibility for the Authorised Push Payment (APP) scam reimbursement regime.
The PSR’s rules require in scope Payment Service Providers (PSPs) to reimburse victims of APP scams, which take place over the Faster Payments System, within five business days of making a claim. However, PSPs may take longer in specific circumstances, including where it may need more time to gather sufficient information from the victim or third parties to help assess the claim.
To monitor the success and impact of its regime, the PSR has committed to commission an independent post-implementation review of its policy after 12 months of the policy being in force.
On 11 March, the Government announced its intentions to consolidate the PSR and its functions primarily within the FCA. The PSR continues to be an independent economic regulator with full access to its statutory powers until legislation is passed to change this and APP scam victims will continue to benefit from the same levels of protection.
Asked by: John Whitby (Labour - Derbyshire Dales)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that leaseholders receive cladding remediation as swiftly as possible.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
On 2 December 2024, the government set out the Remediation Acceleration Plan (RAP) which, for the first time, set targets for remediation so that by the end of 2029 all 18m+ buildings with unsafe cladding in a government funded scheme will have been remediated. It further committed that by the end of 2029 every building of 11m+ with unsafe cladding will either have been remediated, have a completion date, or the landlord will be liable for severe penalties.
On 17 July 2025, the government published an update to the RAP which set out the next steps for addressing the barriers to remediation so buildings can be fixed faster, work can be done to identify those buildings still at risk and that residents and leaseholders can be supported through the process. The update included our intention to create new powers to accelerate remediation and force landlords to act, including through a remediation backstop, which will give powers for government to get work done where landlords fail. A Remediation Bill will be brought forward implementing measures to compel landlords to remediate their buildings when parliamentary time allows.
Asked by: John Whitby (Labour - Derbyshire Dales)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether her Department plans to mandate embodied carbon reporting.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
The government recognises that embodied carbon can account for a significant portion of a building’s whole life carbon emissions and remains committed to the 2050 net zero target. We have recently published research to improve understanding of embodied carbon and the data currently available, to support those who want to take action and to help inform future thinking across the sector. The government remains committed to supporting progress in this area in a way that is both practical and sustainable.