Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether she plans to publish a strategy to advance the use of alternatives to animal testing.

Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)

The Labour Manifesto commits to “partner with scientists, industry, and civil society as we work towards the phasing out of animal testing”, which is a long-term goal.

The government will publish a strategy to support the development, validation and uptake of alternative methods later this year.

Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps she is taking to encourage collaboration between (a) industry, (b) researchers, (c) civil society and (d) the public on the most effective non-animal approaches to scientific research.

Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)

The Labour Manifesto commits to “partner with scientists, industry, and civil society as we work towards the phasing out of animal testing”, which is a long-term goal.

The government will publish a strategy to support the development, validation and uptake of alternative methods later this year which will outline how we will encourage collaboration between stakeholders, including industry, researchers, animal welfare organisations and civil society.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department will consider taking steps to protect religious communities that don't have a designated place of worship.

Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)

The government and police regularly work closely together to review threats and strengthen protection for communities against terrorism and hate crime.

Work is currently underway to develop a new Faith Security Training scheme to raise awareness amongst faith communities of how to improve their safety and security, and to help them prepare to mitigate any threats they may face.

There are extensive resources available to venues and public spaces for free, to help them better protect the public in those locations. These include the ProtectUK platform, which offers free guidance, advice and training for staff. Training resources available include the Action Counter Terrorism (ACT) and See, Check and Notify (SCaN) training and e-learning, which are free resources developed by Counter Terrorism Police and available to the public.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he will take steps to extend the eligibility criteria for the covid-19 booster vaccination for winter to include those who are clinically vulnerable in winter 2025-26.

Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government is committed to protecting those most vulnerable to COVID-19 through vaccination, as guided by the independent Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI). The primary aim of the national COVID-19 vaccination programme remains the prevention of serious illness, involving hospitalisations and deaths, arising from COVID-19. Population immunity to COVID-19 has been increasing due to a combination of naturally acquired immunity following recovery from infection and vaccine-derived immunity. COVID-19 is now a relatively mild disease for most people, though it can still be unpleasant, with rates of hospitalisation and death from COVID-19 having reduced significantly since COVID-19 first emerged.

The focus of the JCVI’s advised programme has therefore moved towards targeted vaccination of the two groups who continue to be at higher risk of serious disease, including mortality. These are the oldest adults and individuals who are immunosuppressed.

On 13 November 2024, JCVI published advice on who should be offered vaccination in autumn 2025. On 26 June 2025, the Government accepted the JCVI’s advice, and in line with that advice, in autumn 2025, a COVID-19 vaccination is being offered to the following groups:

• adults aged 75 years old and over;
• residents in care homes for older adults;  and
• individuals aged six months old and over who are immunosuppressed, as defined in the ‘immunosuppression’ sections of tables three or four in the COVID-19 chapter of the UK Health Security Agency’s Green Book, which is available at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-the-green-book-chapter-14a%22%20/t%20%22_blank

The Government has no plans to change eligibility for autumn 2025. It has accepted the JCVI’s advice for this campaign in full. As for all vaccines, the JCVI keeps the evidence under regular review.

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps her Department is taking to improve collaboration across local authority borders on bus routes.

Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

Local Transport Authorities (LTAs) already work closely together when tendering bus routes that cross shared boundaries, and in delivering their Bus Service Improvement Plans. There are also requirements set out in the Transport Act 2000 for LTAs to take account of the effect of an Enhanced Partnership on neighbouring areas, and for policies on bus services in neighbouring LTA areas to be considered when developing any franchising arrangements.

The Government has updated its bus franchising guidance to LTAs to make clear that they should consider cross-boundary services during any franchising assessment process. This includes as part of the commercial case, where they should set out how they intend to facilitate cross-boundary services to deliver relevant targets in both authorities’ areas.

In addition, the Government’s Bus Services Act 2025 puts the power over local bus services back in the hands of local leaders. This Bill is intended to ensure bus services reflect the needs of the communities that rely on them right across England, including services that cross local authority boundaries.

The Act gives franchising authorities greater scope to grant service permits to operators wishing to provide non-franchised services which enter a franchising area from another area. Franchising authorities will be able to take account of these proposed cross-boundary services’ benefits in all the areas where the service would run, not just the franchising area as before. This will enable franchising authorities to better harness the additionality the market can provide in delivering these important services and take a more holistic approach to cross-boundary bus provision.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of palliative care services in Aylesbury constituency.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

Palliative care services are included in the list of services an integrated care board (ICB) must commission. To support ICBs in this duty, NHS England has published statutory guidance and service specifications.  The statutory guidance states that ICBs, including the Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West ICB, must work to ensure that there is sufficient provision of care services to meet the needs of their local populations. NHS England has also developed a palliative care and end of life care dashboard, which brings together all relevant local data in one place. The dashboard helps commissioners understand the palliative care and end of life care needs of their local population.

The Department and NHS England are currently looking at how to improve the access, quality, and sustainability of all-age palliative care and end of life care in line with the 10-Year Health Plan.

We will closely monitor the shift towards the strategic commissioning of palliative and end of life care services to ensure that services reduce variation in access and quality, although some variation may be appropriate to reflect both innovation and the needs of local populations.

Officials will present further proposals to ministers over the coming months, outlining the drivers and incentives that are required in palliative care and end of life care to enable the shift from hospital to community, including as part of neighbourhood health teams.

We are supporting the hospice sector with a £100 million capital funding boost for eligible adult and children’s hospices in England to ensure they have the best physical environment for care. The Hospice of the St Francis and Rennie Grove Peace Hospice Care, which both serve people in the Aylesbury constituency, are receiving £486,476 and £1,114,316 from this funding respectively.

Found: Labour; Hemel Hempstead) The following Member was a member of the Committee during the inquiry: Laura Kyrke-Smith

Found: Labour; Hemel Hempstead) The following Member was a member of the Committee during the inquiry: Laura Kyrke-Smith