Asked by: Laura Kyrke-Smith (Labour - Aylesbury)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to help ensure that food labelling accurately reflects animal welfare practices.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The UK maintains high standards on the information that is provided on food labels so that consumers can have confidence in the food that they buy. All food sold on the UK market must comply with food labelling rules, which include the requirement for specific information to be presented in a specific way. An underpinning rule of existing legislation is that food information, whether it be mandatory or is provided voluntarily, must not mislead.
The Government is considering the potential role of method of production labelling reform as part of the ongoing development of our wider animal welfare strategy, which we will publish later this year.
Asked by: Laura Kyrke-Smith (Labour - Aylesbury)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to ensure that closer alignment with the European Union on a Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary Agreement does not adversely impact (a) animal welfare laws and (b) the ban on live exports.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This Government shares the British public's high regard for animal welfare and understands the strong sentiment that led to legislation to ban live exports going to slaughter.
The UK-EU Common Understanding states that there will be a number of areas where we retain our own rules. The details of these are now subject to negotiation, but we have been clear about the importance of being able to set high animal welfare standards.
Asked by: Laura Kyrke-Smith (Labour - Aylesbury)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what is the number of unclaimed matured HMRC-allocated Child Trust Funds (CTF) which have been automatically transferred into Individual Savings Accounts at the direction of their account provider and without positive acceptance by their young adult owners; and whether these accounts remain separately identified as such in order to be eligible for any automatic release scheme for unclaimed matured HMRC-allocated CTF accounts that may be introduced in the future.
Answered by Lucy Rigby - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
Information on Child Trust Funds is available in HMRC’s Annual Savings Statistics.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/annual-savings-statistics-2025
We cannot answer each element of the 2 questions as HMRC does not receive a breakdown of unclaimed matured Child Trust Fund accounts from providers. This means we can’t identify which CTFs have been HMRC allocated and transferred into ISAs, nor breakdown the figures shared in the press release on the 30th September.
Asked by: Laura Kyrke-Smith (Labour - Aylesbury)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what is the number of unclaimed matured HMRC-allocated Child Trust Fund (CTF) accounts which are included within the total quoted in the HMRC press release on 30 September 2025 for all matured CTFs which have neither been claimed by their owners nor automatically transferred.
Answered by Lucy Rigby - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
Information on Child Trust Funds is available in HMRC’s Annual Savings Statistics.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/annual-savings-statistics-2025
We cannot answer each element of the 2 questions as HMRC does not receive a breakdown of unclaimed matured Child Trust Fund accounts from providers. This means we can’t identify which CTFs have been HMRC allocated and transferred into ISAs, nor breakdown the figures shared in the press release on the 30th September.
Asked by: Laura Kyrke-Smith (Labour - Aylesbury)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the average waiting time is for a driving test in Aylesbury; and when the backlog for those tests will be cleared.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The average waiting time in weeks, as of October 2025, at Aylesbury driving test centre (DTC) was 19 weeks.
The average waiting time in weeks, as of October 2025, for other DTC’s that might serve customers in the area, are shown below:
Bletchley – 24 weeks
High Wycombe – 5 weeks
Leighton Buzzard – 24 weeks
Oxford – 24 weeks
The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency’s (DVSA) main priority is upholding road safety standards while it works hard to reduce car practical driving test waiting times. The agency is intensifying its efforts to reduce waiting times and improve access to driving tests that will break down barriers to opportunity as part of the government’s Plan for Change.
At the Transport Select committee on 12 November 2025, the Secretary of State for Transport confirmed the latest DVSA modelling shows it is not possible to meet a 7-week waiting time by summer 2026. There are several factors driving higher demand for tests, and it is not currently possible to say when waiting times will reduce to 7-weeks or fewer. The Secretary of State will be working closely with DVSA in addressing this important issue.
In the coming months, DVSA will:
Asked by: Laura Kyrke-Smith (Labour - Aylesbury)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to reduce the impact of noise from fireworks on (a) dogs and (b) other animals; and whether she plans to make an assessment of the potential impact of reducing the maximum noise level for consumer fireworks from 120 to 90 decibels on (i) dogs and (ii) other animals.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government is continuing to engage with animal welfare stakeholders, businesses, consumer groups and charities on the impacts of fireworks, to inform any future action.
Asked by: Laura Kyrke-Smith (Labour - Aylesbury)
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.
Asked by: Laura Kyrke-Smith (Labour - Aylesbury)
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.
Asked by: Laura Kyrke-Smith (Labour - Aylesbury)
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.
Asked by: Laura Kyrke-Smith (Labour - Aylesbury)
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.