Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he has made an assessment of the water quality of water from places with floating solar panels on the source.

Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

Defra has made no such assessment. The Government takes the quality of all of our waterways very seriously; cleaning up our rivers, lakes and seas is a top Government priority and that is why we have commissioned an independent review to fundamentally transform how our water system works.

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 7 March 2025 to Question 35580, how far does a person have to travel to a driving test centre for it to be considered accessible.

Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency’s travel distance criteria service level agreement, states that most customers live within a certain distance of a driving test centre (DTC) dependent on the population density of the local authority they live in. For example, in more densely populated areas of the country where the population is equal to or greater than 1,250 persons per square kilometre, such as Spelthorne, the practical test centre should be located so that most customers travel no more than seven miles to a test centre.

For customers in Spelthorne, depending in which part of the constituency they live, Isleworth, Chertsey, Slough, Tolworth, and Uxbridge DTCs respectively are within this travel distance criteria.

Submit Evidence (by 30 Apr 2025)

This inquiry will examine the AUKUS partnership, a trilateral security agreement between Australia, the US and the UK which was announced in 2021. AUKUS will see the US and UK support Australia in acquiring a nuclear-powered submarine fleet alongside a deepening of co-operation between the three countries on other advanced military technologies. The Committee’s inquiry will consider how AUKUS is progressing against existing milestones and what challenges may need to be addressed to give it the greatest chance of success. It will consider how changes in the geopolitical situation since 2021 may impact the programme, and whether governance and accountability mechanisms across Whitehall are adequate. The full terms of reference can be found in the call for evidence.