Asked by: Nigel Huddleston (Conservative - Droitwich and Evesham)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what the Environment Agency’s budget is for tackling illegal waste activity in the financial year 2025-26.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This financial year, the Government committed £12 million to the Environment Agency (EA) to fight waste crime. This is an additional £2 million to the £10 million it received in previous years. The funding will continue to afford resource of approximately 240 full-time equivalent across the EA to target waste crime; it is spent on specialised staff, such as enforcement officers, intelligence officers, financial investigators, and disclosure officers.
The EA also received £3 million for 2025/26 to enforce new duties introduced this year including the new Packaging Extended Producer Responsibility requirements. This helps to fund resources towards operational staff to tackle serious and significant offending.
Asked by: Nigel Huddleston (Conservative - Droitwich and Evesham)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to help tackle illegal waste activities in (a) Worcestershire and (b) England.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Waste reforms will make it harder for organised criminals to exploit the waste system and that is why the Government is committed to introducing tighter controls on waste exemptions, introducing digital waste tracking from October 2026 beginning with waste receiving sites, and introducing new permit requirements for carriers, brokers and dealers. Connecting fragmented systems and digitising record-keeping will ultimately make it harder for rogue operators to compete in the industry and commit waste crime, from fly tipping to illegal waste sites to illegal waste shipments.
In Worcestershire, recent multi-agency work has resulted in the seizure of vehicles suspected of involvement in waste crime, thereby removing them off the road and preventing further illegal activity. Environment Agency investigators continue to gather evidence of suspected offenders with a view to pursuing enforcement action.
Asked by: Nigel Huddleston (Conservative - Droitwich and Evesham)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many illegal waste sites the Environment Agency has closed in the last three years.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
In the period April 2021-March 2024, the Environment Agency stopped 1691 illegal waste sites.
Asked by: Nigel Huddleston (Conservative - Droitwich and Evesham)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of HMRC’s attempts to tackle landfill tax fraud on unauthorised illegal waste sites; and how much money has been recovered from prosecutions in the last 3 years.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government applies Landfill Tax to disposals made at sites without an environmental disposal permit (unauthorised waste sites). This aims to deter non-compliance by making the illegal disposal of waste less profitable, and reinforcing the principle of “polluter pays”.
In the last 5 years, HMRC Landfill Tax compliance activities have generated a compliance yield of £1.3 billion.
HMRC have conducted over 250 compliance interventions over the last three years at illegal unauthorised waste sites, generating approximately £4.5 million in compliance yield.
HMRC also works closely with environmental regulators to identify and tackle disposals of unauthorised waste.
Asked by: Nigel Huddleston (Conservative - Droitwich and Evesham)
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 adequacy of the performance of the Child Maintenance Service.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The CMS has four official Key Performance Indicators (KPI). These are: Application clearances, change of circumstances clearances, Collect and Pay compliance and assessment accuracy. Each KPI has its own standard measure.
Every quarter, the CMS publishes their data on Application clearances, change of circumstances clearances and Collect and Pay compliance.
This information can be found in the latest CMS statistics with the latest data available to March 2025. CMS statistics for June 2025 are due to be released on Tuesday 30th September 2025 at 09:30am.
Information on the accuracy of CMS assessments, which has a standard level of >99%, is published in the annual CMS Client Funds Account, Child maintenance: client funds accounts - GOV.UK.
Since 2020 CMS has shown a consistent level of 99.4% accuracy increasing for the latest year available (2023/24) to 99.5%.
The CMS continues to monitor and review their KPIs to ensure they are the most appropriate measure to drive performance and improve the customer experience.
Asked by: Nigel Huddleston (Conservative - Droitwich and Evesham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to improve Child Maintenance Service response times.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Through the Service Modernisation and Digital Transformation Programmes, the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) has made significant improvements to our service to improve response times.
The introduction of online services including ‘Child Maintenance Calculator’, ‘Get Help Arranging Child Maintenance’, ‘Apply for Child Maintenance, ‘Respond to Child Maintenance Application’ and ‘My Child Maintenance Case’ has significantly increased functionality and efficiency for our customers who have access to our online services 24/7 to:
Through My Child Maintenance Case’ the customer now has the ability to process simple changes without the need for caseworker intervention, automatically speeding up the time taken to complete a change which has improved customer outcomes. These changes are a fundamental step towards the CMS modernisation goal of evolving our service to be online and quicker.
Although online communication is the preferred option, the CMS fully recognises digital is not suitable for all customers. We have freed up resources to deliver a more responsive service which allows caseworkers more time to better assist customers who need to reach out to us via telephone. We have taken steps to make call routing more efficient, resulting in a higher volume of calls being allocated to case-owning teams, supporting customers to receive a more responsive service.
Furthermore, we have taken timely action to review, evaluate, and enhance tools and training material to support staff. We have improved training for new entrant colleagues and caseworkers and upgraded our Operational Instructions with around 90% transformed into Smart Instructions, making them easier and quicker for caseworkers to understand and use.
Through greater use of SMS text and email and an extensive review of letters, making them easier for customers to understand, we can contact customers quicker.
As a result, the use of online services by customers has significantly increased, with more changes being processed quicker, call volumes have reduced and calls received are routed efficiently to caseworker teams who have access to enhanced Operational Instructions, SMS text and email, improving the CMS response times and delivering a quality service to our customers.
CMS is committed to continuous improvement. In July 2025, the CMS launched Customer Connect for income related changes: this new service enables caseworkers to instigate online conversations with customers to proactively gather information and administer their child maintenance case more efficiently. Customer Connect will be expanded to include other types of changes through a phased process. Customers who cannot digitally self-serve will continue to be contacted by phone or letter.
Additionally, as the demand for the service is increasing CMS continuously review our resources to get the greatest value for money and deliver the best service to our customers. We review our overall resource supply twice yearly and take appropriate steps to ensure that staffing levels meet demands and maintain our expected service levels. We have an ongoing recruitment campaign for 2025; this will ensure CMS is resourced to meet current and future forecasted service demand.
The CMS are committed to modernising and improving our service. We will continue to review, evaluate, and enhance our service to meet demand and deliver an efficient customer service. We regularly gather feedback from customers and stakeholders through the Customer Experience Survey; this insight is used to inform ways to improve our service.
Commencement of any additional activity as part of the Service Modernisation Programme will be informed by the value to our customers and the cost to the Department.
Asked by: Nigel Huddleston (Conservative - Droitwich and Evesham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps her Department is taking to improve access to legal aid.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
This Government is delivering significant fee uplifts to legal aid, with the first civil fee increases in almost 30 years and up to £92 million extra each year for criminal legal aid. This will support a more stable and sustainable legal aid sector, helping to ensure effective access to justice for some of the most vulnerable in our society.
In December 2024, we announced that criminal legal aid solicitors will receive up to £92 million more a year, to help support the sustainability of the criminal legal aid sector including prison law. Prior to that, in November 2024, we announced our response to the Crime Lower consultation, confirming an uplift to the lowest police station fees, introducing a new Youth Court fee scheme, and paying for travel in certain circumstances. Together, these changes amounted to a £24 million investment for criminal legal aid providers.
In civil legal aid, we recently published ‘Civil Legal Aid: Towards a sustainable future’ confirming that we will increasing fees for all housing & debt, and immigration & asylum legal aid work. This is a significant investment of £20 million a year. Providers will see significant increases in all fees, with the overall spending in these categories increasing by 24% for housing work and 30% for immigration work.
Asked by: Nigel Huddleston (Conservative - Droitwich and Evesham)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of siting solar farms near Category A prisons on the security of (a) communications, (b) wi-fi and (c) energy supplies.
Answered by Michael Shanks - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
No such assessment has been made.
Maintaining security of energy supplies is a key priority and critical energy operators are required to meet a minimum standard of cyber security and resilience, through the Network and Information Systems Regulations 2018. The Department works continually with Ofgem and the National Cyber Security Centre to ensure that these regulations continue to capture all the most critical operators of energy generation systems.
Asked by: Nigel Huddleston (Conservative - Droitwich and Evesham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what discussions she has had with South Western Railway on the potential impact of the removal of the 7.37am service from Worcestershire Parkway to Birmingham New Street on commuters living in Droitwich and Evesham constituency.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
CrossCountry provides train services between Worcestershire Parkway and Birmingham. Officials discussed the operator’s proposal to temporarily withdraw some services to ensure a more reliable timetable can be delivered. The Department agreed to the operator’s proposed timetable changes as it delivered benefits for the majority of passengers. CrossCountry were unable to add a Worcestershire Parkway call on another morning train but two alternative trains from Worcestershire Parkway are both scheduled to arrive at Birmingham before 0900.
Asked by: Nigel Huddleston (Conservative - Droitwich and Evesham)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether she has had recent discussions with (a) Cabinet colleagues and (b) local authorities on the proposed acceleration of (a) Worcestershire Parkway and (b) other housing sites.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The New Homes Accelerator works with Homes England and relevant local partners to unblock and accelerate the delivery of large-scale housing developments that have for various reasons become delayed, or which are not progressing as quickly as they could be.
The Accelerator has already announced 10 sites with capacity to deliver over 35,000 homes that will benefit from government support, including Worcestershire Parkway.
In October last year, I met with you to discuss supporting infrastructure at Worcestershire Parkway.
MHCLG officials and Homes England continue to engage with the relevant local authorities for each of the announced New Homes Accelerator sites, including Worcestershire Parkway.