Asked by: Rachel Gilmour (Liberal Democrat - Tiverton and Minehead)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of State Pension age changes for 1950s-born women on woman in Tiverton and Minehead constituency.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
All women born since 6 April 1950 have been affected by changes to State Pension age.
Estimates can be made using ONS 2021 Census Data on how many women born in the 1950s resided in each constituency in that year.
Asked by: Rachel Gilmour (Liberal Democrat - Tiverton and Minehead)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent progress his Department has made on implementing the Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Goals programme.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Goals programme, with up to £150 million expected to be allocated to, or aligned with it, aims to speed up the development of new treatments for dementia and neurodegenerative conditions by accelerating innovations in biomarkers, clinical trials, and implementation. This is co-chaired by Hilary Evans-Newton CBE and Professor Nadeem Sarwar.
So far, the programme has invested approximately £100 million into biomarker innovation projects, experimental medicine studies, and clinical trial infrastructure. This covers a broad range of biomarker technologies and studies to help researchers, patients, and industry partners work together to better understand how dementia begins and progresses. This amount also supports the Medical Research Council’s Dementia Trials Accelerator which aims to embed more innovation in how clinical trials are designed and delivered in order to increase the speed and quality, while driving down the cost of large-scale trials, as well as the National Institute for Health and Care Research’s UK Dementia Trials Network which seeks to speed up early-stage clinical trials.
The programme is now setting up the Neurodegeneration Initiative, which will be a globally unique, not-for-profit, industry led, public-private partnership with charitable status, that will work together across the Government, industry, academia, the National Health Service, and third sector, and will deliver the programme’s remaining objectives.
Asked by: Rachel Gilmour (Liberal Democrat - Tiverton and Minehead)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of support available to schools who wish to decarbonise their buildings but who currently do not have the means to do so.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department recognises that decarbonising the school estate is an important part of meeting the government’s net zero commitments.
The Great British Energy Solar Partnership (GBESP) programme is supporting 250 schools and colleges to decarbonise by investing £100 million on solar panels and other energy efficiency and net zero interventions including LED lighting and electric vehicle chargers.
We are providing support for all schools and colleges to start on their journey towards net zero through our Sustainability Support Programme, which includes an online platform of guidance, tools and resources to help schools plan and deliver climate action available here: https://www.sustainabilitysupportforeducation.org.uk/.
The publicly available Department for Energy Security and Net Zero commissioned schools decarbonisation guidance, along with tools and checklists developed by Energy Systems Catapult can be found here: https://es.catapult.org.uk/tools-and-labs/public-sector-decarbonisation-guidance/developing-your-strategy/schools-resource-hub/. We will be issuing guidance to school settings in spring 2026 to help schools plan future retrofit and adaptation strategies to support decarbonisation and good education outcomes using their estates effectively.
Asked by: Rachel Gilmour (Liberal Democrat - Tiverton and Minehead)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to improve early cancer diagnosis rates.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Early cancer diagnosis is a key priority for the Government, as the chances of survival are higher if cancer is diagnosed at an early stage.
The Department recognises that cancer patients are often waiting too long for referral and treatment. As the first step to ensuring early diagnosis and treatment, NHS England has delivered an extra 100,000 operations, scans, and appointments each week since the start of this administration. This is supported by an increase in capacity to meet the demand for diagnostic services through investment in new magnetic resonance imaging and computed tomography scanners. The Government is investing an extra £26 billion in the National Health Service and is opening up community diagnostic centres at evening and weekends, to help diagnose cancer earlier.
In the new year we will publish a National Cancer Plan. The plan will include further details on how the Government will improve outcomes for cancer patients, as well as speeding up diagnosis and treatment, ensuring patients have access to the latest treatments and technology and ultimately driving up this country’s cancer survival rates.
Asked by: Rachel Gilmour (Liberal Democrat - Tiverton and Minehead)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he has made an assessment of the potential impact of the removal of the right of appeal escalatory route from the Family Court judges to the High Court on judicial oversight accountability.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Government has no plans to remove any rights of appeal route from family court judges to the High Court, nor has it made an assessment of the potential impact of such a change on judicial oversight and accountability.
Asked by: Rachel Gilmour (Liberal Democrat - Tiverton and Minehead)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she will publish the latest data on the ecological status of rivers across the UK.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Environment Agency (EA) is preparing the next update of water body classifications which underpin river basin management plans and guide investment decisions.
Asked by: Rachel Gilmour (Liberal Democrat - Tiverton and Minehead)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, if she will commit to introducing Herbie's Law.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The UK’s legal framework already requires that animals are only used in science where no validated alternatives exist, and we are accelerating efforts to develop and adopt these alternatives. The Government’s new strategy sets out a long-term vision for a world where the use of animals in science is eliminated except in exceptional circumstances. This will be achieved by creating a research and innovation system that drives the development and validation of alternative methods.
Asked by: Rachel Gilmour (Liberal Democrat - Tiverton and Minehead)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans her Department has to promote the awareness and use of sustainable palm oil.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government is committed to supporting sustainable production, trade, and use of palm oil. Leading by example, the Government Buying Standards for Food and Catering Services require in-scope public sector procurers to ensure that all palm oil(including palm kernel oil and products derived from palm oil) used for cooking and as an ingredient in food must be sustainably produced.
Asked by: Rachel Gilmour (Liberal Democrat - Tiverton and Minehead)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of the (a) adequacy of funding for leisure and health centres and (b) potential impact of those funding levels on fitness and wellbeing.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government recognises the importance of ensuring public access to sports facilities, including leisure centres, which are vital spaces for people of all ages to stay fit and healthy, and which play an important role within communities across the country. Our Arm’s Length Body, Sport England, has estimated that a social value of £3.6 billion was generated by public leisure sites in England in 2024/5, largely from improved wellbeing and health outcomes.
The ongoing responsibility of providing access to public leisure facilities lies at local authority level, and the Government encourages local authorities to make investments which offer the right opportunities and facilities for the communities they serve. The Department for Health and Social Care has responsibility for health centres.
The Government has committed another £400 million to transform grassroots sports facilities across the whole of the UK over the next four years, supporting the Government's Plan for Change. We will ensure that this funding promotes health and wellbeing, and helps to remove the barriers to physical activity for under-represented groups. We are working closely with sporting bodies and local leaders to establish what communities need, before setting out further plans on how future funding will be allocated across the UK. This funding is on top of the £250 million that Sport England invests every year in grassroots sport in England.
Asked by: Rachel Gilmour (Liberal Democrat - Tiverton and Minehead)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, further to the research and analysis entitled Rapid Technology Assessment: Humanoids, published on 10 March 2025, whether her Department plans to introduce a regulatory framework or minimum safety and cybersecurity standards for consumer-grade humanoid robots.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The UK Government are taking robust action to ensure new and existing technologies in the UK are Secure by Design. The Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Act requires manufacturers, importers and retailers to ensure consumer IoT products meet minimum security requirements. We have also published Codes of Practice for Software, Apps and AI cyber security for companies to follow to support this, and the NCSC provides guidance on other security requirements.
NCSC, as the National Technical Authority for cyber security, is in the process of assessing what if any guidance for robotics manufacturers would be valuable.