Asked by: Richard Tice (Reform UK - Boston and Skegness)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans he has for the future of Torbay Hospital.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
My rt. Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, set out a credible and deliverable plan for the new hospital schemes in the New Hospital Programme (NHP) on 20 January 2025, following the conclusion of the review of the NHP. The Plan for Implementation is available at the following link:
As confirmed in this publication, the scheme for Torbay Hospital is now part of Wave 2 of the NHP. Pre-construction activity, namely business case development and critical enabling works, is expected to continue from 2030, and construction of the main hospital build to commence between 2032 and 2034.
Asked by: Richard Tice (Reform UK - Boston and Skegness)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, how much his Department has spent on measures to achieve net zero targets in the last five years.
Answered by Justin Madders - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The department does not maintain records of expenditure on measures to achieve net zero.
The department’s estate is managed and maintained by the Government Property Agency (GPA). The GPA is responsible for investment in energy efficiency measures that relate to the department’s office estate.
Details of the department’s sustainability performance can be found in the department’s Annual Report and Accounts.
Asked by: Richard Tice (Reform UK - Boston and Skegness)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will take steps to (a) support the private education sector and (b) encourage its expansion (i) domestically and (ii) internationally.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department encourages private schools to be high quality and is seeking to further improve regulation of the sector through measures outlined in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. Amongst other things, the Bill seeks to ensure that all pupils receive both a safe and suitable education and to strengthen and improve the regulatory regime for private schools.
Capacity to expand domestically, within individual school settings, is a matter for private schools themselves. Where they do wish to expand, the department seeks to effectively consider the required material change application. Measures in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will make these requirements clearer.
The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) provides support for UK private schools that wish to expand internationally. They do this in a number of ways by:
Asked by: Richard Tice (Reform UK - Boston and Skegness)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will increase NHS dental funding to improve (a) accessibility, (b) workforce retention and (c) patient outcomes; and what steps he has taken to ensure there is equitable access to dental services.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government plans to tackle the challenges for patients trying to access National Health Service dental care with a rescue plan to provide 700,000 more urgent dental appointments, and recruit new dentists to the areas that need them most. To rebuild dentistry in the long term, we will reform the dental contract with the sector, with a shift to focus on prevention and the retention of NHS dentists.
The NHS in England invests approximately £3 billion in dentistry every year. NHS England is responsible for issuing guidance to integrated care boards (ICBs) on dental budgets, including ringfences. NHS England will publish planning guidance for 2025/26 in due course.
The responsibility for commissioning primary care services, including NHS dentistry, to meet the needs of the local population has been delegated to the ICBs across England. For the Boston and Skegness constituency, this is the NHS Lincolnshire ICB.
Asked by: Richard Tice (Reform UK - Boston and Skegness)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what private sector companies the Child Maintenance Service has contracted to implement enforcement proceedings; what the value of each contract is; whether funds paid by parents are paid to such companies; and what accountability mechanisms are in place.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
DWP holds a number of contracts to support Child Maintenance Service enforcement proceedings.
The suppliers collect funds on behalf of the Child Maintenance Service with the exception of contract for Scottish Legal Services which is in place to enable CMS to recover debt under Scottish Law. All contracts are based on government contracting and industry good practice to support the delivery of services for DWP. This includes meeting standards and regularly reviewed performance alongside compliance against relevant legislation.
Asked by: Richard Tice (Reform UK - Boston and Skegness)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many separated families applied to the Child Maintenance Service for advice on creating a family-based arrangement from 2021 to 2024; and how many parents who approached the Service did not proceed with a (a) Direct Pay and (b)Collect and Pay agreement in each of those years.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The information requested is not available. However, the Get Help Arranging Child Maintenance (GHACM) service opened on 18 November 2021 and provides individuals with information about options available for paying or getting support for a child, this includes how to make a private arrangement or how to apply to the Child Maintenance Service, if they choose to do so. There were 34,796 users who accessed GHACM and elected to pursue a private family-based arrangement. This accounted for 11% of GHACM users between 18 November 2021 and 31 December 2024.
Asked by: Richard Tice (Reform UK - Boston and Skegness)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the costs to the Child Maintenance Service are of the (a) supervision and (b) processing of (i) Direct Pay and (ii) Collect and Pay arrangements.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The cost of running the Child Maintenance Service is not separated between a) supervision and (b) processing of (i) Direct Pay and (ii) Collect and Pay arrangements, therefore, the information requested is not held.
Asked by: Richard Tice (Reform UK - Boston and Skegness)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many former armed forces personnel have been subject to enforcement proceedings by the Child Maintenance Service since 2021.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The information requested is not available, as the Child Maintenance Service do not maintain a historical record of employers for each paying parent.
Asked by: Richard Tice (Reform UK - Boston and Skegness)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many paying parents party to a child maintenance agreement are assessed to have an income of less than £12,570 per year; how many paying parents are in receipt of universal credit; and how many paying parents are estimated to be earning less than the receiving parent.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
At the end of September 2024, there were 289,000 Paying Parents using the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) with a recorded income of less than £12,570 per year. This is 43% of all Paying Parents for whom we held income information.
Information on the number of Paying Parents claiming Universal Credit is published quarterly on StatXplore, as part of the ‘CMS Paying Parents’ dataset. Information on Universal Credit claims is generally not available for the latest published quarter, therefore the most recent information available relates to the end of June 2024 (rather than September 2024, as for most other information in this dataset). At this time, 199,000 Paying Parents claimed Universal Credit. This is 29% of all 675,000 Paying Parents who were using CMS at this time.
The income of the Receiving Parent does not factor into the CMS maintenance calculation, and so this information is not collected by CMS. Therefore, the information requested in the third part of your question is not readily available (and to produce it would incur disproportionate cost). However, you may be interested in the latest Separated Families Statistics, which contain some information, derived from survey data, of the position of ‘non-resident parent’ and ‘parent with care’ households within the Great Britain income distribution. See in particular section 6 of the release document. These statistics include all separated families and are not specific to CMS users.
Asked by: Richard Tice (Reform UK - Boston and Skegness)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if she will take steps to ensure that candidates standing in combined authority elections are not also responsible for (a) setting up and (b) overseeing those authorities.
Answered by Jim McMahon - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Under the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009, all local authorities who are to be constituent members of a combined authority must consent to the combined authority’s establishment. This does not disqualify any constituent local authority members from running for the office of mayor in the combined authority.
Please be assured that, in the case where the winning candidate in the election to role of mayor is also already a sitting councillor of a constituent authority, under Schedule 5B paragraph 7 of the 2009 Act, their council seat is automatically rendered vacant and regular by-election requirements for the council seat occur as normal.