Asked by: Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat - Glastonbury and Somerton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of British Sign Language interpretation provision for deaf patients during emergency medical treatment, including for those who rely on cochlear implants and may be unable to communicate verbally in an emergency.
Answered by Preet Kaur Gill
Integrated care boards are responsible for commissioning services to meet the health needs of their local population, which includes responsibility for ensuring that there is adequate provision of British Sign Language (BSL) interpreters to support deaf patients.
To facilitate clear and effective communication in emergency situations, individuals who are deaf, hard of hearing, or speech impaired can utilise tools such as the 999BSL video relay platform, which is both app and web-based, to contact 999 via a BSL interpreter as well as access via emergency SMS messaging.
Video relay apps can also be used to support communication and face-to-face assessment by crews on scene at incidents, where, via on-board iPads, paramedics can connect patients with a remote BSL video interpreter. These resources, which are free to use and operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, ensure that real-time communication is possible for BSL users when emergency and urgent assistance is required.
The BSL Advisory Board was established in 2023, to advise the Government on key issues impacting the Deaf community in their everyday life. On 27 November 2025, the BSL Advisory Board published a report titled Locked out: Exclusion of deaf and deafblind BSL users from health and social care in the UK, which is available at the following link:
The Government welcomed the report, and thanked the BSL Advisory Board for their work to improve the accessibility, inclusion, and the experiences of Deaf and Deafblind BSL users within the health and social care system. The board’s recommendations are informing work to implement the 10-Year Health Plan and reform adult social care so we can deliver improvements to the health, care, and experience of Deaf people.
Asked by: Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat - Glastonbury and Somerton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions she has had with the Secretary of Health and Social Care on the impact of employment eligibility thresholds on the ability of student nurses completing mandatory unpaid clinical placements to access Government childcare support.
Answered by Olivia Bailey
Practice learning is intended to support student development, not to meet workforce pressures. Students are not employed to provide care, do not hold contracts of employment, and are therefore unpaid.
It is essential that students have the time and space to develop the skills and experience needed to graduate and join the professional register. These protections also ensure that students do not substitute for trained professionals delivering patient care.
DHSC provides eligible healthcare students with non‑repayable support through the NHS Learning Support Fund, including a £5,000 annual training grant and an additional £2,000 for those with childcare responsibilities, reviewed annually.
All students, including student nurses are eligible for the universal 15 hours of free early education regardless of family circumstances. Those undertaking paid work may access 30 hours if they meet income requirements.
Full-time students with dependent children may also access the Childcare Grant and Parents’ Learning Allowance, subject to household income.
Asked by: Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat - Glastonbury and Somerton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the impact of mandatory unpaid clinical placements on student nurses' ability to meet the employment hour thresholds required to access Government childcare support schemes.
Answered by Olivia Bailey
Practice learning is intended to support student development, not to meet workforce pressures. Students are not employed to provide care, do not hold contracts of employment, and are therefore unpaid.
It is essential that students have the time and space to develop the skills and experience needed to graduate and join the professional register. These protections also ensure that students do not substitute for trained professionals delivering patient care.
DHSC provides eligible healthcare students with non‑repayable support through the NHS Learning Support Fund, including a £5,000 annual training grant and an additional £2,000 for those with childcare responsibilities, reviewed annually.
All students, including student nurses are eligible for the universal 15 hours of free early education regardless of family circumstances. Those undertaking paid work may access 30 hours if they meet income requirements.
Full-time students with dependent children may also access the Childcare Grant and Parents’ Learning Allowance, subject to household income.
Asked by: Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat - Glastonbury and Somerton)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps she is planning to take to support households in areas where full fibre will not be available before the public switched telephone network switch-off takes place.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Minister of State (Cabinet Office) (Jointly with the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Technology)
The Government is committed to ensuring that any risks from the industry-led migration of the analogue Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) to digital Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) are mitigated for everyone across the UK. Ofcom have confirmed that VoIP technology is more resilient, more secure, enables better quality phone calls, and can be used to block scam calls. Over 92% of PSTN landlines have already been migrated to VoIP.
In March 2026, the Government and industry agreed a new Fixed Telecoms Modernisation Charter to extend safeguards agreed in November 2024 to all future fixed telecoms modernisation programmes to help ensure that all customers are migrated safely.
Major communication providers have assured the Government that no existing PSTN customer will be left without a landline alternative and that every remaining PSTN customer has a viable migration route before January 2027. This includes households in areas that may not have access to full fibre.
In order to function correctly, VoIP requires a minimum connection speed of just 0.5Mbps, and, for current landline-only customers it will be possible to order a VoIP landline without purchasing a full fibre connection.
Asked by: Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat - Glastonbury and Somerton)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of (a) the potential merits of creating a distinct classification of responder, separate from reactor, for non-reactor cattle that test positive to non-statutory bovine tuberculosis tests and may be latently infected and non-infectious and (b) the potential impact of such a classification on (i) compensation costs and (ii) farmer-led disease management.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The recently published recommended Bovine TB Control Strategy for England (https://tbhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/2026-Recommended-Bovine-TB-Strategy.pdf) proposes facilitating wider access to privately funded ancillary bovine TB testing to support earlier detection of infected cattle and disease management.
The Government will now consider the recommendations in the proposed Strategy, including the creation of a distinct, formal classification of ‘responder’ for TB control purposes, and the potential impacts of such a classification.
Asked by: Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat - Glastonbury and Somerton)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to make Animal and Plant Health Agency bovine tuberculosis testing data accessible with appropriate permissions and GDPR safeguards to private veterinary surgeons engaged with the herds concerned.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Animal and Plant Health Agency has an established process enabling cattle keepers to request TB testing data relating to their herds. Keepers need to complete and submit a request proforma to APHA. Keepers may then choose with whom they wish to share their herd's test data.
The recently published recommended Bovine TB Control Strategy for England (https://tbhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/2026-Recommended-Bovine-TB-Strategy.pdf) emphasises the importance of providing secure TB farm-level data to farmers and their vets in a timely manner, to aid decision making. Government will now carefully consider the recommendations in the proposed strategy.
Asked by: Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat - Glastonbury and Somerton)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what guidance and reassurance they have offered to local authorities in interpreting the Standards of Modern Zoo Practice 2027 in regard to farmed reindeers.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Standards of Modern Zoo Practice for Great Britain, published in May 2025, apply to all zoos in Great Britain licensed under the Zoo Licensing Act 1981 (the 1981 Act). The new Zoo Standards contain requirements that are applicable to all licensed zoo animals, including reindeer, as well as containing requirements for specific species, such as elephants and great apes. Defra has not provided any separate guidance to local authorities on the new Zoo Standards on reindeer licensed under the 1981 Act.
Asked by: Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat - Glastonbury and Somerton)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what conversations they have had with local authorities on the interpretation of the Standards of Modern Zoo Practice 2027.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This Government published new Standards of Modern Zoo Practice for Great Britain on 24 May 2025. The Standards will come into force from May 2027 and will replace the current 2012 Secretary of State’s Standards of Modern Zoo Practice.
One of the objectives in updating the Standards has been to make requirements clearer to aid enforcement and compliance. As set out in the Animal Welfare strategy published in December 2025, the Department is working with the Zoos Expert Committee, which contains local authority representation – as well as other local authority zoo licensing groups – to update licensing guidance and inspection forms to make it more straightforward for local authorities to enforce the new Standards.
Asked by: Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat - Glastonbury and Somerton)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment has he made of the adequacy of the classification of farmed reindeers as zoo animals.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
For the purposes of the Zoo Licensing Act 1981 (the 1981 Act), Defra considers that reindeer are not a species normally domesticated in Great Britain and therefore to be considered “wild animals”.
Any establishment, including farms, where “wild animals” are kept for exhibition to the public (otherwise than for the purpose of a circus, or in a pet shop), to which members of the public have access, with or without charge for admission, on seven days or more in any period of twelve consecutive months will require a zoo licence under the 1981 Act.
Asked by: Sarah Dyke (Liberal Democrat - Glastonbury and Somerton)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what discussions he has had with local police forces on (a) the effectiveness of enforcement of legislation regulating pedlars; and (b) the processes used to verify pedlars’ certificates.
Answered by Kate Dearden - Minister of State (Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade)
The department has not had any discussions with local police forces about pedlars, whose certificates are issued nationally. The process used to verify pedlars’ certificates are a matter for the police.