Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - South Shropshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to help retailers distribute surplus food to local charities.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government recognises the environmental, economic and social benefits of preventing food waste and redistributing surplus. Defra's Food and Drink Waste Hierarchy encourages food businesses, including retailers, to prioritise redistribution of any surplus should it arise.
Defra funds the groundbreaking UK Food and Drink Pact, a voluntary agreement with industry to tackle food waste, managed by the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP). Through the Pact, we support the Food Waste Reduction Roadmap, which helps businesses to identify and measure their surplus and waste and take steps to reduce it. This Target Measure Act approach enables food businesses to get more surplus to redistributors. Defra also engages a working group of supply chain and redistribution sector organisations to develop best practice and overcome barriers to redistribution.
Previous grant opportunities have helped the redistribution sector increase its capability and capacity for getting more surplus from the supply chain. Announced in December, £15 million has now been available to help the sector get more surplus food from farms to those in need.
The total amount of surplus food redistributed in the UK in 2023 was 191,000 tonnes, equating to nearly 456 million meals with a value of around £764 million.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - South Shropshire)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps she is taking to help return inflation to the target rate.
Answered by Emma Reynolds - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
Inflation has fallen from the peak of 11.1%, returning to the 2% target in September 2024, before slightly increasing again to 2.6% in March.
The Bank of England has the responsibility of controlling inflation, and the Government fully supports them as they take action to sustainably return inflation to the 2% target. The independent Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) at the Bank of England has cut Bank Rate three times since August as underlying inflationary pressure has eased.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - South Shropshire)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether a Minister for Veterans Affairs will be appointed.
Answered by Al Carns - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence) (Minister for Veterans)
I refer the hon. Member to the answer the Prime Minister gave to Question 124 on 24 July 2024.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - South Shropshire)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps she is taking to promote the National Youth Strategy survey in rural areas.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
Our engagement for the National Youth Survey has proactively involved young people from urban and rural areas, as well as across a number of different demographic considerations.
In order to reach young people in all areas of the country, we developed a communications campaign and worked with a variety of stakeholders who support young people to disseminate information. We developed a toolkit for organisations to run their own consultation workshops with young people to feed in their views. In addition to this, we have run a wide-ranging survey, workshops, focus groups and ‘hacks’ to give young people the opportunity to develop solutions.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - South Shropshire)
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 potential impact of restricting eligibility for Winter Fuel Payments on levels of pensioner poverty in rural areas.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The last Labour Government lifted over one million pensioners out of poverty, and this Government – despite having to make the tough decisions to deal with our dire inheritance remains absolutely committed to supporting pensioners and giving them the dignity and security they deserve in retirement.
Winter Fuel Payments will continue to be paid to pensioner households with someone receiving Pension Credit or other qualifying means-tested benefits or tax credits. They will continue to be worth £200 for eligible households, or £300 for eligible households with someone aged 80 or over.
The latest Pension Credit applications and awards statistics were published on 27 February and are available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/pension-credit-applications-and-awards-february-2025/pension-credit-applications-and-awards-february-2025
The statistics show that the Department received 235,000 Pension Credit applications in the 30 weeks since the Winter Fuel Payment announcement – an 81% increase on the comparable period in 2023/24 and made 117,800 new Pension Credit awards – a 64% increase or 45,800 extra awards on the comparable period in 2023/24.
We are honouring our commitment to the Triple Lock. In April, the basic and new State Pensions increased by 4.1% and some 12 million pensioners will see an increase of up to £470 over this financial year. Our commitment to the Triple Lock also means that spending on State Pensions is forecast to rise by around £31 billion over this Parliament.
And while the State Pension is the foundation of state support for older people, other help is also available for low-income pensioners. This includes Cold Weather Payments in England & Wales; help with energy bills via the Warm Home Discount scheme as well as the Household Support Fund in England which we extended for a further year with funding of £742 million, with corresponding funding for the Devolved Governments through the Barnett formula.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - South Shropshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to reduce food waste.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The UK is an international leader on tackling food waste. We are fully committed to meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goal 12.3 target, which seeks to halve global food waste at consumer and retail levels by 2030. Through our new £15 million farm surplus fund, this Government is working with food producers and charities ensure more produce gets to those who need it most.
We know that action is required across the supply chain and in people’s homes. To tackle food waste, we fund the groundbreaking UK Food and Drink Pact, a voluntary agreement with industry managed by the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP). Action through the Pact includes working with businesses to identify and reduce food waste, as well as campaigns aimed at raising public awareness of food waste and the steps we can all take to help reduce it.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - South Shropshire)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps she is taking to support the renovation of (a) village halls and (b) community centres.
Answered by Alex Norris - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Community centres and village halls are important parts of our social fabric in towns and villages across the UK.
Through the English Devolution Bill, we will introduce a new Community Right to Buy to help local people acquire valued community spaces, which will help to bring them back into use and rejuvenate high streets across the country.
We have also announced a further £750,000 as a 1-year extension to the £3 million Platinum Jubilee Village Halls Fund for 2025/2026. This will support the modernisation or improvement of village hall facilities by providing capital grants between £2000 and £75,000, up to a maximum of 20 per cent of eligible project costs. Since 2022, it has supported 142 large projects (£7,500 to £75,000) and 90 small projects (£2000 to £5000).
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - South Shropshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what progress she has made on launching a new National Music Education Network.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
On 18 March, the department announced its intention to launch a new National Centre for Arts and Music Education.
We intend to appoint the delivery partner for the Centre through an open, competitive procurement. We will engage with sector stakeholders to refine the details of the Centre ahead of the commercial process later this year. We will set out further detail shortly.
The National Centre will deliver on the manifesto commitment to deliver a Music Education Network. The department’s intention is to launch the National Centre in September 2026.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - South Shropshire)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps she is taking to help veterans access Tax-Free Childcare.
Answered by Darren Jones - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
The Government is committed to supporting veterans and their families access financial support available to them such as Tax- Free Childcare. Tax-Free Childcare aims to support working parents with the cost of childcare, including veterans, to work, return to work and work more when they want or need to.
To be eligible, a parent and their partner (if they have one) must expect to earn at least the National Minimum or National Living wage for 16 hours a week on average and each earn no more than £100,000 per year. A parent may still be eligible if they are not currently working but their partner is and they are in receipt of Incapacity Benefit, or Severe Disablement Allowance, or Carer’s Allowance or Contribution-based Employment and Support Allowance.
HMRC promotes Tax-Free Childcare through a range of channels including GOV.UK and the Childcare Choices website. More information on the scheme is also available on the British Army’s website, through targeted campaigns to childcare providers/parents and by the service charity sector such as Help for Heroes listed in the MoD’s Service Leavers’ Guide. These efforts ensure veterans are signposted to the childcare support available to them after military service.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - South Shropshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many breakfast club early adopters there are in (a) rural and (b) urban areas.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
In order to test and learn about how best to support schools in implementing new free universal breakfast clubs, the department has selected over 750 early adopter schools to deliver from summer term 2025, ahead of national roll out to all schools with primary aged children.
Just under a third of the breakfast club early adopter schools are in rural areas, meaning over two thirds are in urban areas. This is a representative of the split of the overall make-up of state-funded schools with primary aged pupils across England. Schools have been selected to ensure a representative sample, to ensure the early adopter scheme learns from a variety of schools, including schools that are large and small, with high and low levels of deprivation, and in a range of locations.