Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - South Shropshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to improve access to NHS dental care in South Shropshire constituency.
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 responsibility for commissioning primary care services, including NHS dentistry, to meet the needs of the local population has been delegated to the Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) across England. For the South Shropshire constituency, this is the NHS Shropshire, Telford, and Wrekin ICB. ICBs have been asked to start making extra urgent dental appointments available from April 2025. The Shropshire, Telford, and Wrekin ICB is expected to deliver 7,408 additional urgent dental appointments as part of the scheme.
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 tackle pockets of deprivation in rural local authority areas.
Answered by Jim McMahon - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The 2025-26 Local Government Finance Settlement begins to fix the foundations of local government by targeting additional funding to places with greatest need and demand for services (using deprivation as a proxy for this), and less ability to raise income locally, through a new Recovery Grant, worth £600 million. Through the Settlement, places with a significant rural population will on average receive almost a 6% increase in their Core Spending Power next year, which is a real terms increase.
Broader redistribution of funding will follow from 2026-27 and we are committed to fundamentally reforming how we assess need to ensure funding is distributed to where it is needed most. The government will use the best available evidence to assess differences in the need for local government services – including deprivation – and resources available to local authorities.
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 assessment she has made of the potential impact of the TV licence increase on household budgets.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
In April 2025 the level of the licence fee increased in line with inflation, as set out in the 2022 Licence Fee Settlement that was reached under the previous government. The increase will mean that TV licence costs £5 more per year for households than in 2024/25. This uplift provides certainty and stability for the BBC and S4C, and supports them in delivering their essential public services remits and world-class educational and engaging programming, while also ensuring we deliver the best outcomes for licence fee payers.
The government recognises there is pressure on households and to support those most in need, has taken action to expand the Simple Payment Plan to help more households facing financial hardship pay their TV licence.
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 funding her Department is providing for the renovation of multi-use sports pitches.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government provides the majority of our funding for grassroots sport through our Arm’s Length Body, Sport England, which invests over £250 million in Exchequer and Lottery funding each year.
We also deliver funding to support multi-use sport pitches through the Multi-Sport Grassroots Facilities Programme. In March the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport announced an additional £100 million would be invested through the programme. Our funding is delivered through the Football Foundation in England and further detail on funded projects will be published on gov.uk in due course.
Future funding for grassroots facilities beyond 2025/26 is subject to the ongoing Spending Review.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - South Shropshire)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what fiscal steps she is taking to support small businesses in (a) South Shropshire and (b) other rural communities.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
At Autumn Budget 2024, the Government announced tax reforms to support small businesses, including: more than doubling the employment allowance to £10,500; commitments in the Corporate Tax Roadmap to maintain the Small Profits Rate and marginal relief at their current rates and thresholds; and freezing the small businesses multiplier for 2025/26.
The Government also announced changes to inheritance tax, including reforms to business property relief (BPR). The Government has protected smaller family businesses from BPR changes, with the first £1 million of business assets continuing to receive 100% relief and then 50% thereafter.
The Government has committed £250m in 2025-26 for the British Business Bank’s small business loans programmes, including Start Up Loans and the Growth Guarantee Scheme.
We have extended funding for Growth Hubs across England in 2025-26. Businesses in your constituency can access the Shropshire Growth Hub for free advice, support, and signposting to other Government services.
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 increase the (a) skills and (b) capacity of planning authorities in rural areas.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Supporting local planning authorities to attract, retain and develop skilled planners is crucial to ensuring they provide a proactive, efficient planning service for local communities and that new developments are well designed and facilitate local growth.
The government appreciates that planning departments across the country, including in rural areas, are experiencing challenges with recruitment, retention, and skills gaps and that in many cases these issues are having a negative impact on service delivery.
At the Budget, the Chanceller announced a £46 million package of investment into the planning system as a one-year settlement for 2025-2026.
Our manifesto committed us to appointing 300 new planning officers into LPAs. We are on track to meet that commitment through two routes, namely graduate recruitment through the Pathways to Planning scheme run by the Local Government Association and mid-career recruitment through Public Practice.
On 27 February, the government announced funding to support salaries and complement graduate bursaries. Further information can be found in the Written Ministerial Statement I made on 27 February 2025 (HCWS480).
On 25 February, the draft Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications, Deemed Applications, Requests and Site Visits) (England) (Amendment and Transitional Provision) Regulations 2025 were agreed. These regulations increase planning fees for householder and other applications, with a view to providing much-needed additional resources for hard-pressed LPAs.
More broadly, the Department’s established Planning Capacity and Capability programme is also developing a wider programme of support, working with partners across the planning sector, to ensure that LPAs have the skills and capacity they need, both now and in the future, to modernise local plans and speed up decision making, including through innovative use of digital planning data and software.
Lastly, the Planning and Infrastructure Bill which was introduced on 11 March includes provisions that will allow LPAs to set planning fees or charges at a level that reflects the individual costs to the LPA to carry out the function for which it is imposed and to ensure that the income from planning fees or charges is applied towards the delivery of the planning function.
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 farmers affected by the outbreak of avian flu.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Following the detection of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in poultry and other captive birds in the UK, Defra and the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) together with the Devolved Governments and their delivery agencies have stood up their well-established outbreak structures to control and eradicate disease, restore normal trade, and assist local communities’ recovery.
Defra’s avian influenza disease control measures aim to minimise the economic burden of the outbreak on the food and farming sectors, bird keepers and the wider economy. As part of this approach, Defra introduced legislation in January this year which allows free-range eggs to continue to be labelled as such for the duration of mandatory housing measures, reducing costs on producers and enabling them to continue to trade fairly with imported eggs. We will be introducing similar legislation covering free-range poultry later this year.
The Department works closely with both the poultry industry and wider bird keeping stakeholders and the impacts of the avian influenza outbreak are being monitored closely. Where avian influenza is confirmed on a premises, the producer receives compensation for any healthy birds culled for disease control purposes. Compensation is not available for sick birds or those that have died, or for consequential losses e.g. lost sales opportunities.
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.