Asked by: Tessa Munt (Liberal Democrat - Wells and Mendip Hills)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what his planned timetable is to introduce regulations to remove the T8 waste exemption on used tyres.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Removal of the T8 waste exemption is one measure among a package of possible reforms to the waste exemptions regime. This Government is currently considering priorities for waste and resources and reform of the waste exemptions regime including related to used tyres.
Asked by: Tessa Munt (Liberal Democrat - Wells and Mendip Hills)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if his Department will take steps to ensure that recovered tyres exported to India are not shipped in a form which enables them to be used in batch pyrolysis plants.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The UK has strict controls on the export of waste to ensure that the waste is treated in an environmentally sound manner. These controls are established in UK legislation and enforced by the UK’s waste shipment competent authorities.
Defra and the Environment Agency are engaging with the Indian authorities including the Indian Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change who have confirmed that the import of waste tyres for pyrolysis is prohibited under Indian law.
Asked by: Tessa Munt (Liberal Democrat - Wells and Mendip Hills)
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 ensure that recovered tyres exported from the UK to India are not exported in a form that allows them to be refitted to vehicles in India.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The UK has strict controls on the export of waste to ensure that the waste is treated in an environmentally sound manner. These controls are established in UK legislation and enforced by the UK’s waste shipment competent authorities.
Defra and the Environment Agency are engaging with the Indian authorities including the Indian Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change who have confirmed that the import of waste tyres for pyrolysis is prohibited under Indian law.
Asked by: Tessa Munt (Liberal Democrat - Wells and Mendip Hills)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he has had discussions with his Indian counterpart on steps to ensure that recovered tyres exported to India are not used to breach Indian domestic law.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The UK has strict controls on the export of waste to ensure that the waste is treated in an environmentally sound manner. These controls are established in UK legislation and enforced by the UK’s waste shipment competent authorities.
Defra and the Environment Agency are engaging with the Indian authorities including the Indian Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change who have confirmed that the import of waste tyres for pyrolysis is prohibited under Indian law.
Asked by: Tessa Munt (Liberal Democrat - Wells and Mendip Hills)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answers of 22 January 2025 to Questions 24638, 24639 and 24640 on Radiotherapy: Medical Equipment, whether the criteria developed by NHS England for funding exclude (a) replacing radiotherapy machines purchased by charities for use by the NHS and (b) the costs of artificial intelligence products; and what the three technical specification options are for linear accelerators from which providers need to choose.
Answered by Andrew Gwynne
The criteria developed by NHS England excludes the replacement of radiotherapy machines purchased by charities. These machines fall outside the scope of National Health Service capital replacement funding, as they are not originally procured through NHS-funded budgets.
The costs of artificial intelligence products are not typically covered under NHS capital radiotherapy equipment replacement programmes.
Asked by: Tessa Munt (Liberal Democrat - Wells and Mendip Hills)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, which of the 106 Listed Places of Worship in Wells and Mendip Hills constituency have received Grants under the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme since its inception.
Answered by Chris Bryant - Minister of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
Since 2022, the Department has given 4 grants, totalling £5,264.67, to Listed Places of Worship in the constituency of Wells and Mendip Hills. The recipients of these were St Mary’s Church Wedmore, St Mary Magdalene, All Saints Church, and Holy Trinity.
Asked by: Tessa Munt (Liberal Democrat - Wells and Mendip Hills)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate he has made of the number and proportion of recovered used tyres exported from the UK to India in the last 12 months.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This data is publicly available on the HMRC’s trade database which is available at https://www.uktradeinfo.com/trade-data.
Asked by: Tessa Munt (Liberal Democrat - Wells and Mendip Hills)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what involvement (a) he and (b) his Ministers had in setting the (i) guidance and (ii) spending limits for the Government's radiotherapy machine fund.
Answered by Andrew Gwynne
The £70 million of funding for new radiotherapy machines will be allocated to trusts using criteria that NHS England has developed. Officials from the Department have been engaged with NHS England officials in discussions about how the funding will be allocated.
Asked by: Tessa Munt (Liberal Democrat - Wells and Mendip Hills)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the letter from NHS England to NHS Trusts of 24 December 2024, for what reasons the radiotherapy machines fund guidelines exclude the cost of updating critical bunker protections.
Answered by Andrew Gwynne
The £70 million of funding is for new radiotherapy machines. The responsibility for costs relating to other aspects of radiotherapy treatment remains with local systems.
Asked by: Tessa Munt (Liberal Democrat - Wells and Mendip Hills)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of requiring NHS England to include the cost of AI products in the funding for updating radiotherapy machines.
Answered by Andrew Gwynne
The funding for new radiotherapy machines will be used to replace outdated machines, and allocated to trusts using criteria that NHS England has developed. The new machines will support the recovery of cancer waiting times and help ensure that patients have access to the most up-to-date treatments. The £70 million central funding is not intended to replace every machine aged 10 years and older, and the spending on machines remains the responsibility of local systems.
There are no plans to extend the 22 January 2025 deadline, nor has the relevant NHS England team received any requests from providers to do so. NHS England is working with providers to ensure they can get applications completed in time.
There are no plans for an assessment of the potential merits of requiring NHS England to include the cost of artificial intelligence products with this funding.
NHS England does not hold any data on the effectiveness of radiotherapy machines relative to the number of doses that they deliver. NHS England has set out a technical specification for linear accelerators with three options that providers need to choose between, however, the technical specification does not make any requirement about the number of fractions to be delivered.