Asked by: Tony Vaughan (Labour - Folkestone and Hythe)
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 firefighters suffering from long-term health effects caused by their work.
Answered by Alex Norris - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The health and safety of firefighters is of paramount importance. Fire and rescue authorities, as employers, must take action to protect firefighter physical and mental health, this includes ensuring that firefighters receive the appropriate equipment and training they need. The Government continues to work closely with key partners, including the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) and Health and Safety executive (HSE), to monitor emerging risks, share best practice, and advocate for the highest standards in firefighter health and wellbeing.
Asked by: Tony Vaughan (Labour - Folkestone and Hythe)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of additional powers for local authorities to instigate stronger penalties against repeat illegal parking violations.
Answered by Jim McMahon - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Local Authorities are empowered to determine their parking arrangements, as they are best suited to understand the best way of responding to local needs.
They must do so in a way which meets standards set by national government that parking policies should be proportionate, support town centre prosperity, and reconcile competing demands for kerb space, and ensure traffic moves freely and quickly on their roads and the roads of nearby authorities as required in the Traffic Management Act 2004.
Asked by: Tony Vaughan (Labour - Folkestone and Hythe)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of migrants are granted settlement after (a) five years and (b) ten years for which the latest data is available.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The Home Office publishes data on how people move through the immigration system in the Migrant Journey report. Data on those granted indefinite leave to remain or citizenship by year of initial leave can be found in dataset MJ_D01. The latest publication includes those granted initial leave up to the end of 2024.
Asked by: Tony Vaughan (Labour - Folkestone and Hythe)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of people who come to the UK get citizenship after (a) five years and (b) ten years.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The Home Office publishes data on how people move through the immigration system in the Migrant Journey report. Data on those granted indefinite leave to remain or citizenship by year of initial leave can be found in dataset MJ_D01. The latest publication includes those granted initial leave up to the end of 2024.
Asked by: Tony Vaughan (Labour - Folkestone and Hythe)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of increasing the level of taxation on online gambling.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government is currently consulting on proposals to simplify the gambling tax system by merging the three current taxes that cover remote (including online) gambling into one.
Asked by: Tony Vaughan (Labour - Folkestone and Hythe)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much the NHS spent on sending letters to patients in the 2023-24 financial year.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Data on National Health Service total spend sending letters to patients in the 2023/24 financial year in England is not held centrally, and will be held locally by individual trusts.
Asked by: Tony Vaughan (Labour - Folkestone and Hythe)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps he is taking to help tackle illegal extremist content on the social media platform X.
Answered by Feryal Clark - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Online Safety Act gives online platforms, including X, new duties to take steps to reduce the risk their services are used to disseminate illegal extremist content. They also need to implement effective systems to remove this content when it does appear. This includes terrorist content and also illegal content which incites hatred. The illegal content duties are now in force. Ofcom is the regulator for the regime and has powers to enforce against platforms where they fail to fulfil their duties.
Asked by: Tony Vaughan (Labour - Folkestone and Hythe)
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 help improve the water quality of Dymchurch and St Mary’s Bay.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Environment Agency (EA) takes statutory samples and ensures compliance with the requirements of the Bathing Water Regulations. They collect investigative samples and analyse the results alongside other environmental data to help identify sources of pollution.
Dymchurch and St Marys Bay are priority bathing waters for local EA teams this year. No single source of pollution has been identified at these locations. The EA will continue to work with others including the water company, the local authority and communities to improve and protect water quality by identifying and stopping polluting inputs.
Water quality improvements at St. Marys Bay last year saw a return to ‘sufficient’ classification. This bathing water no longer has advice against bathing status, however there is still work to do to ensure water quality continues to improve.
The EA has worked in partnership with Southern Water to find and eliminate possible sources of contamination from their network, including misconnections. Southern Water has completed extensive checks of their sewerage infrastructure and have rectified issues throughout the investigations.
The EA encourages local communities to report pollution incidents that could be impacting bathing, surface or groundwater to their 24/7 incident hotline so they can respond and stop any pollution.
Asked by: Tony Vaughan (Labour - Folkestone and Hythe)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of enabling energy networks to access a dedicated radio spectrum for enhanced operational communications.
Answered by Michael Shanks - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Ofcom is responsible for the management of spectrum in the UK, including allocating spectrum. My officials are working with those in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and with regulators to establish and assess the evidence base for the future telecommunications requirements of the energy, water and transport sectors.
Asked by: Tony Vaughan (Labour - Folkestone and Hythe)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many sponsoring employers in the care sector had their sponsorship licence revoked in each year between 2022 to 2024; and what information her Department holds on the number of overseas care workers who have become unemployed following the revocation of their employer's sponsorship licence in that time period.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The Home Office does not routinely publish data on sponsor revocations for specific sectors. However, between July 2022 and December 2024, the government revoked more than 470 sponsor licences in the care sector to clampdown on abuse and exploitation. More than 39,000 workers have been associated with these sponsors since October 2020.
From our analysis we believe that up to 10,000 of these individuals are now in alternative sponsored work within the Health and Care sector.