First elected: 4th July 2024
Speeches made during Parliamentary debates are recorded in Hansard. For ease of browsing we have grouped debates into individual, departmental and legislative categories.
e-Petitions are administered by Parliament and allow members of the public to express support for a particular issue.
If an e-petition reaches 10,000 signatures the Government will issue a written response.
If an e-petition reaches 100,000 signatures the petition becomes eligible for a Parliamentary debate (usually Monday 4.30pm in Westminster Hall).
Introduce 16 as the minimum age for children to have social media
Gov Responded - 17 Dec 2024 Debated on - 24 Feb 2025 View Victoria Collins's petition debate contributionsWe believe social media companies should be banned from letting children under 16 create social media accounts.
These initiatives were driven by Victoria Collins, and are more likely to reflect personal policy preferences.
MPs who are act as Ministers or Shadow Ministers are generally restricted from performing Commons initiatives other than Urgent Questions.
Victoria Collins has not been granted any Urgent Questions
A Bill to make provision for the designation of rivers, streams and lakes as having protected status; to specify criteria for minimum standards that a site must meet where it has been designated as a river, stream or lake with protected status; to set minimum standards of water quality, safety, environmental management and provision of information in relation to such sites; and for connected purposes.
Victoria Collins has not co-sponsored any Bills in the current parliamentary sitting
In March 2025, this Government published a response to the previous Government’s consultation on tackling non-compliance in the umbrella company market, outlining our approach to regulating the sector. Responses to the call for evidence and consultation gathered data from workers, including contractors.
Through the Employment Rights Bill, we are defining the activities of umbrella companies, and allowing for their subsequent regulation and enforcement through the Fair Work Agency. We will ensure that those who work through umbrella companies receive comparable employment rights to those taken on directly by an employment business. This complements the announcement made at Autumn Budget 2024.
Hertfordshire Growth Hub provides SMEs in Harpenden and Berkhamsted with support and advice with adopting digital technology. The Government is working closely with the SME Digital Adoption Taskforce. The Taskforce brings industry stakeholders together to explore how the UK can supercharge digital adoption amongst SMEs to drive productivity. Its final report will be published this summer.
In addition, the Department for Business and Trade is working with DSIT on the Technology Adoption Review led by the Government Chief Scientific Advisor and the Government National Technology Advisor.
The Taylor Review was published in 2017 and while it continues to be a valuable contribution to the debate on working practices, this Government is focused on delivering our plan to Make Work Pay.
Once implemented, our Plan to Make Work Pay will represent the biggest upgrade of workers’ rights in a generation. It will raise the minimum floor of employment rights, raise living standards across the country and level the playing field for those businesses that are already engaged in good practices.
Small businesses across the UK including in Harpenden and Berkhamsted are the beating heart of our high streets and communities. This Government is committed to supporting them through a fairer business rate system.
From 2026-27, we’ll introduce lower tax rates for retail, hospitality, and leisure (RHL) properties with rateable values under £500,000. RHL relief will be extended for 2025-26 at 40%, and the small business multiplier will be frozen for the same period.
The Business Secretary has also announced a new Business Growth Service to help businesses access more easily the support they need to thrive and grow and we will publish our strategy to support small businesses later this year.
We will always act in the best interests of UK businesses. That’s why the government has been focused on negotiating an economic deal with the US.
We will continue to engage with businesses to assess and understand the impact of these tariffs. On 3 April the government launched a Request for Input from businesses to help inform the UK’s response to US tariffs.
We continue to support businesses to grow and export across the world, including to the United States. Through the recently announced Business Growth Service, businesses can access export support via Great.gov.uk. including the Export Academy, International Markets Network, Growth Hubs and Help to Grow: Management scheme.
Information provided by employers to HMRC show the number of individuals in receipt of Statutory Paternity Pay (SPP). This data provides a broad indication of Paternity Leave take-up but does not include those that take unpaid paternity leave. The Parental Rights Survey found that 70% of all employee fathers took Paternity Leave.
Table 1: Individuals in receipt of SPP, 2019/20 to 2023/24 (the latest year for which full year data is available)
Year (April to March) | Total |
2019-20 | 208,000 |
2020-21 | 176,400 |
2021-22 | 204,200 |
2022-23 | 195,300 |
2023-24 | 207,600 |
Government is committed to providing redress to individuals affected by the Horizon scandal as quickly as possible. Real progress is being made; as of 30 September 2024, approximately £363 million has been paid to over 2,900 claimants across the available schemes.
We however continue to seek options to speed up redress, in discussion with the Horizon Compensation Advisory Board. For example, we have recently committed to providing offers in response to fully completed claims to the Horizon Convictions Redress Scheme within 40 working days in 90% of cases, in line with the commitment on the GLO scheme which we are currently meeting.
The Warm Homes Plan will help people find ways to save money on energy bills and transform our ageing building stock into comfortable, low-carbon homes that are fit for the future, including those in the Harpenden and Berkhamsted constituency. We will upgrade up to 5 million homes across the country by accelerating the installation of efficient new technologies like heat pumps, solar, batteries and insulation.
The Government has announced Wave 3 of the Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund in England, to support social housing providers and tenants, as well as the new Warm Homes: Local Grant to support low-income homeowners and private tenants.
The Government has committed an initial £3.4 billion over the next 3 years towards heat decarbonisation and household energy efficiency. We will publish further details on the Warm Homes Plan in due course.
Neither the Secretary of State nor I will be commenting on the specifics of individual in order to avoid potentially prejudicing any future regulatory decisions the Secretary of State is required to make in relation to these projects. We remain committed to having the supplementary Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) guidance in place as soon as possible. Once it is published, assessments of environmental statements can resume.
The Government’s initial assessment of the challenges of building the skilled workforce to deliver the Clean Energy Superpower Mission has been outlined in the Clean Power Action Plan. The Plan includes an Evidence Annex which provides a basis for Government to better understand the 2030 workforce requirements and support targeted skills planning.
By 2030, the clean energy transition could create hundreds of thousands of new jobs, benefiting communities across the UK representing the economic opportunity of the century.
The match funding between GBE and DfE announced on 21 March 2025 will enable around 200 schools in England to install solar power and complementary decarbonisation technologies, helping to drive down their energy bills. It is estimated to provide up to £140 million of savings for schools bills over the 30-year lifetime of the panels.
The Government will conduct feasibility studies for schools soon and anticipate installation work to start soon afterwards with the majority of installations happening over the 2025 School Summer holidays.
The Government has been engaging with a range of stakeholders, providing an opportunity to share their ideas and views on how government can best encourage nature positive best practice into energy infrastructure planning and development. We are working to better understand how we can integrate nature restoration through Clean Power 2030.
Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) are a critical tool in informing consumers about the running costs of their homes, helping them reduce both energy bills and carbon emissions. The EPC model already recognises the performance of air-to-air heat pumps. The government is reviewing the building physics model and methodology underpinning EPCs to better support net zero goals, including deployment of heat pumps. Government will shortly set out a consultation with proposals for improvements to EPCs, including proposals for improving EPC metrics.
Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) are a critical tool in informing consumers about the running costs of their homes, helping them reduce both energy bills and carbon emissions. The EPC model already recognises the performance of air-to-air heat pumps. The government is reviewing the building physics model and methodology underpinning EPCs to better support net zero goals, including deployment of heat pumps. Government will shortly set out a consultation with proposals for improvements to EPCs, including proposals for improving EPC metrics.
Following the 2017 reforms, government representatives engaged regularly with stakeholders about their impact. The changes made by the Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Act 2022 were consulted on and received Parliamentary scrutiny during passage of the Act. Government has no plans to conduct a formal review of the 2017 reforms before commencing sections 61-64 of the Act, which was subject to a published De Minimis Impact Assessment.
Government’s decisions on 5G policy are informed by a wide range of evidence and information. We continue to work with mobile operators to meet our 5G standalone coverage ambition by 2030.
The aim of the 2017 reforms was to encourage investment in digital networks and improve coverage and connectivity across the UK. Based on Ofcom reporting, 4G rural geographic coverage from at least one operator has increased from 88% in May 2018 to a reported 95% in the 2025 Spring Connected Nations Update. It is a similar story for geographic 5G coverage in rural areas, with coverage from at least one operator increasing from 12% in May 2022 to a reported 58% in the same update.
We continue to work with mobile operators to meet our coverage ambitions, including rural areas.
The Government is clear that universities are a key partner in research and development, which is fundamental to kickstarting economic growth and delivering the Government’s missions. DSIT values the views of universities and engages closely with them through a programme of one to one meetings, roundtables, visits, and sector group meetings, as appropriate, to develop research policies for England and the rest of the UK.
Ofcom and its advisory committees are independent of government. The design of the advisory committee’s Terms of Reference are therefore a matter for Ofcom.
The Online Safety Act includes clear requirements for the Committee’s responsibilities: advising Ofcom on how providers should address mis- and disinformation, how the regulator should exercise their transparency powers and fulfil their statutory duty to promote media literacy in relation to mis- and disinformation. These obligations are unchanged and are duly reflected in the terms of reference for the Online Information Advisory Committee.
In 2024 the Government provided £0.5 million to expand the National Literacy Trust’s ‘Empower’ and Parent Zone’s ‘Everyday Digital’ programmes.
‘Empower’ provided media literacy education to nearly 4,000 vulnerable students aged 11-16, who were excluded or at risk of exclusion, increasing critical thinking and awareness of online harms. It also trained schoolteachers to lead media literacy within their schools.
‘Everyday Digital’ reached over 60,000 parents, helping improve their understanding of media literacy, set digital boundaries and critically evaluate online content. The evaluation showed a 45% improvement in media literacy understanding.
Both organisations evaluated their programmes’ impact and will publish reports.
The Online Safety Act focuses on the worst kinds of mis- and disinformation - that which is illegal content or content harmful to children. For example, its Foreign Interference Offence forces platforms to take proactive action against state-linked online interference. Platforms must remove other in-scope illegal mis- and disinformation where they become aware of it.
The government is clear on platforms’ responsibility to keep their users safe and tackle harmful content, and DSIT engages with major social media platforms on issues or events that create risks for public safety or national security.
The Government is committed to supporting the uptake and development of alternative methods to the use of animals in science. UK Research and Innovation is committed to reducing the use of animals in research and provide a number of financial support mechanisms to do that. This includes, for example, core funding to the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research, and supporting ‘human-specific’ research through the MRC Experimental medicine programme.
Under the Online Safety Act, platforms and search services that are likely to be accessed by children must prevent children of all ages from encountering content that promotes, encourages or provides instructions for eating disorders.
Providers must also consider how algorithms can impact children’s exposure to harmful content and mitigate this risk.
Ofcom’s draft children’s code of practice also acknowledge that body image content may be linked to significant harm arising from body or image dissatisfaction.
Government is committed to protecting children’s safety online across the UK.
The Online Safety Act requires social media platforms to consider, as part of their risk assessments, how their algorithms impact children’s exposure to illegal and harmful content. Additionally, platforms are required to consider how their functionalities, including algorithms, affect the time children spend on the platform.
Ofcom’s draft Children’s Safety Codes include measures that prevent harm related to algorithms, including by recommending that algorithms and other recommender systems filter harmful content out of children’s feeds.
Government is committed to protecting children’s safety online across the UK.
The Online Safety Act requires social media platforms to consider, as part of their risk assessments, how their algorithms impact children’s exposure to illegal and harmful content. Additionally, platforms are required to consider how their functionalities, including algorithms, affect the time children spend on the platform.
Ofcom’s draft Children’s Safety Codes include measures that prevent harm related to algorithms, including by recommending that algorithms and other recommender systems filter harmful content out of children’s feeds.
I have not had any discussions with Ofcom directly on increasing the spectrum available to mobile operators, but my officials are in regular discussion with them on spectrum issues. The Government recognises the importance of ensuring access to suitable spectrum across different sectors, the opportunities this creates for growth, and that a focus on innovation and enhanced shared use of spectrum will become increasingly important to realise this.
Ofcom sets mobile spectrum fees independently to promote the optimal use of spectrum. The Government recognises the cost of these fees to the industry. Supporting investment in mobile networks is a priority and the Government continues to assess what further interventions are needed to support 5G deployment.
The AI Opportunities Action Plan outlines how the UK can build the cutting-edge compute infrastructure needed to lead in AI development and deployment, securing long-term economic growth and staying at the forefront of AI innovation.
AI Growth Zones will encourage the development of advanced AI data centres in areas of the country with plentiful power, such as post-industrial towns and areas with significant renewable energy capacity.
The investment in AI-enabled data centres will have a spillover effect in local communities, providing jobs, improving local infrastructure, rejuvenating areas, and driving the UK’s ambition to become a global hub for AI talent and investment.
The Growth Zones will help secure the UK’s position as a global leader in AI innovation and will deliver substantial regional and national benefits.
There is no single accepted definition of digital poverty, but we know that digital exclusion impacts people broadly across demographics with some, including older people, at higher risk.
According to Ofcom in 2024, 6% of UK adults did not have internet access at home. For those aged 75+, the figure is 29%. 34% of households with school-aged children did not have an appropriate device for accessing online schoolwork.
This Government is determined to remedy this by closing the digital divide and ensuring everyone has the access, skills, support and confidence to participate in our modern digital society, whatever their circumstances.
The government is committed to empowering internet users with the skills to engage critically with online content and make informed decisions.
Since 2022, nearly £3 million in funding has been provided for media literacy projects. This includes £0.5 million in 2024 to scale up two programmes to provide media literacy support to teachers, children aged 11-16, and professionals working with families. That funding covers the 2024/25 financial year.
Robust evaluation and monitoring are key requirements of the grant schemes. Both organisations must evaluate the impact of their programmes over the past year by March 2025.
As of the end of March 2024, over one million premises had been upgraded to gigabit-capable broadband through government-funded programmes. Additionally, more than £2 billion of contracts have been signed to provide gigabit-capable coverage to over a million more premises.
All planned Project Gigabit contracts for England and Wales have been signed. In the last few months alone, the first premises have been given coverage as part of these contracts in areas including North Yorkshire, Norfolk, Suffolk and South Wiltshire. Build is under way in many other parts of the country too.
The Scottish Government has four procurements in progress and details of a contract covering the Borders and East Lothian area are expected to be announced shortly. Remaining areas of Scotland will be included within a procurement which is currently under way with Openreach, managed by the UK Government. A single procurement is also in progress in Northern Ireland, managed by the Department for Economy.
The Secretary of State for Science, Innovation, and Technology regularly engages with international counterparts, including European partners, both bilaterally and through multilateral forums such as the G7, G20, and OECD. These discussions focus on shared opportunities and challenges posed by technological innovation, including the role of regulatory frameworks in fostering growth and innovation while ensuring security.
The Government recognises that the huge opportunities offered by AI also come with risks. This includes the potential to generate inauthentic content indistinguishable from human-generated content at higher scale and lower cost than previously possible. We continue to investigate the potential for transparency and detection and welcome technical innovation in this space.
The Online Safety Act requires social media platforms to swiftly remove illegal misinformation and disinformation or hateful content - including where AI-generated - as soon as they become aware of it. The Government also empowers users with the skills and knowledge to engage critically with online content through media literacy initiatives.
Since April 2024, three new Project Gigabit contracts covering Lincolnshire and East Riding, Cheshire, and North Yorkshire have been signed.
A cross regional framework agreement with Openreach, has also been signed. The first two call-off contracts under the framework have been awarded, covering large parts of Wales and rural parts of England from Devon to Staffordshire. The first Project Gigabit procurements have also been launched in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
The project to develop a breath test to identify pancreatic cancer is funded via the NIHR i4i/OLS: Early Cancer Diagnosis Clinical Validation and Evaluation Call. This £11 million programme funds 6 projects that aim to develop technologies to aid early detection of cancer. This is one strand of the Office for Life Sciences’ (OLS) Cancer Programme, which supports the development of technologies that enable earlier, more effective cancer diagnosis and improved treatment. OLS is a joint Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and Department for Science Innovation and Technology (DSIT) unit, ensuring both departments are involved in this work.
The Government recognises the vital importance of ensuring that all music creators, including independent artists, are appropriately compensated for their work. Many have raised legitimate concerns about remuneration from streaming platforms and we take these issues seriously. Through a dedicated working group, we are facilitating industry-led action on music streaming remuneration, with the aim of making meaningful progress.
We recognise that positive steps are being taken by parts of the industry, such as the decision by some, but not all, labels to disregard unrecouped advances in legacy contracts on a rolling basis. These are welcome moves that reflect an increasing recognition across the sector of the need for more equitable outcomes. However, there is still a clear need for further progress. Too many musicians and song writers are expected to work for a pittance. We remain committed to pursuing practical, effective solutions that empower our world-class industry and its creators to thrive.
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.
In 2022/23, £5,950.00 was invested in Harpenden and Berkhamsted with 3 tennis courts at Rothamsted Park renovated directly as a result of investment from the Park Tennis Court Programme.
Multi-Sport Grassroots Facilities Programme funding is delivered through the Football Foundation in England and further detail on funded projects will be published on gov.uk in due course. Tennis/padel projects are not currently funded through the programme but at least 40% of funded projects will support non-football sports where similar pitch types/playing surfaces can be shared (such as rugby, cricket and basketball), ensuring more people can participate and get active across a variety of sports.
Future funding for grassroots facilities beyond 2025/26 is subject to the ongoing Spending Review.
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.
In 2022/23, £5,950.00 was invested in Harpenden and Berkhamsted with 3 tennis courts at Rothamsted Park renovated directly as a result of investment from the Park Tennis Court Programme.
Multi-Sport Grassroots Facilities Programme funding is delivered through the Football Foundation in England and further detail on funded projects will be published on gov.uk in due course. Tennis/padel projects are not currently funded through the programme but at least 40% of funded projects will support non-football sports where similar pitch types/playing surfaces can be shared (such as rugby, cricket and basketball), ensuring more people can participate and get active across a variety of sports.
Future funding for grassroots facilities beyond 2025/26 is subject to the ongoing Spending Review.
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.
In 2022/23, £5,950.00 was invested in Harpenden and Berkhamsted with 3 tennis courts at Rothamsted Park renovated directly as a result of investment from the Park Tennis Court Programme.
Multi-Sport Grassroots Facilities Programme funding is delivered through the Football Foundation in England and further detail on funded projects will be published on gov.uk in due course. Tennis/padel projects are not currently funded through the programme but at least 40% of funded projects will support non-football sports where similar pitch types/playing surfaces can be shared (such as rugby, cricket and basketball), ensuring more people can participate and get active across a variety of sports.
Future funding for grassroots facilities beyond 2025/26 is subject to the ongoing Spending Review.
The Government recognises that leisure facilities are important to communities up and down the country. High quality, inclusive facilities help people get active. Everyone, no matter who they are or where they live, should have access to high quality facilities and opportunities to participate in sport and physical activity.
The ongoing responsibility for public leisure facilities lies at Local Authority level. Local Authorities work in partnership with operators who manage leisure services. The Government and Sport England continue to work closely with Local Authorities to monitor pressures in the sector.
Sport England’s Moving Communities service provides insight which informs local authorities in making strategic decisions about the most effective investments to benefit local communities.
This government’s position on international students has been clear. We are committed to a United Kingdom that is outward looking and welcomes international students who make a positive impact on the UK’s higher education (HE) sector, our economy and society as a whole.
The government expects the UK to remain a highly attractive study destination. The UK has a world class HE sector with 4 universities in the top 10 and 15 in the top 100 worldwide, according to the latest QS World University Rankings, alongside a wide array of high-quality institutions which can offer a fulfilling and enjoyable experience to international students from around the world.
In order to put the sector on a firmer financial footing, Professor Edward Peck has been appointed as substantive Chair of the Office for Students to continue its focus on financial sustainability and increasing opportunities in HE. We have also taken the difficult decision to increase tuition fee limits by 3.1% in the 2025/26 academic year, in line with inflation.
The department will publish its plans for HE reform as part of the Post-16 Education and Skills White Paper this summer.
On Thursday 20 March I announced the launch of the national Families First Partnership programme, backed by over £500 million in grant funding to support rollout. This includes the publication of the Families First Programme guide, which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/families-first-partnership-programme.
The department’s goal for this programme is to improve access to support for families, including families with disabled children, right across the country. The aim is to rebalance the system of support away from crisis intervention and towards earlier help, delivering on the government’s mission to provide children with the best start in life, keep children safe and break down barriers to opportunity.
The department recognises there is geographical variation for a range of reasons. Through the rollout of this programme, local areas will co-design services with partners and families to better understand local need and services, to inform future delivery. We will work to support local authorities throughout the transformation period.
The department wants to drive a consistent and inclusive approach to supporting children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) to achieve and thrive in mainstream settings through early identification, effective support, high quality teaching and effective allocation of resources.
Through a graduated approach, teachers are responsible for monitoring the progress of all pupils and putting support in place where needed. Where a child who has SEND needs more support than their school can usually provide, schools, parents or carers can ask the local authority to carry out an education, health and care (EHC) needs assessment.
The department recognises the critical role of educational psychologists within the SEND system, including their statutory contribution to EHC assessments. The department is investing over £21 million to train 400 more educational psychologists from 2024, building on the £10 million currently being invested in a cohort of over 200 trainees who began their training in 2023. Trainees will join the workforce to support the capacity of local authority educational psychology services, including in delivering assessments.
The department provides support and challenge to the Hertfordshire local area partnership by monitoring progress against its priority action plan and improvement plan and by providing advice and guidance via a SEND expert advisor. The partnership has also established a SEND Improvement Board, independently chaired by Dame Christine Lenehan, to oversee progress and provide appropriate challenge.
The department expects all local authorities to meet their statutory duties and we will continue to monitor and challenge Hertfordshire County Council’s EHC plan 20 week timeliness.
Every day, children’s social care professionals provide a vital service to children in need of support, including disabled children. Whilst it is the employer’s responsibility to ensure that their social care workforces are well-equipped for the roles they perform, the department is focused on supporting continued improvements in practice. All qualified children’s social workers must register with the professional regulator Social Work England and meet the professional standards. These include practising in line with the requirements of the Equality Act, which includes disability as a protected characteristic.
The department sets the professional standards that new children’s social workers should attain through the post-qualifying standards. The department is currently consulting on a new set of standards which include a greater focus on disability. Subject to the spending review, the department plans to introduce a new two-year social worker induction programme based on the new standards, to strengthen support for new children’s social workers.
In addition, the Law Commission are currently undertaking an independent review of social care legislation relating to disabled children. They are due to report their final recommendations to government in summer 2025, at which point the department will consider proposals for reforms to the disabled children’s social care system.
I refer the hon. Member for Harpenden and Berkhamsted to the answer of 30 April 2025 to Question 45293.
It is the government’s ambition that all families have access to high-quality, affordable and flexible early education and care, giving every child the best start in life and delivering on our Plan for Change.
This working parent entitlement aims to support parents to return to work or to work more hours if they wish. To be eligible, parents must expect to earn the equivalent of 16 hours a week at National Minimum Wage (£195 per week/£10,158 per year in 2025/26), and less than £100,000 adjusted net income per year.
The government needs to use public funds in a way that provides value for money and considers it reasonable to target this funding at those individuals earning under £100,000 adjusted net income. Only a small proportion of parents (estimated to be 3.8% of parents of 3 and 4-year-olds in 2023/24) earn over the £100,000 adjusted net income maximum threshold. Further information can be found at the following address: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/education-provision-children-under-5/2024.
Parents who earn over maximum income threshold can still claim the universal 15 hours for 3 and 4-year-olds in England.
The department has taken action to improve transparency and protect parents from additional charges on top of their entitlement, ensuring the funded hours remain accessible for parents. We updated our statutory guidance on 21 February 2025, reconfirming that there must be no mandatory additional charges associated with entitlement hours. The guidance also sets out the expectation that local authorities ensure providers have set out additional charges clearly and upfront on websites and invoices by January 2026.