Written questions by McMurdock.

What assessment he has made of the potential impact of the Zero Emission Vehicle Mandate on employment levels in the UK automotive manufacturing sector.

The government does not hold data on how the Zero Emissions Vehicle Mandate has affected automotive employment in the UK.We speak regularly to all the major UK automotive stakeholders to understand the health of the sector and factors impacting competitiveness. Government is committed to ensuring the transition to zero emissions works for industry. That is why we introduced significant changes to the Mandate, allowing for greater flexibility in meeting ZEV targets and extending the sale of hybrid vehicles.

What steps her Department is taking to tackle the causes of retail crime.

This Government is committed to tackling anti-social behaviour and retail crime and its causes, as a key part of our Safer Streets Mission. Key to this is our plan to transform neighbourhood policing through our Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee. We will deliver 13,000 more neighbourhood police by the end of the Parliament, whilst also ensuring each community has a named, contactable officer to turn to.To help tackle retail crime, we will provide £5 million over the next three years to continue to fund a specialist analysis team within Opal, the national policing intelligence unit for serious organised acquisitive crime.We will also invest £2 million over the next three years in the National Business Crime Centre which provides a resource for both police and businesses to learn, share and support each other to prevent and combat crime.Further, the National Police Chiefs' Council will receive funding to give further training to police and retailers on prevention tactics. The training will aim to empower retailers to develop and implement tactics to prevent retail crime.Finally, the Home Office is providing funding through the Hotspot Action Fund programme to all 43 Police Force Areas in England and Wales in 2025/26, of £66.3 million. This funding is to implement additional, high visibility patrolling and problem-solving policing in serious violence and anti-social behaviour hotspots.

What steps he is taking to improve access to local NHS services for older people.

Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for commissioning healthcare services that meet the needs of their local populations. When ICBs exercise their functions, they have a duty to reduce inequalities between persons with respect to their ability to access health services and to reduce inequalities between patients with respect to the outcomes achieved for them by the provision of health services.Further, as part of the Government’s five long-term missions, we have launched a 10-Year Health Plan to reform the National Health Service and make it fit for the future.The 10-Year Health Plan will deliver the three big shifts our NHS needs to be fit for the future: from hospital to community; from analogue to digital; and from sickness to prevention. All of these are relevant to improving support for older people in all parts of the country.More care and support delivered in the community, better joint working between services, and greater use of apps and wearable technology will all support patients closer to home.The 10-Year Health Plan will also set the vision for what good joined-up care looks like for people with a combination of health and care needs, such as older people.  It will set out how to support and enable health and social care services, and wider services, to work together better to provide that joined-up care.

What assessment she has made of the potential impact of larger police presence in neighbourhoods on rates of (a) retail crime and (b) anti-social behaviour.

This Government is committed to tackling anti-social behaviour and retail crime and its causes, as a key part of our Safer Streets Mission. Key to this is our plan to transform neighbourhood policing through our Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee. We will deliver 13,000 more neighbourhood police by the end of the Parliament, whilst also ensuring each community has a named, contactable officer to turn to.To help tackle retail crime, we will provide £5 million over the next three years to continue to fund a specialist analysis team within Opal, the national policing intelligence unit for serious organised acquisitive crime.We will also invest £2 million over the next three years in the National Business Crime Centre which provides a resource for both police and businesses to learn, share and support each other to prevent and combat crime.Further, the National Police Chiefs' Council will receive funding to give further training to police and retailers on prevention tactics. The training will aim to empower retailers to develop and implement tactics to prevent retail crime.Finally, the Home Office is providing funding through the Hotspot Action Fund programme to all 43 Police Force Areas in England and Wales in 2025/26, of £66.3 million. This funding is to implement additional, high visibility patrolling and problem-solving policing in serious violence and anti-social behaviour hotspots.

What support is available to promote (a) lifelong learning and (b) digital inclusion for older people.

The department is investing in education and skills training for adults through the Adult Skills Fund, which fully funds or co-funds education and skills training for eligible adults aged 19 and above from pre-entry to level 3, to help them gain the skills they need for work, an apprenticeship or further learning.This also funds the department’s Essential Skills entitlements, which provide the opportunity for fully-funded study for eligible adults who do not have essential literacy and numeracy skills up to and including level 2, and digital skills up to and including level 1. Essential Digital Skills Qualifications and digital Functional Skills qualifications up to level 1 are available for free under the digital entitlement for adults with low digital skills.Where qualifications are not appropriate for a learner, more flexible provision is available through ‘Tailored Learning’, which offers bespoke courses in essential digital skills at a pace that works for them, supporting their journey to get online.The ‘Free Courses for Jobs’ offer gives eligible adults the chance to access high value Level 3 qualification for free, which can support them to gain higher wages or a better job.Skills Bootcamps give adults the chance to build sector-specific skills, including in digital, with a job interview on completion for eligible learners.In January 2027, the department will introduce the Lifelong Learning Entitlement, which will broaden access to high-quality, flexible education and training. It will support individuals to learn, upskill and retrain across their working lives, up to the age of 60.

How his Department is ensuring the (a) transparency and (b) accountability of carbon capture projects funded by public money.

The Government has developed a series of models to incentivise behaviour in line with our objectives and deliver value for money for consumers and taxpayers. The Infrastructure and Projects Authority provides oversight of the Programme, as a Government’s Major Projects Portfolio, through Gateway Reviews and reporting, and the programme has been subject to National Audit Office reviews and Public Accounts Committee hearings. Partner organisations, such as OFGEM, Low Carbon Contracts Company, and Central Grants and Loans have a key role in providing accountability through monitoring the performance of the Transport & Storage Companies and emitters. The contracts set out regulations according to which support can be withdrawn where key milestones are not met. The Full Business Cases and associated assessments will be published in due course.

Communities and Local Government, what progress she has made on leasehold reform.

The government outlined its approach to leasehold and commonhold reform in the Written Ministerial Statement made on 21 November 2024 (HCWS244).We took swift action in the early months of the Parliament to implement provisions in the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 relating to rent charge arrears, building safety legal costs and the work of professional insolvency practitioners.On 31 October 2024, the government commenced further building safety measures.On 31 January 2025, provisions to remove the two-year qualifying rule in relation to enfranchisement and lease extensions came into force.On 3 March 2025, the right to manage provisions (expanding access, reforming its costs, and voting rights) came into force and we published the Commonhold White Paper, which is a crucial first step in ensuring commonhold becomes the default tenure for flats.An ambitious draft Leasehold and Commonhold reform Bill will be published later this year.

What assessment his Department has made of the long-term (a) safety and (b) environmental impact of carbon capture facilities.

Carbon capture and the transport and storage of CO2 are safe technologies underpinned by strong regulatory frameworks to mitigate potential risks associated with those activities. There are several regulators in the UK in place to protect human health and the environment, including: Environment Agency (EA) Offshore Petroleum Regulator for Environment and Decommissioning (OPRED), Health and Safety Executive (HSE), Natural Resources Wales and SEPA (Scottish Environment Protection Agency) Additionally, the storage permit, regulated by the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), for a storage site will only be issued when the NSTA are confident that there will be no significant risk of leakage or of harm to the environment and human health from the CO2 storage.

What recent assessment his Department has made of the potential risks of carbon capture and storage facilities.

Carbon capture and the transport and storage of CO2 are safe technologies underpinned by strong regulatory frameworks to mitigate potential risks associated with those activities. There are several regulators in the UK in place to protect human health and the environment, including: Environment Agency (EA) Offshore Petroleum Regulator for Environment and Decommissioning (OPRED), Health and Safety Executive (HSE), Natural Resources Wales and SEPA (Scottish Environment Protection Agency) Additionally, the storage permit, regulated by the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), for a storage site will only be issued when the NSTA are confident that there will be no significant risk of leakage or of harm to the environment and human health from the CO2 storage.

What assessment she has made of the adequacy of the enforcement mechanisms in the Equality Act 2010 to ensure that disabled people have equality of access to (a) supermarkets and (b) other public-facing services.

I refer the hon member to the answer given to question 54052 which can be found herehttps://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2025-05-06/50452

What steps his Department is taking to ensure that carbon capture and storage does not disproportionately impact energy bills for consumers.

The Government is committed to ensuring that the costs of the UK’s transition to Net Zero are fair and affordable for all energy consumers. The CCUS programme will be funded through a mixture of levy and government funding. We have created several business models to fund CCUS projects based on the technology they are using, designed to support this nascent industry whilst ensuring value for money.

What his planned timeline is for the carbon capture sites in Merseyside and Teesside.

Having reached financial close with East Coast Cluster in December 2024, and with the HyNet Transport and Storage Company, operated by Liverpool Bay CCS, in April 2025, construction is already underway, and we expect the Transport & Storage Companies to be operational from 2028. We continue to negotiate with other Track-1 projects and hope to conclude these negotiations as soon as possible subject to several assessments, including value for money.

Communities and Local Government, what data her Department holds on the proportion of domestic housing stock in England owned by foreign investors.

Data on property ownership by overseas companies in England and Wales is published by HM Land Registry and is publicly available on gov.uk. My Department has not conducted a specific assessment of the potential impact of foreign investment on housing affordability in the UK. We recognise concerns about the impact of overseas investment on housing affordability, particularly for first-time buyers. In response, and as part of our commitment to supporting first-time buyers, including giving them the first chance to buy homes, we have introduced fiscal measures to level the playing field. Non-UK residents already pay a 2% surcharge on top of the residential rates of Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) when purchasing a dwelling in England or Northern Ireland. In addition, at the Autumn Budget 2024, the government increased the higher rates of SDLT by two percentage points from 3% to 5%. The higher rates are also paid by non-UK residents purchasing additional property. Increasing the higher rates of SDLT helps to ensure that those looking to move home, or purchase their first property, have a greater advantage over second home buyers, landlords and companies purchasing residential property.

What steps she is taking to ensure that funding for teacher pay increases does not result in reductions to essential school services.

The department is providing schools with £615 million in additional funding in the 2025/26 financial year to support them with overall costs, including the costs of the 4% school teacher pay award and the 3.2% local government support staff pay offer in 2025/26. This additional increase in funding means that the overall core schools budget (CSB) will total £65.3 billion in 2025/26 compared to £61.6 billion in 2024/25. This is a year-on-year increase of £3.7 billion.Schools will, on average, be expected to fund approximately the first 1 percentage point of the teacher and support staff pay awards through improved productivity and smarter spending. That is equivalent to about 0.8% of a school’s overall budget, on average. The pay award will be funded above this level from new and existing funding increases from the government. The department believes that schools can make productivity gains. We know that this is challenging, but this is in line with asks to the rest of the public sector to drive better value from existing budgets to help rebuild public services.Schools are already making savings and bringing core operating costs down. For example, the 400 schools who participated in the department’s new energy for schools offer will save 36% on average compared to their previous contracts, which will free up vital funding to deliver for children and young people. The department is also making plans to secure better banking solutions for schools, getting them better returns on their cash balances. We will continue to provide schools with additional tools, guidance and support. Those best placed to identify ways for individual schools to operate more efficiently will be headteachers and school business managers.Budgets for 2026/27 are still to be agreed and this includes the 2026/27 CSB. This will be subject to the multi-year spending review, which we expect to be concluded in June this year. The department will be taking account of the impact of the full year's costs of the teacher pay award.

Communities and Local Government, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of foreign investment on housing affordability in the UK.

Data on property ownership by overseas companies in England and Wales is published by HM Land Registry and is publicly available on gov.uk. My Department has not conducted a specific assessment of the potential impact of foreign investment on housing affordability in the UK. We recognise concerns about the impact of overseas investment on housing affordability, particularly for first-time buyers. In response, and as part of our commitment to supporting first-time buyers, including giving them the first chance to buy homes, we have introduced fiscal measures to level the playing field. Non-UK residents already pay a 2% surcharge on top of the residential rates of Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) when purchasing a dwelling in England or Northern Ireland. In addition, at the Autumn Budget 2024, the government increased the higher rates of SDLT by two percentage points from 3% to 5%. The higher rates are also paid by non-UK residents purchasing additional property. Increasing the higher rates of SDLT helps to ensure that those looking to move home, or purchase their first property, have a greater advantage over second home buyers, landlords and companies purchasing residential property.

What steps her Department is taking to ensure that school funding increases are in line with (a) energy prices, (b) inflation and (c) staff salaries.

The department is providing schools with £615 million in additional funding in the 2025/26 financial year to support them with overall costs, including the costs of the 4% school teacher pay award and the 3.2% local government support staff pay offer in 2025/26. This additional increase in funding means that the overall core schools budget (CSB) will total £65.3 billion in 2025/26 compared to £61.6 billion in 2024/25. This is a year-on-year increase of £3.7 billion.Schools will, on average, be expected to fund approximately the first 1 percentage point of the teacher and support staff pay awards through improved productivity and smarter spending. That is equivalent to about 0.8% of a school’s overall budget, on average. The pay award will be funded above this level from new and existing funding increases from the government. The department believes that schools can make productivity gains. We know that this is challenging, but this is in line with asks to the rest of the public sector to drive better value from existing budgets to help rebuild public services.Schools are already making savings and bringing core operating costs down. For example, the 400 schools who participated in the department’s new energy for schools offer will save 36% on average compared to their previous contracts, which will free up vital funding to deliver for children and young people. The department is also making plans to secure better banking solutions for schools, getting them better returns on their cash balances. We will continue to provide schools with additional tools, guidance and support. Those best placed to identify ways for individual schools to operate more efficiently will be headteachers and school business managers.Budgets for 2026/27 are still to be agreed and this includes the 2026/27 CSB. This will be subject to the multi-year spending review, which we expect to be concluded in June this year. The department will be taking account of the impact of the full year's costs of the teacher pay award.

What assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of existing levels of funding for secondary schools on (a) class sizes, (b) subject availability and (c) access to support staff in school.

The department is providing schools with £615 million in additional funding in the 2025/26 financial year to support them with overall costs, including the costs of the 4% school teacher pay award and the 3.2% local government support staff pay offer in 2025/26. This additional increase in funding means that the overall core schools budget (CSB) will total £65.3 billion in 2025/26 compared to £61.6 billion in 2024/25. This is a year-on-year increase of £3.7 billion.Schools will, on average, be expected to fund approximately the first 1 percentage point of the teacher and support staff pay awards through improved productivity and smarter spending. That is equivalent to about 0.8% of a school’s overall budget, on average. The pay award will be funded above this level from new and existing funding increases from the government. The department believes that schools can make productivity gains. We know that this is challenging, but this is in line with asks to the rest of the public sector to drive better value from existing budgets to help rebuild public services.Schools are already making savings and bringing core operating costs down. For example, the 400 schools who participated in the department’s new energy for schools offer will save 36% on average compared to their previous contracts, which will free up vital funding to deliver for children and young people. The department is also making plans to secure better banking solutions for schools, getting them better returns on their cash balances. We will continue to provide schools with additional tools, guidance and support. Those best placed to identify ways for individual schools to operate more efficiently will be headteachers and school business managers.Budgets for 2026/27 are still to be agreed and this includes the 2026/27 CSB. This will be subject to the multi-year spending review, which we expect to be concluded in June this year. The department will be taking account of the impact of the full year's costs of the teacher pay award.

Communities and Local Government, what steps her Department is taking to ensure transparency in the acquisition of domestic housing by foreign investors.

Data on property ownership by overseas companies in England and Wales is published by HM Land Registry and is publicly available on gov.uk. My Department has not conducted a specific assessment of the potential impact of foreign investment on housing affordability in the UK. We recognise concerns about the impact of overseas investment on housing affordability, particularly for first-time buyers. In response, and as part of our commitment to supporting first-time buyers, including giving them the first chance to buy homes, we have introduced fiscal measures to level the playing field. Non-UK residents already pay a 2% surcharge on top of the residential rates of Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) when purchasing a dwelling in England or Northern Ireland. In addition, at the Autumn Budget 2024, the government increased the higher rates of SDLT by two percentage points from 3% to 5%. The higher rates are also paid by non-UK residents purchasing additional property. Increasing the higher rates of SDLT helps to ensure that those looking to move home, or purchase their first property, have a greater advantage over second home buyers, landlords and companies purchasing residential property.

What steps his Department is taking to help tackle the causes of diabetes.

The Department is actively tackling the root causes of type 2 diabetes. We are restricting junk food advertising on television and online, limiting school children's access to fast food, and are taking steps to ensure the Soft Drinks Industry Levy remains effective and fit-for-purpose.Through programmes such as the Healthier You NHS Diabetes Prevention Programme we are supporting individuals aged 18 to 80 years old to reduce their risk of developing type 2 diabetes through behavioural changes. As of December 2024, over 2.3 million people have been offered support through the programme, and an independent evaluation showed a 37% relative reduction in diabetes risk in those who completed the programme.Additionally, the Department’s Better Health resources include free evidence-based apps, websites, and other digital tools, to support people to make and sustain changes to their health and reduce their risk of developing type 2 diabetes, including the NHS Weight Loss app, the Food Scanner App, Couch to 5K, and Active 10. Type 1 diabetes cannot be prevented, and the exact causes of it are unknown.

What steps his Department is taking to increase awareness of preventable complications associated with diabetes.

In England, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommends that people with diabetes are offered eight annual care processes in primary care, those being measurement of HbA1c, lipids, creatinine, albuminuria, blood pressure and body mass index, ascertainment of smoking status, and examination of the feet, to assess modifiable risk factors and facilitate the early identification of diabetic complications.These annual diabetes reviews are associated with reduced emergency admissions, amputations, retinopathy, and mortality.