Asked by: Alison Bennett (Liberal Democrat - Mid Sussex)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether the Government plans to review the maximum amount jurors can claim for loss of earnings while undertaking jury service, and whether he considers the current allowance to be sufficient.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Jury service is an important civic duty, and the Government is committed to ensuring jurors feel supported throughout their service. People who are not paid by their employer whilst they are on jury service can claim a loss of earnings allowance from the court, and jurors can apply for a deferral or excusal based upon financial hardship. All support for jurors is kept under review to ensure that it remains appropriate and accessible
Asked by: Alison Bennett (Liberal Democrat - Mid Sussex)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment she has made of trends in the level of (a) cancellation rates and (b) service reliability on Thameslink services since the operator transferred into public ownership.
Answered by Keir Mather - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Thameslink services transferred into public ownership on 31 May 2026, and the Department has not yet made a formal assessment of trends in cancellation rates and service reliability since that transfer.
However, the new public sector operator has committed to a range of measures intended to improve reliability and reduce cancellations, including recruiting additional drivers, completing the Thameslink automatic train operation training programme and introducing further operational improvements across the network.
These measures will take time to implement, but they will have long lasting benefit to passengers.
Asked by: Alison Bennett (Liberal Democrat - Mid Sussex)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what service targets apply to (a) application processing, (b) renewals, (c) payment processing and (d) complaint handling within Access to Work.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government) (Equalities)
Access to Work is a discretionary grant scheme and does not operate against published service targets for application processing or renewals.
The time taken to process applications and renewals will vary depending on a range of factors, including the complexity of the case and the provision of evidence from customers.
Access to Work operates a Service Level Agreement for payment processing. The current Service Level Agreement is to process payments within 10 working days of receiving the information required to make a payment.
Complaints are handled in accordance with the Department's complaints procedures. The Department aims to provide a full response to complaints within 15 working days.
Asked by: Alison Bennett (Liberal Democrat - Mid Sussex)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether she plans to review Civil Enforcement Officer powers where there is a repeated contravention of parking restrictions over the course of a single day within a localised area.
Answered by Justin Madders - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
There are no plans to review Civil Enforcement Officer (CEO) powers. In the event that multiple parking contraventions are observed, CEOs have powers to issue a Penalty Charge Notice in respect of each contravention.
Asked by: Alison Bennett (Liberal Democrat - Mid Sussex)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps he is taking to recover public funds lost through fraud, misconduct and the improper award of public contracts; and how much has been recovered in each of the last five years.
Answered by Mark Ferguson - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
This government is taking the strongest action against fraudsters that seek to take advantage of the public sector.
That’s why the government introduced the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Act in December 2026 - giving us more tools to combat fraud, recover public money and allow the government to investigate fraud. The Procurement Act also takes tougher action on fraud and corruption against public contracts, excluding suppliers which have fallen foul of the fraud exclusion ground and pose particular risks.
Taking action against fraud and error has an impact. In 2024-25, the Government Counter Fraud Function delivered counter fraud and error savings of £7.53bn. This includes not only fraud and error recoveries, but also savings in prevented fraud and error. The Public Sector Fraud Authority’s Cross-Government Fraud Landscape Reports sets out where departments (except HMRC and DWP, which publish their own figures independently) have taken action to prevent and recover fraud and error.
Asked by: Alison Bennett (Liberal Democrat - Mid Sussex)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure that children from ethnic minority and working class backgrounds have equal access to education and future work opportunities.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The department is committed to doing more to improve the life changes of all children, including children from ethnic minority and working class backgrounds.
Our approach is comprehensive: rebuilding early family support, developing a new model for targeting disadvantage funding so it better reflects need, strengthening teaching quality and ensuring high-quality curricula are embedded across the system.
We are also launching two place-based missions, Mission North East and Mission Coastal, to drive sustained improvement in areas where outcomes remain stubbornly low. These missions will bring together schools, families and local partners at place level to tackle entrenched disadvantage and raise attainment.
Asked by: Alison Bennett (Liberal Democrat - Mid Sussex)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what diplomatic steps she is taking in response to ongoing restrictions put on women in Afghanistan by the Taliban.
Answered by Hamish Falconer - Minister of State (Cabinet Office) (Jointly with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
I refer the Hon Member to the answer provided on 2 April in response to Question 122807.
Asked by: Alison Bennett (Liberal Democrat - Mid Sussex)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure the provision of British Sign Language interpreters within emergency services.
Answered by Preet Kaur Gill
Integrated care boards are responsible for commissioning services to meet the health needs of their local population, which includes responsibility for ensuring that there is adequate provision of British Sign Language (BSL) interpreters to support deaf patients.
To facilitate clear and effective communication in emergency situations, individuals who are deaf, hard of hearing, or speech impaired can utilise tools such as the 999BSL video relay platform, both app and web-based, to contact 999 via a BSL interpreter as well as access via emergency SMS messaging.
Video relay apps can also be used to support communication and face-to-face assessment by crews on scene at incidents, where, via on-board iPads, paramedics can connect patients with a remote BSL video interpreter. These resources, which are free to use and operate 24 hours, seven days a week, ensure that real-time communication is possible for BSL users when emergency and urgent assistance is required.
The BSL Advisory Board was established in 2023, to advise the Government on key issues impacting the Deaf community in their everyday life. On 27 November 2025, the BSL Advisory Board published a report titled Locked out: Exclusion of deaf and deafblind BSL users from health and social care in the UK, which is available at the following link:
The Government welcomed the report, and thanked the BSL Advisory Board for their work to improve the accessibility, inclusion, and the experiences of Deaf and Deafblind BSL users within the health and social care system. The board’s recommendations are informing work to implement the 10-Year Health Plan and to reform adult social care so we can deliver improvements to the health, care, and the experience of Deaf people.
Asked by: Alison Bennett (Liberal Democrat - Mid Sussex)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department plans to take to support hospices prior to the implementation of the reforms outlined within the Modern Service Framework for Palliative and End of Life Care.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Secretary of State for Wales
We have supported the hospice sector in England with a £125 million capital funding boost for adult and children’s hospices to ensure they have the best physical environment for care. We are also providing approximately £80 million of revenue funding for children and young people’s hospices over the next three financial years, giving them the stability they need to plan ahead.
I also provided an interim update to the House on the Modern Service Framework (MSF) on 4 June 2026 in the form of a Written Ministerial Statement, accompanied by a letter containing further information for interested parties. A copy of the statement is available at the following link:
https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2026-06-04/hcws88
As part of this interim update, the National Director for Primary Care and Community Services at NHS England has written to systems, setting out two actions to ensure progress is made towards strategic commissioning of palliative care and end-of-life care services: firstly, produce an integrated needs assessment and understand service provision and utilisation; and secondly, move to sustainable contracting of hospice services.
The interim update outlines that the MSF will embed palliative care and end-of-life care within a strategic commissioning model that is centred on clear and transparent contractual arrangements for commissioned palliative care activity across all providers, including hospices, to meet population health needs, with explicit regard to reducing inequalities and improving outcomes for underserved and disadvantaged groups. The full MSF will be published in Autumn 2026.
As set out in the interim update, we expect all integrated care boards to complete an integrated needs assessment, to gain a detailed understanding of their current and future population, including people of all ages with palliative care and end-of-life care needs. This is vital in order to commission the services to best meet that need, whilst providing the best value for money.
Asked by: Alison Bennett (Liberal Democrat - Mid Sussex)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference the Answer of 19 February 2025 to Question 30627, if he will provide updated figures on the number of carers with Carer's Allowance overpayment debts as a result of breaching the earnings limit in (a) England, (b) Wales, (c) Scotland and (d) Northern Ireland.
Answered by Andrew Western - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Overpayments can arise for a number of reasons. With respect to those linked to the treatment of earnings in Carer’s Allowance, we inherited a system where some busy carers, already struggling under a huge weight of caring responsibilities, found themselves with unexpected debts. We commissioned an Independent Review, led by Liz Sayce OBE, to investigate why overpayments occurred, how people affected can be better supported, and what changes are needed to prevent similar issues in future. We have published the findings of the Review, acknowledged the shortcomings identified, and accepted in full or in part 38 of the Review’s 40 recommendations. As part of its response, the Government committed to reassessing Carer’s Allowance cases which may have been affected by faulty guidance on averaging of irregularly fluctuating earnings. This guidance was in place between April 2015 and September 2025 and did not accurately reflect the statutory position.
The reassessment exercise began on 13 April 2026. Funding of £75m has been provided for the exercise in the financial years 2026/27 to 2028/29. The department expects to review over 200,000 cases, potentially reducing, cancelling, or refunding debts for around 25,000 carers.
The number of people with Carer's Allowance overpayment debts as a result of breaching the earnings limit where the person has a postcode in (a) England, (b) Wales, and (c) Scotland is presented below (correct as at 22 April 2026). Social security is a transferred matter in Northern Ireland, which is therefore excluded from these figures.
Carer’s Allowance has been a devolved matter in Scotland since April 2018, therefore cases with a Scottish postcode are not included where the overpayment occurred after that date. However, at the request of the Scottish Government, where such cases may have been affected by the faulty guidance on averaging of earnings identified by the Review, they are included in the current exercise to reassess such cases.
| England | Wales | Scotland |
Volume of Customers with an Outstanding CA Debt with 'Earnings over CA Limit' | 83,489 | 5,272 | 920 |