Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether she has considered the potential merits of establishing a steering group involving (a) material recovery facilities operators, (b) local authorities, (c) re-processors, (d) producers and (e) retailers to influence the implementation of the Deposit Return Scheme.

Answered by Emma Hardy - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

Where in-scope containers are disposed of through household recycling, local authorities will continue managing these materials through existing waste arrangements. The Deposit Management Organisation will work with local authorities to consider ways they can maximise return of materials, and to ensure effective operation of the scheme.

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the Deposit Return Scheme, whether (a) local authorities and (b) Material Recovery Facilities operators will receive producer funding for (i) collecting, (ii) sorting and (iii) recycling containers in scope of the scheme but placed in household recycling collections.

Answered by Emma Hardy - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

Where in-scope containers are disposed of through household recycling, local authorities will continue managing these materials through existing waste arrangements. The Deposit Management Organisation will work with local authorities to consider ways they can maximise return of materials, and to ensure effective operation of the scheme.

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether she has made any assessment of the financial viability of existing materials recovery facility operators after the implementation of the Deposit Return Scheme.

Answered by Emma Hardy - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

Where in-scope containers are disposed of through household recycling, local authorities will continue managing these materials through existing waste arrangements. The Deposit Management Organisation will work with local authorities to consider ways they can maximise return of materials, and to ensure effective operation of the scheme.

Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether she has made an assessment of the potential impact of the inclusion of Channels and Updates functions on WhatsApp on the policy not to consider WhatsApp a social media platform.

Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport)

Government announced in June that we would ban social media companies from offering their services to under 16s. The department is currently working through the details and the final scope criteria will be set out in the regulations that will be laid in Parliament.

Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, notwithstanding the delay to local government reorganisation announced on 7 September, if she will meet with Hertfordshire local government leaders to discuss accelerating devolution.

Answered by Jim McMahon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)

Our ambition remains to ensure every area in England has, or is in the process of establishing, a strategic authority by the end of 2027, with strategic authorities in place everywhere by the end of 2028, and I want to work with Hertfordshire on how best to achieve that over the coming months.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to reduce medicine over prescribing.

Answered by James Frith - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Department keeps overprescribing under careful review and works with NHS England and the wider health system to reduce inappropriate or unnecessary prescribing. This is done through a range of system-wide work, for example:

• supporting personalised care and shared decision-making to help ensure medicines remain appropriate for a patient's clinical needs, circumstances and preferences;

• encouraging regular medicines reviews to help identify and address inappropriate prescribing and problematic polypharmacy; and

• promoting access to non-pharmacological interventions, including talking therapies and social prescribing, where these may be a more appropriate option than medicines.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of requiring (a) smart phone, (b) tablet (c) and other technology manufacturers to incorporate (i) HarmBlock and (ii) other similar CSAM classifiers into operating systems for the purpose of preventing transmission of child sexual abuse material.

Answered by Satvir Kaur - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)

This Government is unequivocal in its commitment to protecting children from online sexual abuse. The previous Prime Minister announced on 8 June 2026 that the UK would become the first country in the world where it is impossible for children to take, share or view nude images on their devices. Government has engaged collaboratively with tech companies over the past three months, to explore how they can expand implement technical solutions on smartphones and tablets to detect and block nude images for children.

The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport today (8 September) reiterated this commitment in an oral statement to the House. Since June, officials from the Home Office and DCMS have overseen an unprecedented work programme with Apple and Google, working with senior leaders and engineers to explore new ways of preventing child sexual abuse and strengthening protections for children online.

These proposals are a step in the right direction, but do not meet the scale of this government’s ambition. This government is therefore now preparing primary legislation to require companies to build in device operating system-level protections for children. In the meantime, we are also pursing secondary legislation to require any apps that children use to prevent them from accessing or sharing nudity.

This work will prevent predators from being able to exploit and abuse victims through their devices, as well as stopping children from being able to access pornography. Adults will still be able to take, share or view nude content through an age verification process. This will deliver on the commitment we made in the Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy – Freedom from violence and abuse: a cross-government strategy - GOV.UK.

The Government welcomes innovative technical solutions, which aim to keep children safer online and using smartphones and tablets. The Government’s policy is to focus on operating-system level detection of all nudity for child users, rather than attempting to identify and block only child sexual abuse material (CSAM).

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether she has made an assessment of the combined impact of the (a) reduction in ticket office opening hours and (b) removal of ticket machines at railways stations on the accessibility of (i) railcard and (ii) discounted tickets.

Answered by Keir Mather - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

The Department expects operators to consider the impact on passengers when proposing changes to retailing arrangements. These may include changes to ticket office opening hours, ticket machine provision, or the availability of products and services such as railcards and discounted tickets. Where operators propose changes to regulated ticket office hours, they must follow the relevant requirements set out in the Ticketing and Settlement Agreement and have regard to the Secretary of State's guidance when proposing changes.

In considering changes, operators are expected to ensure that passengers continue to have access to tickets, information and support, including railcards and discounted tickets, through alternative retail channels.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the (a) longest, (b) shortest and (c) average time taken was from the date an Access to Work application was submitted by teachers to the date a decision was made in 2025-26.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government) (Equalities)

Access to Work does not record application processing information in a way that allows cases to be identified by an individual's job role. As a result, the Department is unable to provide the longest, shortest or average time taken from application to decision for teachers in 2025-26. The processing information across all job roles is:

Shortest duration from application to decision: 1 day

Average duration from application to decision: 100.9 days

Longest duration from application to decision: 755 days

To identify this information would require a manual examination of individual case records and would therefore incur disproportionate cost.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will urgently establish an online support service for teachers to contact his Department about Access to Work changes.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government) (Equalities)

We are taking steps to make the improvements the Access to Work Scheme requires to ensure that it can deliver a timely, efficient, and value for money service for all customers, including teachers. Reforms are essential to ensure a better service for customers, to help disabled people start and stay in work, to provide clarity in what support should be provided and to ensure we are providing value for money for the taxpayer.

We will continue to work with stakeholders as we begin the next phase of work. Through internal and external stakeholders, we want to connect the expertise of disabled individuals, and those with long-term health conditions, into the design and delivery of health and disability policy. We are keen to ensure Access to Work remains fair and sustainable; Access to Work is critical for the people it supports, so it is important we take the time to get reforms right so we can deliver real improvements.

To protect employment opportunities, case managers prioritise the small minority of AtW applications where the customer is due to start a job within four weeks. In 2025, we allocated c. 96% of applications starting work within 4 weeks in 28 days.

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether she has had discussions with train operating companies about the impact of removing ticket machines from railways stations on the length of ticket queues.

Answered by Keir Mather - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

The Department engages regularly with Train Operating Companies on ticket retailing provision. Decisions on ticket retailing arrangements are a matter for operators. Where changes are being considered, operators are expected to consider the impacts on passengers, including any potential effects on queuing times, and ensure that appropriate facilities remain available at peak times.

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 16 March 2026 to Question 118642 on Motor Vehicles: Lighting, to provide an update on her department’s engagement with the College of Optometrists about dazzling headlamps.

Answered by Justin Madders - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

The Department has completed engagement with the College of Optometrists on headlamp dazzle, and its input helped to better understand some of the issues and inform the second phase of the vehicle lighting glare research. The College raised concerns about the effects of vehicle lighting glare on visual health and road visibility, including for wearers of spectacles and other eyewear, and highlighted the potential relevance of luminance, lens coatings and other optical treatments in glare mitigation.

Second Reading of the Mental Capacity (Duty to Assess) Bill

National Suicide Memorial Day for Health and Care Workers

Support for hospices

Funding of Jodrell Bank Observatory

Found: Manchester WRP0010 10 Dr Caroline Johnson MP WRP0011 11 Table Office, House of Commons WRP0012 12 Daisy Cooper