Asked by: Danny Chambers (Liberal Democrat - Winchester)
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 improve support for family carers.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Our 10 Year Health Plan will boost support for family carers via digital tools like MyCarer, and include them in care planning and shared decision-making processes.
We have already taken action. We have raised the Carer’s Allowance earnings limit to £196 per week - the biggest increase since 1976. We have also launched an independent commission into adult social care, to shape adult social care and address unpaid carers’ needs.
Asked by: Danny Chambers (Liberal Democrat - Winchester)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to improve the identification of young carers by adult mental health services.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Local authorities are required by law to take reasonable steps to identify young carers in their area that need support, and to undertake an assessment of need, where appropriate. To support local authorities in their child protection duties, the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which was introduced to Parliament in December 2024, contains provisions that will strengthen multi-agency working with children and families by introducing a new duty on safeguarding partners, including local authorities, police, and health services.
We recognise that, when someone is admitted to a mental health hospital or detained under the Mental Health Act, young carers are not always appropriately identified by adult mental health services. To improve this, as part of the reforms to the Mental Health Act, we plan to encourage individuals to make the presence of any young carers known in their Advance Choice Document. This document is intended to be a source of key information for mental health professionals if the individual experiences a mental health crisis.
Furthermore, provisions in the Mental Health Bill aim to ensure that people who care for a patient’s welfare, such as young carers, are proactively involved in the patient’s statutory care plan by the clinician. We will include guidance in the revised Mental Health Act Code of Practice to help ensure young carers are appropriately involved and supported.
NHS England is working to support the identification of young carers and has recently published guidance for general practitioners. NHS England is also utilising data to help support greater joined up work between health, education, and social care.
Asked by: Danny Chambers (Liberal Democrat - Winchester)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, how many and what proportion of start-ups have relocated to Silicon Valley in the last ten years.
Answered by Feryal Clark - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
There is currently no available dataset that accurately provides the number or proportion of start-ups that have relocated to Silicon Valley. The UK remains Europe’s top tech ecosystem and the third most valuable globally. However, the Government knows that start-ups can face difficulties when scaling here. Our ambitious Industrial Strategy sets out our vision to make the UK, by 2035, one of the top three places in the world to create, invest in and scale-up a technology business. This includes an ambition to create the UK’s first trillion-dollar technology business by 2035. The government will achieve this through reforming the business environment by addressing the need for greater investment, skills, infrastructure, planning reform, regulatory reform and access to international markets.
Asked by: Danny Chambers (Liberal Democrat - Winchester)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to support victims of economic abuse when applying for monies that they are entitled to through the Child Maintenance Service.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) takes the issue of domestic abuse extremely seriously and recognises that domestic abuse can take many forms including physical, emotional, or financial abuse, violent or threatening behaviour and coercive control.
The CMS has procedures in place to ensure victims and survivors of domestic abuse can use its services safely. CMS caseworkers will also signpost, where needed, to suitable domestic abuse organisations, if domestic abuse is raised or suspected.
All CMS caseworkers have extensive training, equipping them to be able to comprehensively act on a range of scenarios. For our most challenging and complex case groups, caseworkers complete and receive regular refresher training on specific aspects of customer service situations such as domestic abuse, advanced customer support and supporting vulnerable customers.
Specialist Case Team is one of the measures CMS have introduced to manage cases with the most challenging or complex domestic abuse concerns. This has minimised the need for parents to recount their history of domestic abuse and caseworkers to deliver support to some of the most vulnerable customers.
For parents using the Direct Pay service, the CMS can act as an intermediary to facilitate the exchange of bank details to help ensure there is no unwanted contact between parents and can provide information on how to set up bank accounts with a centralised sort code, which reduces the risk of a parent’s location being traced.
The Government has announced plans to reform the Child Maintenance service, replacing the existing Direct Pay Service and moving to a service where the CMS collects and transfers all payments. This will remove any requirement for victims and survivors to provide evidence of domestic abuse, which we know can be difficult and traumatising. It will also remove any need for contact between parents and remove the need for receiving parents to report missed or late payments. The CMS will monitor all payments and take swift action as soon as payments break down.
Managing all CMS cases in one service will allow the CMS to tackle non-compliance faster, and better support victims and survivors of domestic abuse who use the CMS.
Asked by: Danny Chambers (Liberal Democrat - Winchester)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, whether (a) Great British Energy and (b) Ofgem plan to increase the amount paid to people with solar panels who export excess electricity to the grid.
Answered by Michael Shanks - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Households with solar panels benefit through significantly reduced electricity bills. The Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) is a market-led mechanism in which energy suppliers, not government, set both tariff levels and structure. This is to encourage innovation and competition between suppliers.
We are also speeding up connections for smaller-scale projects and seeking to address market challenges like price certainty.
The Government keeps the SEG under regular review to ensure it continues to meet our objectives.”
Asked by: Danny Chambers (Liberal Democrat - Winchester)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to financially support smaller schools in rural communities.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
The government recognises the essential role that small schools play in their communities, many of which are in rural areas. The schools national funding formula (NFF) accounts for the particular challenges faced by small schools in rural areas through the lump sum and sparsity factor.
In the 2025/26 financial year, the sparsity factor provides eligible primary schools up to £57,400, and all other eligible schools up to £83,400. In addition to this, all small schools have benefited from the increase to core factors in the NFF in 2025/26, including the NFF lump sum set at £145,100. This provides a fixed amount of funding that is particularly beneficial to small schools, as it is not affected by pupil numbers.
This funding recognises the particular financial challenges small and remote schools can face, such as fewer opportunities to find efficiencies, the significant role they play in the rural communities they serve, and that without such funding, their pupils could face long travel distances to attend school.
Asked by: Danny Chambers (Liberal Democrat - Winchester)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the reasons for recent trends in renewal times for passports; and if she will meet a constituent of the hon. Member for Winchester to discuss renewal times.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
His Majesty’s Passport Office’s performance indicator for standard applications from the UK is for 98.5% of customers to receive their passport within three weeks where no further information is required. In Quarter 1 of 2025, 99.86% of customers in this scenario received their passport within three weeks.
His Majesty’s Passport Office will not issue a passport until all checks have been satisfactorily completed, and a minority of applications will take longer where further information is required or if further investigation is needed to confirm the applicant’s identity, nationality, and eligibility. Where this is the case, HM Passport Office will contact the customer within three weeks.
MPs can raise case enquiries on behalf of their constituent by emailing their Account Manager at the Home Office.
Asked by: Danny Chambers (Liberal Democrat - Winchester)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will ensure that UK trained doctors have a Speciality Training Pathway available to them after foundation year two.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We are committed to training the staff we need to ensure that patients are cared for by the right professional, when and where they need it.
We will ensure that the number of medical specialty training places meets the demands of the National Health Service in the future. NHS England will work with stakeholders to ensure that any growth is sustainable and focused in the service areas where need is greatest.
Speciality training positions are advertised nationally, and the process is administered by a lead deanery on behalf of the four nations of the United Kingdom. There is no obligation on NHS providers to advertise residency positions for British nationals before foreign nationals, or to hire British residents before overseas residents. The rules and criteria for recruitment into specialty training are agreed by the Medical and Dental Recruitment and Selection committees on behalf of the four statutory education bodies of the UK and must meet standards required by the General Medical Council. Working with NHS England, we continue to keep the selection process for all applicants to medical speciality training under review.
Internationally educated staff remain an important part of the workforce, and our Code of Practice for International Recruitment ensures stringent ethical standards when recruiting health and social care staff from overseas. However, the Government is also committed to growing homegrown talent and giving opportunities to more people across the country to join the NHS.
Asked by: Danny Chambers (Liberal Democrat - Winchester)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether proposals of increasing the indefinite leave to remain qualifying period will apply only to new visa applicants.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
We will be consulting on the earned settlement scheme later this year and will provide further details at that stage.
Asked by: Danny Chambers (Liberal Democrat - Winchester)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on improving public engagement with politics.
Answered by Ellie Reeves - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
Public engagement and participation are vital to the health of our democracy, and the Government will continue to support the public to make their voices heard.
Engagement with the political process must be built on trust. The Government is committed to returning to a politics of service, for example by exploring further tightening of the rules on MPs' outside interests via the House of Commons Modernisation Committee.