Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he has considered introducing custodial sentences for people found guilty of illegal hunting under the provisions of the Hunting Act 2004.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This Government was elected on a mandate to introduce the most ambitious plans in a generation to improve animal welfare and that is exactly what we will do.
The Hunting Act 2004 makes it an offence to hunt a wild mammal with dogs, except where it is carried out in accordance with the exemptions in the Act, and completely bans hare coursing. Those found guilty under the Act are subject to the full force of the law.
The Government has committed to a ban on trail hunting. Work to determine the best approach for doing so is ongoing and further announcements will be made in due course.
Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of air quality levels in Maidenhead constituency.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Local authorities review and assess air quality in their areas and publish an annual report on their actions to improve local air quality including local monitoring data.
The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead have reported continued reductions in concentrations of NO2 and PM10 over recent years and continued compliance with the Air Quality Objectives set by central Government. The council has begun to monitor local concentrations of PM2.5 and are likely to report on this pollutant later this year; Defra’s modelling for PM2.5 shows that background concentrations are also well below the annual mean Air Quality Objective in this council’s area.
The most recent national air quality compliance assessment for 2023 presented air quality modelling data and measurements from national air pollution monitoring networks across the UK. The assessment was published in September 2024 on Defra’s UK-AIR website. No exceedances were reported of the limit and target values for NO2, PM10 or PM2.5 in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead.
Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what discussions her Department has had with Transport for London on taxi and private hire driver licence renewals.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Transport for London is the taxi and private hire vehicle licensing authority for London and is responsible for administering the licensing regime in London. The Department discusses a range of licensing matters with them.
Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of requiring television manufacturers to include a dedicated BBC iPlayer button on remote controls in line with existing buttons for commercial streaming services.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government recognises the need to ensure that public service broadcasters’ (PSB) services and content remain easy to find as viewers increasingly shift online.
That is why we are getting on with implementing the Media Act 2024 which introduces a new online prominence regime. This new regime will ensure that PSB apps, like BBC iPlayer, are carried and given appropriate prominence on major TV platforms. The Government will consider the case for further reforms following the publication of Ofcom’s Public Service Media review later this year.
Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many school buildings in Maidenhead are classified as requiring urgent repair under her Department’s Condition Data Collection.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
From 2021 to 2026, the Condition Data Collection 2 (CDC2) programme is visiting every government-funded school and college in England to collect data about the condition of their buildings. This is providing an updated and comprehensive picture of the condition of the school estate in England to support our capital funding policy and programmes.
School reports, setting out the condition of building elements, are shared with each school and their responsible body while the CDC2 programme is in progress, so that schools and responsible bodies have access to the latest assessment of their site.
Information on the condition of schools, as assessed by the predecessor programme (CDC1), can be found at: https://depositedpapers.parliament.uk/depositedpaper/2285521/details.
Responsible bodies, such as local authorities, voluntary-aided school bodies, and multi and single academy trusts, have the responsibility to make regular assessments of the condition of schools in their estate to inform programmes of maintenance works.
The department has increased funding to improve the condition of the estate for the 2025/26 financial year to £2.1 billion, up from £1.8 billion last year. Allocations are published on GOV.UK and are partly informed by consistent data on the condition of the estate collected by the department, reflecting the relative need of schools. This is in addition to our continued investment in the current School Rebuilding Programme.
Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what funding her Department has allocated to grassroots sports clubs in Maidenhead in the last 12 months.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
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. £283,300 has been invested in the constituency of Maidenhead in the last financial year.
Future grassroots sport facilities funding is subject to the ongoing Spending Review process and we will announce further details in due course.
Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment her Department has made of the reliability of Elizabeth Line services (a) to and (a) from Maidenhead in the last 12 months.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Statistics published by the Office of Rail and Road show that 4% of Elizabeth Line services scheduled to stop at Maidenhead station in the year ending 26 April 2025 were cancelled. Transport in London is devolved to the Mayor, and TfL has overall responsibility for the management of the Elizabeth Line which is operated by their contractor GTS Rail Operations Limited.
Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps his Department is taking to improve broadband speeds in rural parts of Maidenhead constituency.
Answered by Chris Bryant - Minister of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
According to the independent website Thinkbroadband.com, over 99% of homes and businesses in the Maidenhead constituency can access superfast broadband speeds (>=30 Mbps) and over 87% have access to a gigabit-capable broadband connection (>1000 Mbps).
To improve this coverage further, CityFibre is delivering a Project Gigabit contract across Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and East Berkshire, targeted at bringing gigabit-capable broadband to homes and businesses in hard-to-reach areas that are unlikely to be otherwise reached by suppliers’ commercial rollout. Approximately 2,000 premises in the Maidenhead constituency are currently expected to benefit from this contract. The vast majority of these premises are in rural parts of the constituency.
Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what estimate her Department has made of the number of homes in Maidenhead that are below EPC band C.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The information requested is available on the Open Data Service here.
Asked by: Joshua Reynolds (Liberal Democrat - Maidenhead)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what his Department's planned timetable is for publishing its plans to reduce the time taken for patients to receive mental health treatment.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Long waits for mental health services are being driven by increasing demand to a system in desperate need of change. The Government is already responding by delivering new and innovative models of care in the community. We are piloting innovative models of care in the community, including six neighbourhood adult mental health centres that are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week and bring together community, crisis, and inpatient care.
NHS England Planning Guidance for 2025/26 makes clear that for this year, to support reform and improvements, we expect all providers to reduce the variation in children and young people accessing services and improve productivity. We are also improving data quality so we can support providers to understand demand across their areas. Since July 2023, NHS England has included waiting times metrics for referrals to urgent and community-based mental health services in its monthly mental health statistics publication to help services to target the longest waits.
It is important that mental health services within the National Health Service work closely with the voluntary sector to deliver new models of care. The 10-Year Health Plan will be published shortly, and this will set out how the overall health system will run.