Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
Whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of publishing levels of welfare spending on foreign nationals by benefit type.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
My Department remains focussed on ensuring we provide robust, transparent data where this is available.
That is why we regularly publish quarterly official statistics on the number of Universal Credit claimants broken down by immigration status type and nationality group, as well as whether claimants are in work. We have no plans to change this approach.
In benefits other than Universal Credit, nationality and immigration status is not held or collected on digital systems in a way that allows it to be extracted for the publication as official statistics.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of the bilateral criminal records sharing agreements with (a) Albania, (b) Kosovo and (c) the Five Eyes Alliance when vetting individuals seeking residency in the UK.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
We take the issue of preventing foreign criminals entering the UK extremely seriously, and we continue to strengthen our borders so that we can prevent crime and protect the public, delivering on this Government’s commitment totackle foreign criminality.
For example, those required to obtain a visa to enter the UK are checkedagainst a range of police, security and immigration databases for details of any UK or overseas criminal record. All applicants are required to provide details of their criminal history. Where it is found that they failed to declare relevantoffences/convictions, their application will be refused, and they will be subject to a ten-year ban from applying to enter the UK.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of information-sharing through INTERPOL channels with non-EU member states on individuals seeking residency in the UK.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
We take the issue of preventing foreign criminals entering the UK extremely seriously, and we continue to strengthen our borders so that we can prevent crime and protect the public, delivering on this Government’s commitment totackle foreign criminality.
For example, those required to obtain a visa to enter the UK are checkedagainst a range of police, security and immigration databases for details of any UK or overseas criminal record. All applicants are required to provide details of their criminal history. Where it is found that they failed to declare relevantoffences/convictions, their application will be refused, and they will be subject to a ten-year ban from applying to enter the UK.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department is taking to ensure people arriving from (a) EU states and (b) non-EU sates are subject to criminal record checks when entering the UK.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
Border Force performs checks on 100% of passengers arriving at the UK border on scheduled services, enabling interventions against those known or suspected to pose a risk to the national interest.
Border Force work alongside other law enforcement agencies at the border and will share information and refer cases when necessary to detect and deter criminality.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to ensure new housing developments are built with adequate space for emergency service vehicles to (a) enter and (b) manoeuvre.
Answered by Samantha Dixon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Approved Document B (Fire safety) provides statutory guidance on meeting the requirements of Part B of the Building Regulations. It includes provisions relating to adequate vehicular access for fire and rescue services, including requirements on the width, and turning arrangements of access routes, so that fire and rescue service vehicles can both enter and manoeuvre within new housing developments. Building control bodies are responsible for checking that new developments comply with these requirements before work is signed off.
The Department does not hold centrally collected data on the number of existing homes with inadequate access space for emergency service vehicles.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what data his Department holds on the number of houses in the UK with inadequate access space for emergency service vehicles.
Answered by Samantha Dixon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Approved Document B (Fire safety) provides statutory guidance on meeting the requirements of Part B of the Building Regulations. It includes provisions relating to adequate vehicular access for fire and rescue services, including requirements on the width, and turning arrangements of access routes, so that fire and rescue service vehicles can both enter and manoeuvre within new housing developments. Building control bodies are responsible for checking that new developments comply with these requirements before work is signed off.
The Department does not hold centrally collected data on the number of existing homes with inadequate access space for emergency service vehicles.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to increase awareness among parents of safe sleeping practices for babies.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
Advice on safe sleeping is provided to parents through health visitors, midwives and early years professionals at key points during pregnancy and a child’s early months, in line with nationally recognised guidance. Best Start Family Hubs act as a front door to this support, bringing together health, early years and family services so parents can easily access trusted, in-person advice on infant care, including safe sleeping.
Alongside this, the Best Start in Life website, which launched on 1 September 2025, brings together information and support from across government in one place, making it easier for parents to find clear, reliable guidance on topics such as safe sleeping when they need it.
The department is continuing to invest in Best Start Family Hubs, strengthening their role as a universal access point for families and ensuring parents can benefit from both high-quality local support and joined-up digital services. These hubs are part of a wider Best Start in Life strategy, backed by over £900 million over the next three years, to expand family services, bring support together in one place, and make it easier for parents to get the help they need. Hundreds of Best Start Family Hubs are now open across England, with more on the way as we work towards having hubs in every local authority by 2028.
We are also updating the wording in the Early Years Foundation stage statutory framework to make the safe sleep requirements clearer. This new wording will come into force in September 2026, subject to parliamentary procedure. I have sent a letter to early years providers via Ofsted outlining these changes. Additionally, we have published a safer sleep article on the ‘Help for early years providers’ platform to help early years settings understand how to ensure babies and children are kept safe whilst sleeping.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to improve standards in schools.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The ‘Every Child Achieving and Thriving’ White Paper sets a clear path to ensuring every child can achieve and thrive, from tackling the scourge of child poverty to securing the highest school standards for all young people.
When children born under this government finish secondary school, it is our ambition that all children achieve higher standards and the disadvantage gap will be halved. We will take children’s education experience from narrow to broad. This includes a renewed curriculum, setting children up to thrive in the modern world. Our reformed curriculum will deliver high standards for all, delivering strong foundations in oracy, reading, writing and maths, and offering a triple science entitlement for all pupils. This is alongside improving transitions and providing an enrichment entitlement for every child.
We will ensure children who for too long have been sidelined are included, raising standards and providing stretch and challenge for all no matter their starting point, targeting deprivation funding to boost outcomes for the most disadvantaged children and launching two place-focused missions to provide a blueprint for national change. Our ambitious special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) reforms will ensure children and young people with SEND get the support they need. The government consultation on SEND is ongoing until 18 May 2026.
We will move children and communities from withdrawn to engaging with education. We will introduce a new pupil engagement framework, support schools to improve behaviour, attendance and parental engagement, and give parents a clearer view of their child’s education.
To deliver this change, we will strengthen the foundations of our education system. We will invest in high quality staff, promote school collaboration, drive standards through new Regional Improvement for Standards and Excellence teams and realise opportunities from data, artificial intelligence and technology.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
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 ensure people living with bowel cancer can access suitable support.
Answered by Sharon Hodgson - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government and the National Health Service are taking crucial steps to improve cancer experience for patients across England, including for bowel cancer.
NHS England aims to empower individuals with choice and control over their health and care through personalised care, focusing on promoting independence, good health, and well-being. This includes provision of information, empowering people to manage their care and the impact of their cancer. Where appropriate, every person diagnosed with bowel cancer will have access to personalised care, including a needs assessment, a care plan, and health and wellbeing information and support.
The recently published National Cancer Plan aims to redesign cancer services around people’s lives, not just around hospitals, recognising that more people are living for longer with and beyond cancer and need ongoing, coordinated support. We will ensure patients have a named neighbourhood lead to help coordinate their care locally, working alongside hospital specialists to provide continuity, reduce fragmentation, and make it easier for people to navigate services. More cancer care and support will be delivered closer to home, including a universal digital-first prehabilitation offer, expanded supportive oncology, greater use of virtual monitoring, and growing opportunities for treatment and follow-up in community settings where safe and appropriate.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
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 raise awareness of the symptoms of bowel cancer.
Answered by Sharon Hodgson - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is determined to cut waiting times and improve outcomes for all cancers, including bowel cancer. The National Cancer Plan was published on 4 February 2026, which will ensure that three in every four people diagnosed with cancer are either cancer‑free or living well five years after diagnosis.
Early diagnosis is a key priority and the plan commits to develop and deliver more proactive approaches to identifying people at risk of cancer through symptomatic case finding, additional support for general practitioners (GPs), and genomic testing. The Department will continue to support the Gateway C digital training platform, and a new generation of digital support tools will help to flag concerning symptoms or test results to GPs for all cancers. As part of this, NHS England will pilot an incentive which encourages the use of electronic safety netting to increase the number of people who complete checks for bowel cancer.
Further actions to improve early diagnosis of bowel cancer includes rolling out increased faecal immunochemical test sensitivity aimed at catching more cancers earlier. The programme, with lowered threshold and combined with increased uptake, will deliver 17,000 earlier diagnoses by 2035.
The NHS Bowel Cancer screening Programme already offers people aged 50 to 74 years old screening every two years. The programme is undergoing several updates to its standards aimed at improving coverage, accessibility, and early detection. This includes updated performance thresholds, and improved accessibility of bowel cancer screening kits.
The NHS Cancer Programme commissioned the Royal College of Surgeons to deliver new cancer clinical audits, which included an audit for bowel cancer, with the aim to strengthen cancer services by looking at all treatments and patient outcomes across England and Wales and reduce inequalities across the country.
Finally, on raising awareness, NHS England also runs national campaigns, most recently in early 2025, to increase knowledge of cancer symptoms, address barriers to acting on them, and to encourage people to see their GP as soon as possible if they notice a change in their health. The campaigns cover bowel cancer and have focused on increasing awareness of a range of symptoms, as well as encouraging general body awareness, to help people spot symptoms across a wide range of cancers at an earlier point.