Asked by: Martin Wrigley (Liberal Democrat - Newton Abbot)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of making bus travel free for under 16s in Devon during term time.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Government recognises the importance of affordable and reliable bus services in helping children and young people access education and other opportunities.
Decisions on introducing local concessionary travel schemes are generally matters for local transport authorities, who are best placed to consider local transport needs and priorities.
The Government supports affordable bus travel through the Local Authority Bus Grant, which gives local transport authorities flexibility to introduce local fare initiatives and targeted support for children and young people.
Asked by: Martin Wrigley (Liberal Democrat - Newton Abbot)
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 the completeness and consistency of data recorded on people diagnosed with secondary breast cancer across NHS Trusts in England, in the context of the latest findings of the National Audit of Metastatic Breast Cancer (NAoMe) published on 10th September.
Answered by James Frith - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Via the National Disease Registration Service (NDRS), NHS England collects, curates, quality assures, and analyses data about people with cancer across the whole of England.
The NDRS data improvement team is working with National Health Service trusts to provide support and guidance to improve their reporting of non-primary cancers, focused on the specific recurrence and progression data fields included in the Cancer Outcomes and Services Dataset. This includes updates on trust submitted recurrence data in our routine ‘diagnoses by provider’ dashboard, available on our NHS facing, secure data quality and insights hub.
The National Cancer Plan for England, published in February this year, committed to define and count recurrent cancers, starting with breast cancer. The NDRS is working towards publishing a baseline figure of metastatic breast cancer patients in the last quarter of 2026 as per the commitment in the plan.
Asked by: Martin Wrigley (Liberal Democrat - Newton Abbot)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when her department plans to respond to the correspondence from the hon. member for Newton Abbot under case ref MW16977.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
A reply was sent to the hon. Member on 23 September 2026.
Asked by: Martin Wrigley (Liberal Democrat - Newton Abbot)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when she plans to respond to the correspondence of 31 July 2026 from the hon. Member for Newton Abbot, ref MW17163.
Answered by James Frith - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
I apologise to the Hon. Member for the delayed responses to his correspondence, which have now been sent to him.
Asked by: Martin Wrigley (Liberal Democrat - Newton Abbot)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when she plans to respond to the correspondence of 31 July 2026 from the hon. Member for Newton Abbot, ref MW17164.
Answered by James Frith - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
I apologise to the Hon. Member for the delayed responses to his correspondence, which have now been sent to him.
Asked by: Martin Wrigley (Liberal Democrat - Newton Abbot)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when she plans to respond to the correspondence of 31 July 2026 from the hon. member for Newton Abbot, ref MW17188.
Answered by James Frith - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
I apologise to the Hon. Member for the delayed responses to his correspondence, which have now been sent to him.
Asked by: Martin Wrigley (Liberal Democrat - Newton Abbot)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether probabilistic record-linkage tools used by the Department are used to link records relating to individuals across departmental boundaries; and what assessment he has made of the potential implications for individuals of being automatically included within, or excluded from, such cross-departmental linked identities.
Answered by Jake Richards - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice mostly uses probabilistic record-linkage tools to link internal administrative datasets (such as court, prison and probation data), while most linking across departmental boundaries uses deterministic linking. However, there are a small number of projects that use probabilistic matching across departmental boundaries for analytical and research purposes, such as:
Crown Prosecution Service data has recently been linked probabilistically to prisons and probation data, as part of work to join up data across the criminal justice system to improve understanding of the whole end-to-end system.
Prisoner and family relationship data was linked with HMRC Child Benefit records to estimate the number of children affected by parental imprisonment.
The results of this linking are used for analytical and research purposes, informing policymakers with better quality evidence rather than informing decisions at an individual level.
All data-linking activity is subject to the Ministry of Justice's established governance arrangements, including completion of a Data Protection Impact Assessment where required and engagement with the Ministry of Justice AI & Data Science Ethics Framework. These processes consider a wider range of ethical, legal and data protection issues including the potential implications for individuals of being included within, or excluded from, linked datasets.
Asked by: Martin Wrigley (Liberal Democrat - Newton Abbot)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether probabilistic record linkage tools, used by the Department or its agencies automatically link records relating to individuals where a predefined confidence threshold is met; and what human review is undertaken before such linked records are used for operational purposes.
Answered by Jake Richards - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice uses Splink, a probabilistic record linkage tool created in the Department, across a variety of services and analytical applications.
Where the match score exceeds a certain threshold, records are typically linked automatically, without human review. The score threshold varies according to use case and is set following assessment of accuracy required for the intended purpose, including where linked records may support operational processes.
Before a linking model is deployed, human review is undertaken on a sample of recorded pairs to assess linkage accuracy inform selection of an appropriate confidence threshold. Linkage performance is subsequently monitored, and threshold and matching algorithms are adjusted where necessary in response to identified issues or changes in data quality.
In addition, record linkage projects are subjected to appropriate governance and ethical overview, including through the Ministry of Justice AI and Data Science Ethics Framework.
Asked by: Martin Wrigley (Liberal Democrat - Newton Abbot)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will issue guidance to secondary schools on how to support students starting year 10 in 2027 who want a technical or vocational education ahead of the 2028 introduction date.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Our ambition is to give every young person access to high-quality academic and technical education pathways from age 14 and to support progression into further study, training and skilled employment. We recognise that having access to high-quality vocational qualifications at school, alongside a strong academic core, is essential to help pupils consider the range of post-16 pathways available.
Schools are free to decide which qualifications they will offer in each subject they teach. However, as part of their duty to teach a broad and balanced curriculum, schools are expected to offer a range of subject options to help meet the aspirations of all pupils.
There are a range of Level 1 and 2 Technical Awards already available, which can be found in the 2027 performance tables list, available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/key-stage-4-qualifications-discount-codes-and-point-scores.
Asked by: Martin Wrigley (Liberal Democrat - Newton Abbot)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of the recent usage of the Emergency Alert System on victims of domestic violence with concealed phones.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security) (Jointly with the Cabinet Office)
Protecting women in abusive relationships is our highest priority. In order to protect those who may have hidden phones, both national tests of the Emergency Alerting capability have been accompanied by a wide-ranging proactive public communications campaign. This raised awareness of the system and recommended that women with hidden phones opt out of receiving Alerts and was delivered in partnership with organisations that represent these groups.
In a ‘live’ activation scenario such as this, such pre-planned public communications are not always possible. But please be assured that we are learning from each activation to ensure that the capability is being used in the most effective way and, where it is practicable, advance warning of alerts will be considered.