Asked by: Peter Swallow (Labour - Bracknell)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will review charges levied on phone calls to the probate service.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Calls to HMCTS telephone numbers are already included in the vast majority of home and mobile phone plans. Once someone has got through to an adviser, we also offer a call-back service for those who would otherwise have difficulty paying for the call.
Asked by: Peter Swallow (Labour - Bracknell)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if she will review the requirement for people with progressive health conditions to reapply for blue badges every three years.
Answered by Justin Madders - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Under the Blue Badge legislation, a badge may only be issued with a validity period of up to three years. The three-year validity period helps ensure that photographs and personal details held by local authorities remain accurate and up to date.
The Blue Badge Digital Service enables local authorities to mark cases as not requiring a further evidence review where there is no ongoing need for applicants to resubmit evidence of their eligibility. This option means that future applications can be processed more easily and with less administrative burden for many Blue Badge holders, including those with long-term and progressive conditions.
Asked by: Peter Swallow (Labour - Bracknell)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of uprating bereavement support payments in line with inflation.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
I refer my hon. Friend to the answer given by my hon. Friend the then Minister for Transformation on 13 March 2026 to Question UIN 117672.
Asked by: Peter Swallow (Labour - Bracknell)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether he will publish data on the disposal of social housing stock broken down by tenure and local authority area.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Large Private Registered Providers (PRPs) of social housing (i.e. those with 1,000 or more social and affordable homes) are required to report on the number of sales, demolitions, new builds, acquisitions or movements of owned units of social and affordable housing during the year through the Statistical Data Return (SDR) collected by the Regulator of Social Housing. It can be found on gov.uk here. Data on small PRPs is not collected through the SDR.
Local authority landlords with a Housing Revenue Account (HRA) are required to report on the number of disposals of local authority social and affordable housing for rent stock by tenure in Section K of the Local Authority Housing Statistics. These can be found on gov.uk here. As nearly all local authority owned stock is held within a HRA, breakdowns by disposal by tenure are not collected for other local authorities. All local authorities with social and affordable housing for ownership stock are required to report on the number of disposals of these units by tenure in the same section, independently whether this is held within or outside a HRA.
Asked by: Peter Swallow (Labour - Bracknell)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps she is taking to support families in Bracknell Forest in summer 2026.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (Cabinet Office) (Jointly with HM Treasury)
This Government is committed to supporting families. At the Budget, we took £150 off energy bills, froze rail fares and prescription charges, and lifted 450,000 children out of poverty.
With our Great British Summer Savings scheme, we are making bus travel free for 5-15-year-olds in England throughout August and slashing VAT on leisure activities. In Bracknell Forest, Play World Soft Play and venues like South Hill Park will benefit from the reduced rate, helping families enjoy a day out for less.
Asked by: Peter Swallow (Labour - Bracknell)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the accessibility of TG6 blood tests for diagnosis of gluten ataxia.
Answered by Sharon Hodgson
While National Health Service specialised services commissions care for some rare ataxias, gluten ataxia is commissioned within integrated care board-commissioned neurology services. Decisions on the provision of diagnostic tests, including blood tests, are therefore a matter for local NHS systems. Therefore, no specific assessment has been made.
The Government remains committed to improving the lives of people living with rare diseases, including gluten ataxia, through the UK Rare Diseases Framework and the England Rare Diseases Action Plan 2026, including helping patients get a final diagnosis faster.
Asked by: Peter Swallow (Labour - Bracknell)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether her Department is taking steps to help tackle loyalty penalties for phone and broadband customers.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Minister of State (Cabinet Office) (Jointly with the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Technology)
As regulator for telecoms, Ofcom has introduced a range of measures to improve transparency and consumer engagement in telecoms markets, including clearer end-of-contract notifications, new rules on in-contract price rises, and the One Touch Switching process to make switching broadband providers quicker and easier.
Ofcom’s 2026 pricing report shows that consumers who switch or renegotiate their contract typically pay less than those who remain out of contract, with over 2 million customers using One Touch Switching between September 2024 and the end of 2025. In addition, 26% of households switched at least one communications provider in the past year.
In February, the Government launched the Telecoms Consumer Charter, a public set of industry commitments that builds on Ofcom’s rules to ensure consumers get a fair deal.
Ofcom continues to monitor pricing practices and consumer outcomes closely and will take action where it identifies harm.
Asked by: Peter Swallow (Labour - Bracknell)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent progress he has made on consulting on reform to the calculation of Child maintenance.
Answered by Andrew Western - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We will announce further details in due course.
Given the significant amount of time since the child maintenance calculation was updated, we need to assess carefully the impact of any proposed changes on all parents that use the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) to ensure they effectively support families and children and that they are introduced in a way which works well for CMS customers.
Asked by: Peter Swallow (Labour - Bracknell)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress he has made on providing the NHS staff council with a funded mandate to make improvements to the Agenda for Change pay structure.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The NHS Staff Council was provided with a mandate to negotiate changes to the Agenda for Change pay structure for their agreement on 5 March 2026.
Pay structure changes that are agreed by the NHS Staff Council under the mandate will deliver additional pay increases for some staff in 2026/27 on top of the 3.3% increase to all pay points that was announced on 12 February 2026.
Asked by: Peter Swallow (Labour - Bracknell)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what progress has her Department made on helping to reduce the waiting time for driving test appointments.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency’s (DVSA) main priority is upholding road safety standards while it works hard to reduce car practical driving test waiting times. The agency is intensifying its efforts to reduce waiting times and improve access to driving tests that will break down barriers to opportunity as part of the government’s Plan for Change. The national average waiting time for a car practical driving test in January 2026 was 21.2 weeks.
DVSA is continuing with recruitment campaigns across the country to provide as many tests as possible. A full-time driving examiner (DE) can be expected to add approximately 1,200 tests per year to the booking system.
Examiner capacity is rising. Since April 2025, and as of January 2026, DVSA has seen an increase in the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) DEs, from 1,413 to 1,546; an increase of 130 FTE DEs.
During the current financial year to 31 January 2026, DVSA has conducted 1,623,925 tests. DVSA introduced the additional test allowance scheme in June 2025; from this date to 31 January 2026, DVSA has seen an increase of 123,320 tests when compared to the same period in the previous year.