Asked by: Rachel Gilmour (Liberal Democrat - Tiverton and Minehead)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps she is taking to address gaps in broadband connectivity in rural areas where properties are beyond effective range of fibre-to-the-cabinet infrastructure and have no confirmed timeline for full fibre rollout.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
As of the end of December 2025, over 1.3 million premises in hard-to-reach communities across the UK had been upgraded to gigabit-capable broadband through government-funded programmes.
A further 580,000 premises are currently included in Project Gigabit contracts for gigabit coverage in areas not covered by commercially funded plans.
Building Digital UK (BDUK) is currently refreshing its delivery plans for the remaining premises not included in Project Gigabit in support of the government’s objective of reaching at least 99% of UK premises by 2032.
Our expectation is that some remote premises will remain too expensive to build a gigabit fibre connection to. We are monitoring and supporting market development for alternative solutions, for example through fixed wireless access or satellite broadband connections, including by encouraging spectrum releases and ground station deployments. Many premises in rural areas are already adopting these services.
Asked by: Rachel Gilmour (Liberal Democrat - Tiverton and Minehead)
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 adequacy of ICB-level oversight of neurology services.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for commissioning services that meet the needs of their local population, including for patients with neurological conditions. NHS England continues to set national standards, service specifications, and clinical access policies, which ICBs are expected to apply. Additionally, ICBs are expected to take National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidance into account when considering appropriate care, including for patients with neurological conditions.
NHS England’s Neurology Transformation Programme, which concluded in March 2026, was a multi-year, clinically led programme, which developed a new model of integrated care to support ICBs to deliver the right service, at the right time for all neurology patients. A toolkit was developed to support ICBs to understand and implement this new model, which includes components on delivering acute neurology services, improving health equity in neurology, and improving community neurology services.
Asked by: Rachel Gilmour (Liberal Democrat - Tiverton and Minehead)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate her Department has made of the total revenue raised through VAT on electricity used to charge electric vehicles, including (a) domestic charging at the reduced 5% VAT rate and (b) public charging at the standard 20% rate.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
HM Revenue and Customs does not hold information on VAT revenue on electricity used to charge electric vehicles. This is because businesses are not required to provide figures at a product level within their VAT returns, as this would impose an excessive administrative burden.
Estimates of the Exchequer cost of the Reduced Rate of VAT for domestic fuel and power, which includes home charging of electric vehicles, can be found in the following publication:
Tax reliefs - GOV.UK, see item VAT – NS4 on Table 2.
Asked by: Rachel Gilmour (Liberal Democrat - Tiverton and Minehead)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the impact of frozen state pensions on UK state pensioners residing overseas.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The UK's policy on the up-rating of the UK State Pension for recipients living overseas is a longstanding one.
The UK State Pension is payable worldwide without regard to nationality and is uprated abroad where we have a legal requirement to do so.
This approach has been supported by successive governments, over many years with priority given to those living in the UK when drawing up expenditure plans for additional pensioner benefits.
Asked by: Rachel Gilmour (Liberal Democrat - Tiverton and Minehead)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment she has made of the impact of the overall tax burden on hospitality businesses.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government recognises the important contribution that businesses in the hospitality sector make to local communities, the high street and the wider economy across the UK. The potential impacts of changes on this sector are carefully considered as part of policy development.
Where changes are made, relevant impact notes and assessments are published at fiscal events and otherwise as necessary, in line with the Government’s usual practice. The Treasury also engages regularly with the hospitality sector to understand the challenges they face.
The Government continues to provide support to the hospitality sector through the tax system and other policies and keeps all areas of the tax system under review, with future decisions taken at fiscal events under the normal process.
Asked by: Rachel Gilmour (Liberal Democrat - Tiverton and Minehead)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of current review and oversight mechanisms in cases where the police issue a conditional caution without a charging decision being made, particularly in circumstances where the individual has not made an admission of guilt; and what steps her Department is taking to ensure that such cases are subject to scrutiny and avenues for challenge.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The use of conditional cautions is governed by a clear statutory framework and established safeguards. They are provided for under sections 22 and 23 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 and are subject to the Ministry of Justice’s Code of Practice for adult Conditional Cautions.
The framework requires an admission of guilt. While this does not need to be made prior to the decision that a conditional caution is appropriate, the offender must make a clear and unambiguous admission at the point the caution is administered. Conditional cautions can therefore only be issued where an admission has been made, and where the evidential and public interest tests are satisfied.
Oversight of Out of Court Resolutions (OOCRs), is exercised locally through OOCR scrutiny panels. These panels provide independent challenge and assurance, often including external members such as community representatives. Their role is to identify learning and support improvements in practice, rather than to reinvestigate individual cases or replace formal accountability mechanisms. They contribute to transparency, accountability, and public confidence by enabling external scrutiny of policing decisions. These panels typically include representation from partners such as the Police and Crime Commissioner, Crown Prosecution Service, HM Courts and Tribunals Service, victim support services and probation. In the summer of 2025, around two thirds of forces / Police and Crime Commissioners had published minutes of their out of court scrutiny panels on their websites.
The Ministry of Justice holds policy responsibility for the OOCR framework, including the Code of Practice and associated guidance, and has supported the development of local scrutiny arrangements. Many police forces have established panels, often linked to Local Criminal Justice Boards (LCJBs), to provide oversight, promote transparency, a support consistency in decision-making.
Following Part 1 of the Independent Review of the Criminal Courts, it was recommended that there should be a clear expectation that robust local scrutiny arrangements should be in place to oversee the use and appropriateness of OOCRs. The Government are considering the recommendations from this Review and will respond to them in due course.
Asked by: Rachel Gilmour (Liberal Democrat - Tiverton and Minehead)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department collects data from local authorities on the reasons why Section 19 of the Education Act 1996 is applied.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The department collects data from local authorities on placement reasons for pupils educated under Section 19 of the Education Act 1996 for those in local authority funded placements.
This information is published annually in the ‘Schools, pupils and their characteristics’ accredited official statistics: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-pupils-and-their-characteristics/2024-25.
Asked by: Rachel Gilmour (Liberal Democrat - Tiverton and Minehead)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of embedding a cross-governmental approach to young people who go missing.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The government takes the issue of any child going missing, from home or care, extremely seriously and has provided clear guidance about responsibilities for all children who go missing. When a child is found, they must be offered an independent Return Home Interview and local authorities, police and voluntary services should also work together to understand why the child went missing and what support they may need, including with their mental health, in the future to prevent them from going missing again.
The department has announced a £7 million funding boost to early support hubs across England providing drop-in mental health support for young people aged 11 to 25. Alongside this, we are investing an extra £688 million in mental health services this year and are recruiting 8,500 additional mental health workers across children’s and adult services.
Measures from the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill and Crime and Policing Bill, reforms being delivered through the Families First Partnership Programme, supported by £2.4 billion, updates to the Working Together to Safeguard Children statutory guidance, and oversight from the Keeping Children Safe ministerial board will ensure that we better respond when children go missing and intervene earlier to tackle the underlying drivers.
Measures in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill aim to put an end to misconceptions about legal barriers to sharing information, through introducing an Information Sharing Duty and making provision for a Single Unique Identifier to improve information sharing between agencies.
Asked by: Rachel Gilmour (Liberal Democrat - Tiverton and Minehead)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will set out how the National Cancer Plan for England will reduce barriers to innovative and life extending treatments for people with secondary breast cancer when those treatments are not approved by National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence.
Answered by Sharon Hodgson - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Cancer Plan commits to increasing access to the best innovative cancer treatments for all patients, including those with secondary breast cancer. The Cancer Drugs Fund has helped to ensure that, according to industry data, patients in England receive new cancer treatments 50% faster than the European Union average, and it will continue to provide earlier access to promising new treatments. By April 2026, a joint process between National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency will boost the speed of decisions on licensing and appraisal of medicines, so that recommendations for the National Health Service to fund new drugs can be made faster.
NICE has a strong track record in recommending treatments for breast cancer and will continue to evaluate all new medicines for breast cancer. There are no plans to routinely fund medicines where NICE has been unable to recommend them as clinically and cost effective.
Since January 2022, NICE has recommended all but one of the treatments for breast cancer that it has assessed through the Cancer Drugs Fund, including treatments for secondary breast cancer such as Truqap and Korserdu, which are now available to eligible NHS patients.
To ensure that people diagnosed with secondary breast cancer have timely access to new and innovative treatments, NHS England commissioned a National Audit of Metastatic Breast Cancer, which provides timely evidence for cancer service providers of where patterns of care in England may vary. The purpose of the audit is to identify information to increase the consistency of access to treatments and help stimulate improvements in cancer treatment and outcomes for patients. The NHS is now acting on those findings.
Asked by: Rachel Gilmour (Liberal Democrat - Tiverton and Minehead)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of stock levels of propanolol 80mg and 160mg modified release capsules until July 2026 on (i) patient outcomes and (ii) availability of medication which is a suitable substitute.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed
The Department is aware of supply issues affecting propranolol 80 milligram and 160 milligram modified release (MR) capsules due to ongoing manufacturing issues. The issues affecting propranolol 80 milligram MR capsules are expected to resolve by July 2026, while issues with propranolol 160 milligram MR capsules remain ongoing until further notice.
The Department is working with all suppliers to help resolve the issues and improve supplies, including asking that they source stock from other markets. We have also reached out to specialist importers who have sourced unlicensed imports of propranolol 80 milligram and 160 milligram MR capsules. We have engaged with National Health Service specialist clinicians and issued comprehensive guidance on how to manage patients during this time and to advise on available alternative preparations.
The Department continues to work with the supply chain teams and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency to mitigate the situation and ensure supplies are available for patients as soon as possible.