Asked by: Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat - Honiton and Sidmouth)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made an assessment of the reasons for the price differential between (a) ciclosporin and (b) other generic immunosuppressant drugs sold in UK pharmacies compared to the same drugs available overseas; and if he will take steps to review (i) NHS procurement and (ii) pricing arrangements to ensure better value for money.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department has made no assessment of the reasons for the price difference between ciclosporin and other generic immunosuppressant drugs sold in United Kingdom pharmacies compared to other countries.
The UK has well established mechanisms to control the level of spend on branded medicines. The voluntary scheme for branded medicines pricing, access, and growth and the statutory scheme for branded medicines, control the growth in sales of branded medicines, and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s evaluations ensure that spend on new medicines represents a clinically and cost-effective use of National Health Service resources.
For generic medicines, the Government’s policy is freedom of pricing. Community pharmacies buy the drugs they need to dispense against NHS prescriptions and are reimbursed for these according to the prices and ‘rules’ as set out in the Drug Tariff. The reimbursement arrangements include an amount of medicines margin in 2025/26, as allowed for as part of Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework funding. The system incentivises pharmacy contractors to source items as cheaply as possible, so they individually get to keep more medicine margin. This leads to competition and downward pressure on selling prices, which in turn leads to lower reimbursement prices and lower costs to the NHS.
Asked by: Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat - Honiton and Sidmouth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate her Department has made of the potential savings to the public purse of issuing the Winter Fuel Payment on a per-household basis.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
No such estimate has been made. The Winter Fuel Payment is already a household payment paid on an individual basis.
Winter Fuel Payments are typically £200 for a household with someone of State Pension age and £300 for a household with someone aged 80 or over.
Winter Fuel Payments are paid automatically, without the need to claim, based on information held by DWP.
Where a pensioner is receiving a relevant income-related benefit such as Pension Credit, whether as a single person or as part of a couple, one payment of £200 or £300 (depending on age) is made to that household. This is because Pension Credit is assessed and paid on a household basis.
State Pension is not assessed or paid on a household basis, so shared payments are made to individuals to reflect the household effect. For example, a couple, each under 80 and not on Pension Credit will receive a shared payment amount of £100 each.
Asked by: Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat - Honiton and Sidmouth)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when the Minister of State for Care plans to respond to the letter from the hon. Member for Honiton and Sidmouth dated 18 March 2025 on NHS dentistry in the South West.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
I replied to the hon. Member on 25 June 2025.
Asked by: Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat - Honiton and Sidmouth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will set out what (a) support and (b) safeguards are in place to assist adults with intellectual disabilities in completing benefit application forms; and whether information provided when applying for a welfare benefit can be (a) transferred and (b) reused in subsequent applications.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department is committed to pursuing a just, equal and inclusive society, ensuring independence and control for all customers, including all disabled people and those with complex needs. This means we need to ensure that our customers have access to reasonable adjustments or additional support, to enable them to access benefits and our services.
We aim to support customers to access services independently but recognise some customers need the support of an appointee. The Department has a robust end-to-end process to fully assess both the customer and the proposed appointee to ensure suitability and prevent financial abuse. For customers without an appointee, and unable to complete forms through other channels, the DWP Visiting service can conduct home visits to provide support. Support is also offered within our Job centres.
The national DWP Visiting Service provides additional support across all service lines to customers who cannot access DWP services in any other way. A visit can be arranged for a customer if they need extra help to claim benefits, for example because they have complex needs, are disabled, are a vulnerable young person making a claim for the first time, have nobody else to support them or cannot claim benefits in any other way. Support visits if you need help to claim benefits - GOV.UK. Where further specialist help is required, DWP has a national network of 37 Advanced Customer Support Senior Leaders who can provide additional advice and support through the local networks they have built with external partners and organisations.
In some benefits there is an opportunity to share information. For example, Case Managers will occasionally cross reference information held on previous Employment Support Allowance (ESA) claims to build a more complete picture, where it is felt there are gaps or inconsistencies in evidence provided. However, specific information is required to support a Personal Independence Payment (PIP) claim to assess functionality across a range of activities. In this scenario, information provided for the purposes of other benefit claims would not be sufficient for this purpose. A further example of where information is shared across benefits would relate to an SR1 claim - special rules for end of life.
The Department continues to review the experience of users of its services and seeks to balance application simplicity with obtaining the information needed for an accurate award. A key objective of the DWPs Service Modernisation Programme is assessing how people locate, access, and navigate support, including making new applications and ensuring that services are designed around the needs of DWP customers and joined up wherever it is possible to do so.
Asked by: Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat - Honiton and Sidmouth)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will extend the deadline for the national Childminder Start-Up Grant scheme.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Childminders are a key part of the early years workforce. They offer high quality and flexible early education and care that can be tailored to the needs of parents and children. Attracting childminders to join the workforce and retaining them is of vital importance.
The Childminder Start-up Grant scheme provides eligible new childminders, registered on or after 15 March 2023, with payments of up to £1,200 to help with the costs of setting up their business. The scheme was announced at the Spring Budget 2023 and was planned to run for two years.
To qualify for a grant, new childminders had to have completed their childminder registration with either Ofsted or a childminder agency by 31 March 2025, and they must apply to the grant scheme within two months of confirmation of their childminder registration.
Childminders provide more than 158,000 registered early years childcare places and the department is working with the sector to expand the number of childminders, and to make it easier for them to operate, including through increased funding rates. From 1 November 2024, there have also been new flexibilities for childminders to work with more people and spend more time working from non-domestic premises if they want to.
Asked by: Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat - Honiton and Sidmouth)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps her Department is taking to increase the availability of practical driving tests in rural Devon.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - 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.
In recent months, DVSA has recruited new driving examiners into driving test centres that serve customers in Devon.
On the 23 April, the Secretary of State for Transport appeared before the Transport Select Committee and announced that DVSA will take further actions to reduce waiting times for all customers across the country.
Further information on these actions and progress on the DVSA’s 7-point plan, which was set out last year, can be found on GOV.UK.
Asked by: Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat - Honiton and Sidmouth)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of classifying water companies as public authorities for the purposes of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra has not made an assessment.
Asked by: Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat - Honiton and Sidmouth)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she is taking steps to extend (a) bursaries and (b) other forms of financial support to trainee primary school teachers.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
The bursaries the department offers are designed to incentivise more applications to initial teacher training (ITT) courses. We review bursaries each year before deciding the offer for trainees starting ITT the following academic year. In doing this, we take account of several factors including historic recruitment, forecast economic conditions, and teacher supply need in each subject.
Although recruitment of primary trainee teachers has been slightly below the postgraduate ITT target in recent years, there has been a consistent trend of higher ITT recruitment against target in primary compared to secondary over the last ten years. This is why bursaries are currently focussed on secondary subjects where teacher recruitment is more challenging and the need for new teachers is greater.
Primary trainee teachers on tuition fee-funded ITT routes can apply for a tuition fee loan and maintenance loan to support their living costs. Additional student finance is also available depending on individual circumstances, such as the Childcare Grant. Alternatively, prospective primary teachers can apply for salaried ITT routes, such as the postgraduate teaching apprenticeship.
Asked by: Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat - Honiton and Sidmouth)
Question to the Scotland Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland, what recent discussions he has had with the Scottish Government on support for the farming industry.
Answered by Kirsty McNeill - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Scotland Office)
We have been working hard to positively reset relations. Earlier this month, I joined the Scottish Government’s Employment and Investment Minister, at the opening of a dairy innovation centre. This was the first project to be delivered through the joint Borderlands Growth Deal, providing new collaboration opportunities to progress the dairy sector towards a more sustainable and profitable future.
The Secretary of State meets with the Deputy First Minister on a regular basis, and the Inter-Ministerial Group on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs convenes regularly to discuss important issues, including agriculture.
I look forward to meeting with Scottish farming stakeholders alongside Scottish Government and Defra Ministers at the Scotland Office’s upcoming Food and Farming roundtable.
Asked by: Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat - Honiton and Sidmouth)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much funding South West Water was required to contribute to infrastructure to meet (a) environmental and (b) water quality standards between 2013 and 2025.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Since 2015 Ofwat has set total expenditure allowances which allow for companies to meet their obligations under the environment and water quality programmes. Based on data provided by Ofwat, the figures for South West Water are set out below.
South West Water expenditure on the environment and water quality programmes since 2015 | ||
2023-24 prices: | 2015-20 | 2020-24 |
Environment programme | £75.0 million | £174.2 million |
Water quality | £45.8 million | £107.4 million |
Total | £402.4 million | |
Between 2015 and 2024 the environment programme allowance for South West Water was £249.2 million and the water quality allowance was £153.2 million.
Due to figures being unable to be split between two price control periods, figures for 2013-15 cannot be provided.