Sarah Pochin

Under existing UK regulations, businesses must only place safe products, including batteries for e-bikes and e-scooters, on the market. In 2024, the Department published statutory guidelines for lithium-ion e-bike batteries, clarifying that they must protect against the risk of thermal runaway to be considered safe products. Regulators have powers to enforce these regulations. The Government has now introduced the Product Regulation and Metrology Act 2025, which will enable us to modernise and improve our product safety framework for products sold online and on the high street.

E-bikes must meet legal speed and power limits to be used on the road.

This government is taking the strongest action to tackle child sexual abuse and exploitation. This includes setting up a new national inquiry, with which government departments will cooperate fully, to ensure we are tackling this vile crime and supporting victims and survivors.

Working Together is the national multi-agency statutory guidance for all practitioners working with children and their families. Local safeguarding partners (local authorities, police and health) already have a statutory duty to set out in their threshold document and local protocols the process for referrals, assessments, support and services for children who need help or protection. This guidance underpins Ofsted’s Inspection of Local Authority Children’s Services framework.

We are also delivering the biggest reform to children’s social care in a generation, investing £2.4 billion in the Families First Partnership programme, introducing multi-agency child protection teams through our landmark Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill and establishing a national Child Protection Authority.

Under Section 19 of the Education Act 1996, local authorities must arrange suitable education for children of compulsory school age who, because of exclusion, illness or other reasons, would not otherwise receive it. This education should be full-time, or as close to full-time as is appropriate for the child’s needs.

Ofsted monitors local authorities’ arrangements for the sufficiency and commissioning of alternative provision through Area special educational needs and disabilities inspections.

The department also issues statutory guidance on planning and commissioning alternative provision, which sets out principles for timely, safe, and high quality education. The guidance was last updated in January 2025 at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/alternative-provision.

The government is committed to an inclusive education system that identifies additional needs early and delivers the right support at the right time, helping children remain in and succeed within mainstream education wherever possible.

Through our Plan for Change, the government is committed to giving every child the best start in life. On 28 August 2025, we confirmed over £600 million for the holiday activities and food (HAF) programme for the next three financial years, from 2026/27. This equates to just over £200 million each year.

This multi-year commitment gives parents and providers certainty that clubs will be available over what can otherwise be an expensive holiday period, ensuring that children and young people continue to benefit from enriching holiday experiences and nutritious meals. The programme also provides work opportunities for parents on low incomes to support their families.

The department will be releasing further details about the HAF programme by the end of the year, including updated local authority guidance.

The government is committed to giving every child the best start in life. That’s why the department recently confirmed over £600 million for the holiday activities and food (HAF) programme for the next three financial years from 2026/27. Delivering best value for money through our programmes is a priority for this government and our HAF guidance sets this out for local authorities.

The department expects all providers who are funded through the HAF programme to meet our framework of standards, and we expect that assurance visits are focused on ensuring this is the case.

Local authorities are responsible for gathering information about the children and families they are supporting. Following each holiday, the department asks local authorities to report on their activity.

The department requires a certificate of expenditure from each local authority which must be signed by the chief financial officer or chief internal auditor. These support the regularity assurance statement for the National Audit Office.

Parliamentary Questions and their answers are publicly available on the parliament website.

The Government takes the condition of local roads very seriously and is committed to enabling local highway authorities to maintain and renew their local highway networks effectively.

For this financial year, the Department has already announced a funding uplift of £500 million compared to the last financial year for local authorities to spend on highway maintenance. 25% of this funding uplift is subject to local highway authorities demonstrating how they are complying with best practice, for example in relation to the adoption of innovative technologies to repair potholes and undertaking preventative maintenance to prevent potholes from forming in the first place.

The Department also encourages and supports innovation through its update to the Code of Practice for Well-Managed Highway Infrastructure, which will include guidance on matters such as innovative surface treatments.

The is also supporting the £30 million Live Labs 2 innovation programme which is supporting the local highway sector to demonstrate innovative low-carbon ways of maintaining local highways. It includes projects that are testing and evaluating novel surfacing materials for the benefit of the whole highways sector.

The Department regularly engages with local highway authorities and their representative bodies, such as the Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning & Transport (ADEPT) and the Local Government Association (LGA) on matters relating to highway maintenance.

The Secretary of State for Transport has not had direct discussions with Halton Borough Council on road maintenance or pothole repairs in Runcorn, or with Cheshire West and Chester Council on road maintenance or pothole repairs in Runcorn and Helsby constituency.

In March, the Prime Minister announced that in order to receive their full share of this year's £500m uplift in highways maintenance funding, local highway authorities have to publish a report on their maintenance plans and demonstrate how they are complying with best practice in highways maintenance. Both councils have published these reports, which can be found on their websites.

The Department regularly engages with local highway authorities and their representative bodies, such as the Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning & Transport (ADEPT) and the Local Government Association (LGA) on matters relating to highway maintenance.

The Secretary of State for Transport has not had direct discussions with Halton Borough Council on road maintenance or pothole repairs in Runcorn, or with Cheshire West and Chester Council on road maintenance or pothole repairs in Runcorn and Helsby constituency.

In March, the Prime Minister announced that in order to receive their full share of this year's £500m uplift in highways maintenance funding, local highway authorities have to publish a report on their maintenance plans and demonstrate how they are complying with best practice in highways maintenance. Both councils have published these reports, which can be found on their websites.

The Motability Scheme receives no direct funding from DWP. However, it does receive the direct transfer of benefit from DWP. This is claimant benefit the claimant would otherwise be receiving, and the cost of transfer is paid for by the Motability Foundation.

The total paid to the Motability Scheme from the customers’ benefit in each financial year is as follows (inclusive of amounts for Northern Ireland Executive and Scottish Government benefits):

Please note our financial systems only hold full year data for financial years 22/3 – 24/25.

The Motability Foundation is independent of government and regulated by the Charity Commission to help disabled people with their mobility and transport needs. They own and have oversight of the Motability Scheme which is delivered by an independent commercial company Motability Operations. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is responsible for the main benefits that provide a gateway to the Scheme. Data about the brands or values of vehicles leased under the Scheme is held by Motability Operations.

Vehicles leased to eligible disabled people as part of the Motability Scheme are exempt from Vehicle Excise Duty, including the expensive car supplement, if applicable.

We are protecting the taxpayer through changes to the Motability scheme, ensuring it supports disabled people whilst delivering efficient use of taxpayers’ money. This includes the removal of some luxury vehicles from the leasing scheme while maintaining a range of vehicles to support disabled people.

The Motability Foundation is independent of government and regulated by the Charity Commission to help disabled people with their mobility and transport needs. They own and have oversight of the Motability Scheme which is delivered by an independent commercial company Motability Operations. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is responsible for the main benefits that provide a gateway to the Scheme. Data about the brands or values of vehicles leased under the Scheme is held by Motability Operations.

Vehicles leased to eligible disabled people as part of the Motability Scheme are exempt from Vehicle Excise Duty, including the expensive car supplement, if applicable.

We are protecting the taxpayer through changes to the Motability scheme, ensuring it supports disabled people whilst delivering efficient use of taxpayers’ money. This includes the removal of some luxury vehicles from the leasing scheme while maintaining a range of vehicles to support disabled people.

The Motability Foundation is independent of government and regulated by the Charity Commission to help disabled people with their mobility and transport needs. They own and have oversight of the Motability Scheme which is delivered by an independent commercial company Motability Operations. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is responsible for the main benefits that provide a gateway to the Scheme. Data about the brands or values of vehicles leased under the Scheme is held by Motability Operations.

Vehicles leased to eligible disabled people as part of the Motability Scheme are exempt from Vehicle Excise Duty, including the expensive car supplement, if applicable.

We are protecting the taxpayer through changes to the Motability scheme, ensuring it supports disabled people whilst delivering efficient use of taxpayers’ money. This includes the removal of some luxury vehicles from the leasing scheme while maintaining a range of vehicles to support disabled people.

For referral to treatment (RTT) pathways that start within an interface service, which is any form of intermediary clinical triage, assessment, and/or treatment between primary and secondary care, a patient's clock start will begin at the point the general practice referral is made and not the date that the referral is received by the secondary care provider. Further information can be found in the RTT consultant-led waiting times: rules suite guidance document, which is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/right-to-start-consultant-led-treatment-within-18-weeks/referral-to-treatment-consultant-led-waiting-times-rules-suite-october-2022

The complete time elapsed between referral and treatment will be recorded on the published consultant led RTT waiting time data, at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/rtt-waiting-times/rtt-data-2025-26/

Advice and Guidance (A&G) is where a general practitioner requests advice from a specialist digitally, prior to or instead of a referral, and it has helped divert over 655,000 referrals between April and August 2025. The NHS Electronic Referral System, the platform used for most A&Gs, can allow the specialist to "convert" a request into a referral. An RTT waiting time clock would not commence unless the request is converted to a referral. Where a referral to the waiting list is not required, we expect patients to receive care sooner, in a more convenient setting, having benefitted from specialist advice to inform their care management plan.

The Medium-Term Planning Framework, published in October 2025, outlines plans to move toward delivering care through a ‘Single Point of Access’. This describes a model where all appropriate referrals and requests, other than those for urgent suspected cancer, are directed through a single ‘front door’ to support triage to the most appropriate next step or outcome for the patient. This will help ensure a more consistent approach to triage which provides quicker access to patients.

There are no plans for an independent audit of pre-listing referral management processes and reporting of delays across National Health Service trusts.

For referral to treatment (RTT) pathways that start within an interface service, which is any form of intermediary clinical triage, assessment, and/or treatment between primary and secondary care, a patient's clock start will begin at the point the general practice referral is made and not the date that the referral is received by the secondary care provider. Further information can be found in the RTT consultant-led waiting times: rules suite guidance document, which is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/right-to-start-consultant-led-treatment-within-18-weeks/referral-to-treatment-consultant-led-waiting-times-rules-suite-october-2022

The complete time elapsed between referral and treatment will be recorded on the published consultant led RTT waiting time data, at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/rtt-waiting-times/rtt-data-2025-26/

Advice and Guidance (A&G) is where a general practitioner requests advice from a specialist digitally, prior to or instead of a referral, and it has helped divert over 655,000 referrals between April and August 2025. The NHS Electronic Referral System, the platform used for most A&Gs, can allow the specialist to "convert" a request into a referral. An RTT waiting time clock would not commence unless the request is converted to a referral. Where a referral to the waiting list is not required, we expect patients to receive care sooner, in a more convenient setting, having benefitted from specialist advice to inform their care management plan.

The Medium-Term Planning Framework, published in October 2025, outlines plans to move toward delivering care through a ‘Single Point of Access’. This describes a model where all appropriate referrals and requests, other than those for urgent suspected cancer, are directed through a single ‘front door’ to support triage to the most appropriate next step or outcome for the patient. This will help ensure a more consistent approach to triage which provides quicker access to patients.

There are no plans for an independent audit of pre-listing referral management processes and reporting of delays across National Health Service trusts.

For referral to treatment (RTT) pathways that start within an interface service, which is any form of intermediary clinical triage, assessment, and/or treatment between primary and secondary care, a patient's clock start will begin at the point the general practice referral is made and not the date that the referral is received by the secondary care provider. Further information can be found in the RTT consultant-led waiting times: rules suite guidance document, which is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/right-to-start-consultant-led-treatment-within-18-weeks/referral-to-treatment-consultant-led-waiting-times-rules-suite-october-2022

The complete time elapsed between referral and treatment will be recorded on the published consultant led RTT waiting time data, at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/rtt-waiting-times/rtt-data-2025-26/

Advice and Guidance (A&G) is where a general practitioner requests advice from a specialist digitally, prior to or instead of a referral, and it has helped divert over 655,000 referrals between April and August 2025. The NHS Electronic Referral System, the platform used for most A&Gs, can allow the specialist to "convert" a request into a referral. An RTT waiting time clock would not commence unless the request is converted to a referral. Where a referral to the waiting list is not required, we expect patients to receive care sooner, in a more convenient setting, having benefitted from specialist advice to inform their care management plan.

The Medium-Term Planning Framework, published in October 2025, outlines plans to move toward delivering care through a ‘Single Point of Access’. This describes a model where all appropriate referrals and requests, other than those for urgent suspected cancer, are directed through a single ‘front door’ to support triage to the most appropriate next step or outcome for the patient. This will help ensure a more consistent approach to triage which provides quicker access to patients.

There are no plans for an independent audit of pre-listing referral management processes and reporting of delays across National Health Service trusts.

We know that timely support is critical for child victims of sexual abuse, and that demand for child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) has risen significantly. The 10-Year Health Plan set out an ambitious reform agenda to transform the National Health Service and make it fit for the future. In line with this, we will go further to ensure that NHS mental health services deliver the care that people deserve, including child victims of sexual abuse.

We are committed to reducing waiting times for specialist CAMHS support, as set out in our Medium-Term Planning Framework. We are also accelerating the rollout of Mental Health Support Teams in schools and colleges to reach full national coverage by 2029. As part of this, we are investing an additional £13 million to pilot enhanced training for staff so that they can offer more effective support to young people with complex needs, such as trauma. By bringing in vital services to schools, we can intervene early, promote wellbeing, and support recovery.

Our action so far has resulted in more young people being supported to access NHS mental health services. In the first 12 months of the Government, nearly 40,000 more children and young people received support compared to the previous 12 months.

There are currently no plans to introduce such an access target. The Darzi Review highlighted that there are too many NHS targets, so we have reduced the number of national priorities for 2025/26, focusing on what matters most to patients.

The healthcare of children, like all patients, deserves evidence-based treatments where possible. That is why we are following expert, independent advice from the Cass Review to implement a programme of research to support the National Health Service to provide the best support to children and young people with gender incongruence. The programme includes the PATHWAYS trial, a carefully designed clinical trial to assess the relative benefits and harms of puberty-suppressing hormones as a treatment option for children and young people with gender incongruence.

The Government Legal Department is the Government’s principal legal advisers. Its core purpose is to help the Government to govern well, within the rule of law. They regularly provide advice to the Department of Health and Social Care.

HMRC has a “Publishing Details of Deliberate Tax Defaulters” programme which publishes details of deliberate tax defaulters on Gov.uk for a period of 12 months. Since HMRC began compliance on the COVID-19 support schemes, details of 195 people have been published for deliberately overclaiming CJRS and/or Eat Out to Help Out.

The latest publication was in November 2025: Details of deliberate tax defaulters - GOV.UK

HMRC’s Fraud Reporting Gateway receives Human Intelligence reports on a variety of topics, including COVID-19 error and fraud, that are of interest to HMRC. This Fraud Reporting Gateway has resulted in 23,000 intelligence reports relating to the COVID schemes to assess, and a further 900 reports received from the Public Sector Fraud Authority.

Due to firewalls in place to protect human sources of information, the recipients of the intelligence do not know its origin. Therefore, once the intelligence is circulated, we are unable to directly identify and attribute yield generated from the Fraud Reporting Gateway contacts, or why an investigation was or was not started.

As announced at Budget 2025, the Government is introducing Electric Vehicle Excise Duty (eVED) from April 2028, a new mileage charge for electric and plug-in hybrid cars, recognising that EVs contribute to congestion and wear and tear on the roads but pay no equivalent to fuel duty.

The Government set out estimated impacts on household incomes from tax, welfare and public service spending decisions taken at Budget 2025, including eVED. These impacts are available at GOV.UK: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69269c6222424e25e6bc31bb/Impact_on_households.pdf

The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) will be responsible for delivering and administering eVED, so HM Revenue and Customs will not incur additional administrative costs.

As announced at Budget 2025, the Government is introducing Electric Vehicle Excise Duty (eVED) from April 2028, a new mileage charge for electric and plug-in hybrid cars, recognising that EVs contribute to congestion and wear and tear on the roads but pay no equivalent to fuel duty.

The Government set out estimated impacts on household incomes from tax, welfare and public service spending decisions taken at Budget 2025, including eVED. These impacts are available at GOV.UK: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69269c6222424e25e6bc31bb/Impact_on_households.pdf

The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) will be responsible for delivering and administering eVED, so HM Revenue and Customs will not incur additional administrative costs.

HMRC does not record ‘Money Service Businesses’ (MSBs) as a category in its compliance data across all tax regimes. It is therefore not possible to accurately identify the total number of compliance checks in this area of business without manually reviewing case records. Available figures cover compliance checks under the Money Laundering Regulations (MLR).

As a statutory supervisor under the MLR, HMRC has carried out 1,008 compliance checks of supervised businesses across all supervised sectors in the period from 1 December 2024 to 30 November 2025. These interventions form part of the responsibility to protect the UK from money laundering and the financing of terrorism and proliferation, which includes providing guidance and education to support legitimate businesses, fit and proper operating checks, and desk-based and onsite interventions.

Further details on HMRC’s inspection processes are available on GOV.UK: Money laundering regulations: business inspections.

This Government remains firmly committed to tackling all forms of child sexual exploitation and abuse in all settings across the country. This includes ensuring that statutory safeguarding partners, including the police, have the right resources, tools and training to identify and respond effectively to child sexual abuse. Working Together to Safeguard Children statutory guidance sets out the roles and responsibilities of each safeguarding partner, including how to work together to safeguard children from this horrific crime. We are also working to establish the new National Centre for Violence Against Women and Girls and Public Protection which will drive up best practice and strengthened ways of working amongst key partners. We are also working to establish the new National Centre for Violence Against Women and Girls and Public Protection which will drive up best practice and strengthened ways of working amongst key partners.

Baroness Casey’s rapid national audit into group-based child sexual exploitation set out stark findings on the scale and nature of grooming gang offending. This government is absolutely committed to exposing the failures that have happened across the country and making sure that it can never happen again. We accepted all of Baroness Casey’s twelve recommendations and are working across government to implement these as quickly as possible. The Home Secretary announced the leadership and draft terms of reference of the new Independent Inquiry into Grooming Gangs on 9 December 2025.

To improve our understanding of and response to these crimes, the Home Office funds a number of policing capabilities, including the Tackling Organised Exploitation programme which uses data and intelligence to increase law enforcement’s capability to respond to organised exploitation. We also fund the Child Sexual Exploitation Police Taskforce to improve how the police investigate child sexual exploitation and bring more offenders to justice. The Taskforce work directly with forces to improve data collection and analyse data on a national level. On 10 December 2025, the Taskforce published an annual data report for group-based offending in 2024, which can be found here: https://www.hydrantprogramme.co.uk/latest-news/new-police-recorded-csae-crime-data-analysis.

Neither the Taskforce nor the Home Office publishes data on offending within specific cities.

Baroness Casey’s rapid national audit into group-based child sexual exploitation set out stark findings on the scale and nature of grooming gang offending. This government is absolutely committed to exposing the failures that have happened across the country and making sure that it can never happen again. We accepted all of Baroness Casey’s twelve recommendations and are working across government to implement these as quickly as possible. The Home Secretary announced the leadership and draft terms of reference of the new Independent Inquiry into Grooming Gangs on 9 December 2025.

To improve our understanding of and response to these crimes, the Home Office funds a number of policing capabilities, including the Tackling Organised Exploitation programme which uses data and intelligence to increase law enforcement’s capability to respond to organised exploitation. We also fund the Child Sexual Exploitation Police Taskforce to improve how the police investigate child sexual exploitation and bring more offenders to justice. The Taskforce work directly with forces to improve data collection and analyse data on a national level. On 10 December 2025, the Taskforce published an annual data report for group-based offending in 2024, which can be found here: https://www.hydrantprogramme.co.uk/latest-news/new-police-recorded-csae-crime-data-analysis.

Neither the Taskforce nor the Home Office publishes data on offending within specific cities.

Baroness Casey’s rapid national audit into group-based child sexual exploitation set out stark findings on the scale and nature of grooming gang offending. This government is absolutely committed to exposing the failures that have happened across the country and making sure that it can never happen again. We accepted all of Baroness Casey’s twelve recommendations and are working across government to implement these as quickly as possible. The Home Secretary announced the leadership and draft terms of reference of the new Independent Inquiry into Grooming Gangs on 9 December 2025.

To improve our understanding of and response to these crimes, the Home Office funds a number of policing capabilities, including the Tackling Organised Exploitation programme which uses data and intelligence to increase law enforcement’s capability to respond to organised exploitation. We also fund the Child Sexual Exploitation Police Taskforce to improve how the police investigate child sexual exploitation and bring more offenders to justice. The Taskforce work directly with forces to improve data collection and analyse data on a national level. On 10 December 2025, the Taskforce published an annual data report for group-based offending in 2024, which can be found here: https://www.hydrantprogramme.co.uk/latest-news/new-police-recorded-csae-crime-data-analysis.

Neither the Taskforce nor the Home Office publishes data on offending within specific cities.

Tackling the harms caused by the use of illicit drugs is critical to delivering the Government’s key missions on safer streets and improving health outcomes, as well as contributing to the opportunity and national growth missions. We are taking an end-to-end approach to disrupt illicit drug supply chains, including working with law enforcement partners upstream and at the UK border to tackle the gangs responsible for drug trafficking.

Ketamine is a dangerous substance, which can cause irreversible bladder damage and in some cases death. Ministers are concerned about the harms ketamine causes and in January 2025 the Government asked the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) to provide an updated harms assessment of ketamine, and advice on reducing those harms, and in particular whether ketamine should be moved from Class B to Class A within the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. The ACMD carried out a public call for evidence in August and we expect to receive its report soon. We will then carefully consider its recommendations.

This activity sits as part of our work across Government to monitor and respond to emerging trends and harms, including those related to ketamine use. For example, on 16 October 2025 the Department for Health and Social Care launched a campaign to alert young people to the dangers of this drug.