Asked by: Thérèse Coffey (Conservative - Suffolk Coastal)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent estimate he has made of the number of payments made to farmers by the Rural Payments Agency in (a) Suffolk and (b) Suffolk Coastal constituency in each of the last five years.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Rural Payment Agency estimate they have made 12,617 number of payments to Farm Businesses in (a) Suffolk and (b) Suffolk Coastal constituency in the last five years.
The figures provided below relate to payments released within the specified financial years irrespective of the scheme year to which individual payments are related and only cover payments that are provided to farmers by the Rural Payment Agency. The volume of payments is based on a financial year and therefore a customer could have received a payment for 2 scheme years in the same financial year.
Total Funding | 2019- 2020 | 2020- 2021 | 2021 2022 | 2022 2023 | 2023 2024 |
Financial Year | Financial Year | Financial Year | Financial Year | Financial Year | |
Total | 2605 | 2524 | 2461 | 2501 | 2526 |
Asked by: Thérèse Coffey (Conservative - Suffolk Coastal)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, how many homes were built in Suffolk Coastal constituency in the last 12 months.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
We are taking significant steps to address the challenges to increasing housing supply around the country, including in Suffolk. We recognise the scale of challenges facing the housebuilding sector in the current macro-economic climate. Against this challenging backdrop, we have invested billions in housing since the start of this Parliament. This investment will support bringing forward land for development, enabling the market to deliver the homes and infrastructure that communities need, and support increasing local authority planning capacity.
We have also taken significant measures through the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act, and National Planning Policy Framework, to reform the planning system. These measures aim to reduce planning delays, bureaucracy, slow build-out rates, and wider barriers to growth and development.
We want decisions about homes to be driven locally and we want to get more local plans in place to deliver the homes we need. This is why we have revised the National Planning Policy Framework (published 19 December 2023) to be clearer about the importance of planning for homes and other development that our communities need.
The Department publishes an annual release entitled ‘Housing supply: net additional dwellings, England’, which is the primary and most comprehensive measure of housing supply, with estimates of new homes delivered in each local authority, including East Suffolk, in each financial year since 2001-02, shown in Live Table 122 at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-net-supply-of-housing.
Figures at parliamentary constituency level are not centrally collected.
Asked by: Thérèse Coffey (Conservative - Suffolk Coastal)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department is taking to help increase the availability of homes in Suffolk.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
We are taking significant steps to address the challenges to increasing housing supply around the country, including in Suffolk. We recognise the scale of challenges facing the housebuilding sector in the current macro-economic climate. Against this challenging backdrop, we have invested billions in housing since the start of this Parliament. This investment will support bringing forward land for development, enabling the market to deliver the homes and infrastructure that communities need, and support increasing local authority planning capacity.
We have also taken significant measures through the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act, and National Planning Policy Framework, to reform the planning system. These measures aim to reduce planning delays, bureaucracy, slow build-out rates, and wider barriers to growth and development.
We want decisions about homes to be driven locally and we want to get more local plans in place to deliver the homes we need. This is why we have revised the National Planning Policy Framework (published 19 December 2023) to be clearer about the importance of planning for homes and other development that our communities need.
The Department publishes an annual release entitled ‘Housing supply: net additional dwellings, England’, which is the primary and most comprehensive measure of housing supply, with estimates of new homes delivered in each local authority, including East Suffolk, in each financial year since 2001-02, shown in Live Table 122 at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-net-supply-of-housing.
Figures at parliamentary constituency level are not centrally collected.
Asked by: Thérèse Coffey (Conservative - Suffolk Coastal)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of the abolition of the furnished holiday lettings tax regime on farms.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government recognises the important role that Furnished Holiday Lets (FHL), including those located on farms, have in the visitor economy. This measure does not penalise or prohibit the provision of FHLs and simply brings their tax treatment in line with other rentals.
As with all aspects of the tax system, the Government keeps the taxation of property landlords under review and any decision on future changes will be taken by the Chancellor in the context of the wider public finances.
Asked by: Thérèse Coffey (Conservative - Suffolk Coastal)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of the availability of cash withdrawal facilities in Suffolk.
Answered by Bim Afolami - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
The government recognises that cash continues to be used by millions of people across the UK, including by those in vulnerable groups.
The government legislated through the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023 to establish a new legislative framework to protect access to cash. This establishes the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) as the lead regulator for access to cash and provides it with responsibility and powers to seek to ensure reasonable provision of cash withdrawal and deposit facilities, on both a national and local basis. The FCA expects to finalise its regulatory rules in the third quarter of this year.
The most recent analysis undertaken by the FCA on cash access coverage across the UK found that in Q1 2023, over 99% of people in urban areas are within 1 mile of a cash access point offering withdrawals, and over 98% of people in rural areas are within 3 miles of a cash access point offering withdrawals. Further details of this analysis, including a breakdown of cash access coverage by Local Authority District is available on the FCA website: Access to cash coverage in the UK 2023 Q1
Asked by: Thérèse Coffey (Conservative - Suffolk Coastal)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps her Department has taken to help increase access to dentists in (a) Suffolk Coastal constituency and (b) Suffolk.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
On 7 February, we published Faster, simpler and fairer: our plan to recover and reform NHS dentistry, which is backed by £200 million and will fund around 2.5 million additional appointments. The plan sets out our actions to improve dental access for patients across the country to address the challenges facing NHS dentistry, including in Suffolk.
From 1 April 2023, the responsibility for commissioning primary care dentistry to meet the needs of the local population has been delegated to all integrated care boards (ICBs) across England. Suffolk and North East Essex Integrated Care Board is responsible for having local processes in place to identify areas of need and determine the priorities for investment across the ICB area.
NHS Dental Statistics, published by NHS Digital, provides data on dental activity in England. The latest annual report is available online at the following link:
https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/nhs-dental-statistics
Asked by: Thérèse Coffey (Conservative - Suffolk Coastal)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether his Department provides grants to (a) social enterprises and (b) charities for the provision of training for D1 licences.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department makes available over £3 million each year through the Bus Service Operators Grant (BSOG) to community transport operators, who are predominantly charities operating vehicles that require D1 licences. Community transport operators receive £1.60 for every £1 claimed, reflecting the increased costs faced by the sector and supporting them to continue delivering inclusive and accessible transport across the country.
Asked by: Thérèse Coffey (Conservative - Suffolk Coastal)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to improve access to mental health services in Suffolk Coastal constituency.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The National Health Service forecasts that, between 2018/19 and 2023/24, spending on mental health services has increased by £4.7 billion in cash terms, compared to the target of £3.4 billion set out at the time of the NHS Long Term Plan. All integrated care boards are also on track to meet the Mental Health Investment Standard in 2023/24.
Almost £16 billion was invested in mental health in 2022/23, enabling over 3.5 million people, including in the Suffolk Coastal constituency, to be in contact with mental health services, a 10% increase on the previous year.
Asked by: Thérèse Coffey (Conservative - Suffolk Coastal)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what data his Department holds on the number and proportion of people who have access to a good quality (a) green and (b) blue space within 15 minutes' walk of their home, by parliamentary constituency.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The methodology and data we currently use on the number and proportion of people with access to greenspace is taken from Natural England’s Green Infrastructure (GI) Framework analysis.
Natural England’s analyses of the total population in England living in close proximity of greenspace are based on the GI Framework’s Accessible Greenspace Standards which use buffers (straight-line distances) between home and greenspace and include three greenspace criteria:
When considered together, these three most local Accessible Greenspace Standards buffers allow us to form a composite picture of access to different sizes of greenspace within a straight-line distance of 1km from home.
Natural England’s G3 Indicator report shows that as of October 2021, the proportions of the total population in England living within Accessible Greenspace Standards ‘criteria’ (straight line distances from the boundary of the greenspaces) are:
• 1 in 3 people live within 200 metres of a doorstep greenspace of at least 0.5 hectares.
• 1 in 4 people live within 300 metres of a local natural greenspace of at least 2 hectares.
• 1 in 2 people live within 1 km of a neighbourhood natural greenspace of at least 10 hectares.
Our Environmental Improvement Plan commitment to ensure everyone lives within 15 minutes’ walk of a green or blue space focuses on proximity to these spaces from home. Our data gathering therefore focuses on this, rather than by parliamentary constituency.
We are currently working to establish a robust baseline of walkability to green and blue space, including working with NE and with the Rivers Trust to create data on blue space access points. In August we will publish an official statistic in development on walkability within England to the nearest green space. This will use network analysis to calculate travel time/ distance rather than straight-line distances, and enhanced use of data on the rights-of-way network. For full details see https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/announcements/access-to-green-space-in-england.
Asked by: Thérèse Coffey (Conservative - Suffolk Coastal)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what methodology his Department uses to determine the number and proportion of people who have access to a good quality (a) green and (b) blue space within 15 minutes' walk of their home.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The methodology and data we currently use on the number and proportion of people with access to greenspace is taken from Natural England’s Green Infrastructure (GI) Framework analysis.
Natural England’s analyses of the total population in England living in close proximity of greenspace are based on the GI Framework’s Accessible Greenspace Standards which use buffers (straight-line distances) between home and greenspace and include three greenspace criteria:
When considered together, these three most local Accessible Greenspace Standards buffers allow us to form a composite picture of access to different sizes of greenspace within a straight-line distance of 1km from home.
Natural England’s G3 Indicator report shows that as of October 2021, the proportions of the total population in England living within Accessible Greenspace Standards ‘criteria’ (straight line distances from the boundary of the greenspaces) are:
• 1 in 3 people live within 200 metres of a doorstep greenspace of at least 0.5 hectares.
• 1 in 4 people live within 300 metres of a local natural greenspace of at least 2 hectares.
• 1 in 2 people live within 1 km of a neighbourhood natural greenspace of at least 10 hectares.
Our Environmental Improvement Plan commitment to ensure everyone lives within 15 minutes’ walk of a green or blue space focuses on proximity to these spaces from home. Our data gathering therefore focuses on this, rather than by parliamentary constituency.
We are currently working to establish a robust baseline of walkability to green and blue space, including working with NE and with the Rivers Trust to create data on blue space access points. In August we will publish an official statistic in development on walkability within England to the nearest green space. This will use network analysis to calculate travel time/ distance rather than straight-line distances, and enhanced use of data on the rights-of-way network. For full details see https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/announcements/access-to-green-space-in-england.