Asked by: Vikki Slade (Liberal Democrat - Mid Dorset and North Poole)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she has made an assessment of the potential merits of requiring a diagnosis of terminal illness to trigger a referral for a Specialist Palliative Care assessment from a hospital or community centre.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.
Asked by: Vikki Slade (Liberal Democrat - Mid Dorset and North Poole)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, following the revised recommendations of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation made on 16 July 2026 relating to unprimed adolescents' MenB vaccinations, whether she will take steps to offer Men B vaccinations in a 2-dose schedule to adolescents born on or before 30 April 2015.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
I refer the Hon. Member to the GOV.UK news story on this issue which was published on 16 July and is available at the following link:
Any further updates will be announced in the normal way in due course.
Asked by: Vikki Slade (Liberal Democrat - Mid Dorset and North Poole)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will take steps to expand the eligibility criteria for Museum and Gallery Exhibition Tax Relief to include local authority-operated museums.
Answered by James Murray - Financial Secretary to the Treasury and Paymaster General
The Government supports museums and galleries through both public spending and the tax system. In 2025/26, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport provided over £500 million in grants to museums and galleries across England.
Museums and Galleries Exhibition Tax Relief (MGETR) is a Corporation Tax relief available to qualifying exhibition production companies, including companies wholly owned by local authorities. A local authority-operated museum without a separate trading company cannot claim the relief.
Asked by: Vikki Slade (Liberal Democrat - Mid Dorset and North Poole)
Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps she is taking to support museums in recording, cataloguing and preserving collections and community narratives for posterity.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport)
Museums play a vital role in preserving our shared heritage, ensuring that the stories of communities are passed on to future generations. The Government supports this work through a range of measures, and in 2025/26 invested over £500 million into the sector including critical infrastructure projects. Funding for non-national museums includes the DCMS/Wolfson Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund which has been running for the last 24 years with £4 million funding in 2025-27 for the creation of new display spaces and collections interpretation, ensuring that important local history and stories are preserved and shared with the public.
Digitisation initiatives across the sector have significantly increased the availability of collections data online. This includes the Government-funded Distributed System of Scientific Collections (DiSSCo UK) programme, which is creating a national digital infrastructure for natural science collections, enabling the mass digitisation of specimens to enhance their research potential, public use, preservation for generations to come.
Asked by: Vikki Slade (Liberal Democrat - Mid Dorset and North Poole)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to improve the provision of public toilets for people with disabilities.
Answered by Florence Eshalomi - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Through the Changing Places programme, the Government has funded 483 accessible public toilets across England for people with disabilities. We also maintain 100% business rates relief for separately assessed public toilets. We are rebuilding local government’s capacity to provide these services with over £5 billion funding in the Spending Review.
Asked by: Vikki Slade (Liberal Democrat - Mid Dorset and North Poole)
Question to the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of introducing legislation to restrict the sale of e-scooters.
Answered by Kate Dearden - Minister of State (Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade)
The UK’s product safety regulations already restrict the supply of e-scooters by placing obligations on businesses to only make e-scooters available for sale if they are safe products. This includes providing consumers with all necessary information, instructions and warnings, where appropriate, to enable-scooters to be safely used during normal and foreseeable conditions of use. Regulators have powers to take products off the market where they do not comply.
Under Department for Transport legislation, e-scooter use is prohibited on public roads, which is enforced by police, and the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency also carry out market surveillance.
Asked by: Vikki Slade (Liberal Democrat - Mid Dorset and North Poole)
Question to the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, whether his Department has assessed the potential merits of a Department for Hospitality.
Answered by Kate Dearden - Minister of State (Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade)
The Government recognises the important contribution that hospitality businesses make to jobs, growth and local communities across the UK. Hospitality's interests are represented at the heart of Government. I am the Minister for Hospitality, serving as the Minister for the Future of Work and I co-chair the Hospitality Sector Council. My department currently has no plans to establish a Department for Hospitality.
Asked by: Vikki Slade (Liberal Democrat - Mid Dorset and North Poole)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of the School Holiday Voucher Scheme on levels of child poverty in England.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Under the previous Household Support Fund, some local authorities funded voucher schemes during the school holidays. The Crisis and Resilience Fund replaced the Household Support Fund in England from April 2026 and brings a greater focus on providing preventative support to people to improve their financial resilience and reduce repeat crises.
No assessment has been made of the impact of local authority holiday voucher schemes on levels of child poverty in England.
Asked by: Vikki Slade (Liberal Democrat - Mid Dorset and North Poole)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether the proposed reduction in VAT for domestic electricity bills will apply to the park homes residents.
Answered by James Murray - Financial Secretary to the Treasury and Paymaster General
To support households with the cost of living, the Government is removing VAT from electricity bills this winter. Around 29 million households across the UK are expected to benefit from this change.
The new zero VAT rate for domestic electricity will replace the existing reduced VAT rate (5%). Anyone currently benefiting from the reduced rate will benefit from the new zero rate.
Some park home residents purchase their electricity from the park home site owner rather than directly from a licensed energy supplier. Where electricity is not individually metered and charged based on actual consumption, the electricity supply may be treated as part of the pitch fee and can therefore be subject to the same VAT treatment as that charge.
Asked by: Vikki Slade (Liberal Democrat - Mid Dorset and North Poole)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will undertake a review of (a) the process by which fathers can gain parental responsibility at the birth of their child when they are unmarried and estranged from their child's mother and (b) the cost of doing so through the court system.
Answered by Jake Richards - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Government has committed to undertake a review of the law around parental responsibility in its entirety. This review will provide an opportunity to consider how the law relating to parental responsibility operates in practice, including the circumstances in which parental responsibility is acquired, restricted or removed.