Across the country, communities are safer and the Government’s plan to cut crime and protect the public is working. Compared with 2010, people are now 60% less likely to have their home burgled and around 40% less likely to be victims of violent crime.

We are supporting Devon and Cornwall to reduce crime:

• During the Police Uplift Programme, Devon and Cornwall Police recruited 600 additional uplift officers against a total three-year allocation of 469 officers. As at 30 September 2023, there were 3,716 police officers in Devon and Cornwall, representing the highest number ever when compared to their pre-Police Uplift peak of 3,632 officers as at March 2010.
• Devon and Cornwall’s police funding settlement will be up to £429.4m in 2024/25, an increase of up to £29.1m when compared to 2023/24.
• Devon and Cornwall have been allocated £657,000 in FY 24/25 to deliver the Serious Violence Duty. The Serious Violence Duty requires a range of specified authorities to work collaboratively and put in place plans to prevent and reduce serious violence within their local communities.
• Devon and Cornwall have received £1m for Hotspot Response in FY 24/25 to tackle areas with high incidents of both anti-social behaviour and serious violence.

We continue to monitor all these measures to ensure they are having the impact on crime we all want to see.

Last year the Government launched the Anti-social Behaviour Action Plan (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/anti-social-behaviour-action-plan), backed by £160m in new funding to ensure the police, local authorities and other relevant agencies have the tools they need to tackle anti-social behaviour.

This includes funding an increased police and other uniformed presence to clamp down on anti-social behaviour, targeting hotspots. Initially we worked with 10 police force areas and following its success in 2024 we are supporting a hotspot approach across every police force area in England and Wales. Devon and Cornwall PCC has been awarded £1m in funding to carry out the Hotspot Response approach, tackling areas of high incidents of both ASB and serious violence.

Reducing drug-related crime is a key priority of the Government’s 10-year Drugs Strategy. We are making good progress. Since April 2022, we have closed over 2,500 county lines nationally.

Through the County Lines Programme, our exporter force taskforces (Metropolitain Police Service, Merseyside, West Midlands and Greater Manchester Police) work in collaboration with importer forces, including Devon & Cornwall Police, to tackle the drug supply and exploitation associated with County Lines.

Through our County Lines Programme, we also fund the National County Lines Co-ordination Centre (NCLCC), to monitor the intelligence picture and co-ordinate the national law enforcement response. We have also established a dedicated Surge Fund to help forces tackle county lines, from which Devon and Cornwall Police have received investment.

Through the Drugs Strategy, we are also investing £532m into high quality drug treatment which reduces crime and reoffending. There are now 24,500 more people in treatment across England, including Devon.

The Government has asked every area in England to form a Combating Drugs Partnership (CDP) to work together to reduce drug-related harm and crime. East Devon is covered by the Devon CDP. The Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) for Devon and Cornwall has established a Strategic Peninsular Drugs & Alcohol Partnership which meets 4 times a year and serves as a forum for the 4 CDPs (including Devon CDP) to come together at a Police Force Area level.

It is difficult to determine the specific activity to tackle violence against women in the East Devon constituency as services are mostly commissioned at a national level, and not monitored by the Home Office by constituency.

To help support local service commissioners, we published a revised National Statement of Expectations in March 2022, which sets out how local areas should commission effective services. It also aims to increase understanding of the need for specialist services and the value of those designed and delivered by and for the users and communities they aim to serve.

As part of the effort to tackle these crimes across England and Wales, in 2021 we published our cross-Government Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy to help ensure that women and girls are safe everywhere - at home, online, at work and in public. This was followed by a complementary cross-Government Tackling Domestic Abuse Plan in 2022.

These documents aim to transform the whole of society’s response to these crimes with actions to prevent abuse, support victims and pursue perpetrators, as well as to strengthen the systems that underpin the response. The actions set out in both strategy documents benefit all regions across England and Wales, including East Devon.

The Tackling Domestic Abuse Plan committed to over £230 million from 2022-2025. As part of this commitment, the joint Home Office-Ministry of Justice VAWG Support and Specialist Service Fund will provide up to £8.3 million (in total) from 2023-2025 for specialist organisations to support victims often facing the greatest barriers to getting the help they need.

The Tackling Domestic Abuse Plan funding also includes the Children Affected by Domestic Abuse (CADA) Fund, which allocated £10.3 million over three years (2022-2025) to eight organisations across England and Wales to provide specialist support within the community to children who have been impacted by domestic abuse. Part of this includes c.£1.25m for the Children’s Society to provide direct support for children and young people and families, including those from rural and hard to reach communities, covering Devon, Shropshire, Rochdale and Merseyside.

In May 2023, the Home Office also launched a £300,000 ‘flexible fund’ trial in partnership with Women’s Aid Federation for England to make direct cash payments of £250 to victims and survivors of domestic abuse (£500 to those with children and those who are pregnant) to help remove barriers to leaving an abusive relationship. In November 2023, the Government commitment to support victims was renewed with a further £2m investment into the Flexible Fund until March 2025.

Through the current Round Five of the Safer Streets Fund, the Home Office has directly awarded £34 million to Police and Crime Commissioners across England and Wales to deliver interventions to tackle neighbourhood crime, anti-social behaviour and VAWG. Devon and Cornwall received £819,998.64 (2024-2025) to support projects covering Paignton, Camborne and Redruth and are delivering educational training packages such as bystander training to help address behaviour and attitudes on VAWG and using night-time economy marshalls for patrols in the town centres.

The management of competitive programmes is a matter for the relevant National Governing Body which, in this instance, is the Football Association (FA), but clearly it is incumbent on the FA and Premier League to explain this decision and why it is in the interests of fans.

We expect the FA and Premier League to consult with the English Football League (EFL) and other leagues further down the pyramid on moves such as this and reach agreements collectively.

The Secretary of State and I regularly engage with national governing bodies, and I will shortly be meeting with the FA to discuss this, alongside a range of issues.

There are no plans to undertake such an assessment, as guidance is in place to ensure an appropriate approach to individuals in this situation. Individuals with a primary health need arising from a rapidly deteriorating condition which may be entering a terminal phase, are eligible for Fast Track NHS Continuing Healthcare (CHC). The fast track pathway is designed to ensure that eligible individuals receive appropriate care with minimal delay.

The National Framework on CHC makes clear that integrated care boards (ICBs) should monitor the effectiveness of the care arrangements, and consider whether, and at what point, a reassessment of eligibility is appropriate. Where an individual in receipt of Fast Track NHS CHC is expected to die in the very near future, the ICB should continue to take responsibility for the care package until the end of their life. Fast Track NHS CHC funding should not be removed without eligibility being reconsidered, through the completion of a CHC Decision Support Tool by a multidisciplinary team.

The calculations underlying this statistic were based on public information available on the 29 September 2023, including quarterly GDP data published by the Office for National Statistics for the UK and OECD data for the remaining G7 European economies.

The data showed that cumulative GDP growth in the UK since the referendum (change on 2016 Q2) through to 2023 Q2 of 8.2% was greater than that of Germany (5.7%) and Italy (4.7%) and slightly lower than France (8.6%).

I am glad to say that over 75% of premises in my hon. Friend’s constituency can access gigabit-capable broadband. That is up from 6% in 2019, but we want to do more, so we have included mid and east Devon in our cross-regional framework for Project Gigabit. That is currently undertaking pre-procurement market engagement. We hope to give him news very soon.

I want the British people to be able to seize the extraordinary opportunities that AI offers, but that can happen only if we address the

risks. At Bletchley Park we kick-started a global conversation and, since then, the Bletchley effect has seen countries from around the world collaborating on the development of safe, responsible and trustworthy AI. Two weeks ago I signed an agreement with the United States to allow us to collaborate seamlessly on AI safety testing. Last week we announced the date of the second AI Safety Summit in Seoul. We also remain laser-focused on implementing the landmark Online Safety Act, which will make Britain the safest place to be online. Last month we saw the first sentencing under the cyber-flashing offences that we brought in in January.

The initial phase of heat network regulation, including transparency rules, will come into force in 2025. Some requirements, such as pricing regulation and guaranteed performance standards, require more market data and will be introduced in the second-phase regulation in 2026.

The Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccination is not usually recommended for people aged over 16 years old, unless the risk of exposure is great. The vaccination can be offered to veterinary staff and those who handle animals or animal materials, for instance abattoir workers, which could be infected with tuberculosis (TB). Based on the current available evidence, only a very small subset of farmers may be at high risk of TB exposure and therefore eligible for vaccination. This does not include farmer’s household contacts or children who would not constitute a risk sufficiently high enough to warrant a recommendation for the vaccine. If the level of risk should increase, then the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation could be asked to review this.

Eligibility for the BCG vaccination as an occupational health vaccine should be based on an individual risk assessment. Those eligible would need to access the vaccine through a private occupational health provider, and may seek further advice from the National Farmers Union. Non-National Health Service providers can charge for this service.

Under the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations (COSHH), all new employees, including farmers, should undergo a pre-employment health assessment, which should include a review of immunisation needs. The COSHH risk assessment will indicate which pathogens staff are exposed to in their workplace, such as bovine TB. Staff considered to be at risk of exposure to pathogens should be offered routine pre-exposure immunisation as appropriate. This decision should also take into account the safety and efficacy of available vaccines.

The calculations underlying this statistic were based on public information available on the 29 September 2023, including quarterly GDP data published by the Office for National Statistics for the UK and OECD data for the remaining G7 European economies.

The data showed that cumulative GDP growth in the UK from the beginning of 2010 (change on 2009 Q4) through to 2023 Q2 of 24.2% was greater than that of France (16.4%), Italy (3.5%) and Germany (21.2%).

A public information leaflet is on the GOV.UK website in multiple languages, explaining the full process for appealing to NHS England or to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, as well as the eligibility decisions for NHS Continuing Healthcare (CHC). This leaflet is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nhs-continuing-healthcare-and-nhs-funded-nursing-care-public-information-leaflet

CHC guidance, named the National Framework for NHS Continuing Healthcare and NHS-funded Nursing Care, states that any individual being considered for CHC at the screening or referral stage should be given a copy of this leaflet, along with any relevant local information about processes and contact details. This guidance is available at the following link:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/64b0f7cdc033c100108062f9/National-Framework-for-NHS-Continuing-Healthcare-and-NHS-funded-Nursing-Care_July-2022-revised_corrected-July-2023.pdf

NHS England has also commissioned a free Information and Advice Service for CHC from Beacon. This service provides independent and high-quality support on navigating CHC assessments and care planning, or to appeal against a decision about CHC eligibility. Further information is available at the following link:

https://beaconchc.co.uk/how-we-can-help/free-information-and-advice-on-nhs-continuing-healthcare/

The commissioning of establishing local services in the National Health Service is a matter for integrated care boards. The Government has no plans at this time to roll out hubs nationally.

Based upon current schemes which are either operational or under development in England, and assuming a facility floorplan of 3,000 square metres, the construction of a single walk-in hub service would cost £21.4 million in 2024/25 prices. Ongoing running costs for each building could be approximately £2 million to £2.3 million dependent on whether it was operational seven days a week and included wider primary care services such as dentistry.

The Government is committed to rewarding hard work through a fair and simple tax system that is also competitive internationally. The Government is taking a responsible approach by delivering tax cuts within the fiscal rules.

The tweet of 6 January 2024 was based on the most recently published data from the OECD’s Taxing Wages 2023 publication. This shows the total personal tax liability divided by salary for a single employed individual with no children on average earnings for Germany (37.4%), Italy (28.8%), France (27.7%), Canada (25.6%), the US (24.8%) and Japan (22.3%). Following the 2p NICs cut made at Autumn Statement, the effective personal tax rate for an employee on £44,300 (the OECD’s figure for UK average earnings) reduced from 23.6% to 21.5%, which would be the lowest rate in the G7, according to the latest available OECD data. This has fallen to 20.1% following the further 2p NICs cut made at Spring Budget.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that rape is an appalling crime. In 2010, the average custodial sentence for adult rape was six and a half years, and

prison governors were required to release offenders at the halfway mark. Today, the average sentence is over 40% longer, and offenders serving more than four years must serve two thirds of that sentence behind bars. As I say, we are going further still.

To govern is to choose. Choices we have made mean that the most dangerous offenders—the acid attackers, the rapists, the knife-point robbers—who are sentenced to seven years or more are required to spend longer in custody. The Sentencing Bill goes further: murders involving sexual or sadistic conduct will lead to a whole-life order unless there are exceptional circumstances, and those convicted of the most serious sexual offences, including rape, will serve 100% of their custodial term in prison.

The Government commissioned the Patient Safety Commissioner (PSC) to produce a report on redress for those affected by sodium valproate and pelvic mesh. We are grateful to the PSC and her team for completing this report and our sympathies remain with those affected by sodium valproate and pelvic mesh. The Government is now carefully considering the PSC’s recommendations and will respond substantively in due course.

VAT has been designed as a broad-based tax on consumption, and the twenty per cent standard rate applies to most goods and services. Whilst there are exceptions to the standard rate, these have always been strictly limited by both legal and fiscal considerations.

Welfare services for people living with dementia provided by local authorities and similar bodies and charities are exempt from VAT, meaning no VAT is charged to the final consumer.

Welfare services for people living with dementia, provided by state regulated private welfare organisations, are also exempt from VAT. State regulated suppliers are those that are registered with the Care Quality Commission, and are eligible for the VAT exemption where they are providing services that are state regulated.

The regulation requirement ensures that VAT relief is limited to providers certified as offering safe and high-quality welfare services. This is a long-standing requirement, and there are no plans to make changes to these rules.