The government has been clear that Royal Mail’s quality of service has not been good enough.

Responsibility for improving local delivery performance lies with Royal Mail’s management. Royal Mail has published a quality of service improvement plan alongside a £500 million investment into frontline resourcing.

I have met with Royal Mail and Ofcom, as the independent regulator, to discuss concerns about delivery performance and will continue to make representations to ensure that customers receive the service they are entitled to.

My hon. Friend knows that this south-west lad is a big fan of supporting the north-east industry to grow and create more opportunities. I will be very happy to meet with her and other north-east colleagues to look at what opportunities are available in the defence investment plan with its £298 billion spend over the next four years.

Last week in the statement on the defence investment plan, I raised with the Secretary of State the unacceptable truth that the north-east sends the highest proportion of its young people into the armed forces, yet receives the lowest proportion of investment spending, and he said that was a “reasonable challenge”. Will he meet me and colleagues from the region to see how we can ensure that the bravery in battle of sons and daughters of the north-east is at the very least reflected in the defence investment spend?

We inherited a situation where the north-east was the region with the lowest Ministry of Defence spend in the country and we have made it a mission to increase defence spending in the north-east. We have an incredible talent pool in the north-east, with brilliant defence companies both large and small doing brilliant work. We are determined, now that we have an uplift in defence spending, that more of it will be spent with British firms, and I want to see more of that spend in the north-east as well.

Hartlepool, like the rest of the north-east, has always been critical to our defence industry, including brilliant Hartlepool companies such as Merlin Flex. Will the Minister outline how the record investment secured by this Labour Government will benefit jobs in the economy in Hartlepool and the wider north-east?

In April 2026, the Department announced the biggest ever drone package for Ukraine, delivering at least 120,000 drones for Ukraine this year. Most of this spending will be with UK companies, several of which were selected through open and fair competitions.

In terms of supporting defence technology SMEs, particularly in the North East of England, in September 2025, UK Defence Innovation (UKDI) announced funding to support Regional Defence and Security Cluster (RDSC) operations, including in the North-East. In conjunction with UKDI's national programmes, the expanding RDSC network enables innovation to be identified, developed, and accelerated across the whole of the UK.

The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) publishes data on GOV.UK, in report DRT122A, for the number of practical driving tests conducted at all driving test centres, including at Darlington, Middlesbrough, Northallerton, Hartlepool. The data in report DRT122A is updated annually and currently shows data to March 2025. The table below shows the number of practical driving tests conducted in England for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 financial years by quarter.

The tables below show the number of additional driving examiners recruited for Darlington, Middlesbrough, Northallerton, Hartlepool and England for 2024 -2025 and 2025-2026 quarterly.

This data includes those who are in training to be a driving examiner. A driving examiner is a paid DVSA employee from the point at which they start their training. The data below shows those who are qualified and who are working at DTCs doing tests.

The table below shows the number of full-time equivalent driving examiners employed at the below test centres as of 1 April 2026.

The table below shows the average waiting time for a car practical driving test in May 2026.

The DVSA also records national median waiting time data (the time between the first test booking and test taken) for car practical driving tests. The national median waiting time for a car practical driving test in May 2026 was 9.7 weeks. The median waiting time data is currently not available broken down by driving test centre.

Regional North East NHS commissioners are in active discussion with their services and a funded programme is in place to secure 24/7 access to thrombectomy this year. Services will open as soon as safe to do so.

It has not proved possible to respond to this question in the time available before Prorogation. Ministers will correspond directly with the Member.

NHS England is committed to supporting people who need these specialist gender services and commissions three adult gender dysphoria clinics in Newcastle, Sheffield, and Leeds. While they are regionally commissioned to meet the demand of the local population, these services are accessed by patients from across the country and this has an impact on waiting times.

In some areas, general practices (GPs) are also supporting stabilised patients by prescribing their treatment locally with specialist support, ensuring the care and treatment needs of these individuals are met locally when appropriate.

NHS England has now completed its review of adult gender services, which looked at how to overcome the challenges that some individuals continue to face in accessing services in a timely manner. The review includes 20 recommendations and NHS England, in full partnership with regions and the Department, will now lead the next stage of the system-wide response.

A National Portfolio Board is being established to build and develop a full implementation plan, which will address each of the recommendations in turn and be aligned with the ambitions of the Government’s 10-Year Health Plan for England, which is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/10-year-health-plan-for-england

Immediate priorities include working with professional bodies to establish a new professional role of GP with an Extended Role in Gender Medicine, to provide support to those who have completed their care within the adult gender service clinics and to provide leadership and knowledge sharing with primary care in every neighbourhood.

The BBC is a vital national institution and an engine of the nations and regions, including the North East of England. In that context, this news is concerning for the BBC workforce who are facing significant uncertainty, and for the sector as a whole. The BBC is delivering significant savings, which requires difficult decisions to be made independent of the Government. The BBC have stated that there will be more information on their plans later this year. Looking ahead, the Charter Review aims to deliver a BBC that is sustainably funded in a way that sets the BBC on a path to thrive until well into the latter half of this century. The Charter Review will consider how the BBC can support the creative economy and drive growth across the UK.

The BBC is a vital national institution and an engine of the nations and regions, including the North East of England. In that context, this news is concerning for the BBC workforce who are facing significant uncertainty, and for the sector as a whole. The BBC is delivering significant savings, which requires difficult decisions to be made independent of the Government. The BBC have stated that there will be more information on their plans later this year. Looking ahead, the Charter Review aims to deliver a BBC that is sustainably funded in a way that sets the BBC on a path to thrive until well into the latter half of this century. The Charter Review will consider how the BBC can support the creative economy and drive growth across the UK.

The government continues to work closely with the Combined Authority and commercial partners regarding the delivery of the North East AI Growth Zone. Discussions with individual companies are commercially sensitive, and we will provide further updates in due course.

The Government is committed to driving regional growth by attracting AI and digital investment across the UK, including in the North East of England. The North East AI Growth Zone will provide secure, dedicated compute infrastructure, supporting innovation and productivity and helping to unlock significant long‑term economic growth. The Zone has already attracted substantial private investment, including £10 billion from Blackstone.

Alongside this, we are investing up to £500 million through the Local Innovation Partnerships Fund to grow high‑potential innovation clusters in 17 regions across the UK. This includes £30 million for the North East, empowering local leaders to target R&D investment, attract private funding and create jobs.

The Government has set out a package of support for offshore wind supply chains and infrastructure of up to £1bn, including £300m from Great British Energy, £400m from The Crown Estate and £300m from industry. Allocation Round 7 secured a record 8.4GW of offshore wind capacity, supporting investment across the UK. This is already translating into local jobs and investment, including the recent offshore foundation fabrication contract at Smulders worth more than £60 million. The Crown Estate recently announced that their next seabed leasing round (Round 6) will be launched in 2027 and will focus on sites off the coast of the North East of England.

Unleashing the potential of our regions is a core objective of the Creative Industries Sector Plan. The Plan commits £25 million to the North East Combined Authority (NECA) as a high-potential Mayoral Strategic Authority, via our new Creative Places Growth Fund (CPGF). The CPGF will drive growth, innovation, and support greater access to growth capital for regional creative-industry organisations. Local Mayors can use it to drive the growth of their creative sectors, including those in the publishing sector. Additionally, the Sector Plan includes a universal offer to drive UK-wide growth with cross-cutting measures like IP protection and export support that will benefit regional writing and publishing bodies.

Since the announcement of the North East AI Growth Zone, there has been no change to energy pricing or the regulatory environment in the UK. We engage regularly with developers and other stakeholders for the North East AI Growth Zone and are encouraged that Cobalt Park are in discussions with a number of alternative offtake customers. The success of the AI Growth Zones programme is not contingent on any single investor. Five AIGZs have been designated with the potential to deliver £28 billion of investment from a diverse range of developers.

The Government is delivering an ambitious policy package to support build-out of AI infrastructure in the UK. DSIT will set up a dedicated AI Growth Zone Delivery Unit providing a single point of contact for investors, accelerated planning and grid connection support, long-term business rates retention for host local authorities, and targeted energy pricing support.

We are continuing to create the right conditions for investment in the UK’s AI and data centre infrastructure work with leading AI companies to strengthen UK compute capacity.

The number of equity deals in the North East increased 8.6% year on year in 2024, to 63 deals. Comparatively, London’s dominance of the UK equity market reduced slightly in 2024, with the share of deals in the capital dropping from 50.8% to 47.1% year-on-year, while the proportion of investment was 61.2% in 2024 – a reduction from 61.9% in the previous year, and from 73.3% in 2020.

The Government is addressing regional disparities in access to finance through the Nations and Regions Investment Funds, with businesses in the North East eligible for debt and equity finance from the £660 million Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund II.

North East businesses are also set to benefit from the British Business Bank’s Cluster Champions programme, which will help strengthen financial networks and connect high-potential firms in the eight Industrial Strategy priority sectors to investors, while also providing an additional £100 million of investment.

We have also expanded the Regional Angels Programme, helping improve access to early-stage equity across the UK.

Departmental officials are currently engaging school leaders, alongside local and national stakeholders, on the approach for the Missions and we will announce further details in due course.

Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for commissioning primary care services, including National Health Service dentistry, to meet the needs of the local population. The North East and North Cumbria ICB has implemented measures to improve access to dental services as part of the ICB’s Oral Health and Dental Strategy for 2025/27. Further information can be found on the NHS.UK website, in an online format.

The Government is committed to ensuring that people can access urgent dental care when they need it. Over the past year, ICBs have been commissioning additional urgent dental appointments and there is now an urgent care safety net available in all areas of the country. 1.8 million additional courses of NHS dental treatment have been delivered in the seven months between April to October 2025 compared to the corresponding months prior to the general election.