Arts Council England has invested £539,520 in Chippenham since April 2022 through a combination of regular funding and project funding for individuals and organisations such as Folio, a dynamic, female-led new writing theatre company, which received £122,329 over 2 project grants.

In addition, Arts Council England’s open-access funds are available across England, including in market towns such as Chippenham. This includes:

• National Lottery Project Grants – open to applications between £1000 and £100,000. Arts Council England is currently focused on three time-limited priorities: Supporting Grassroots Music, Museum Unlocking Collections and Universal Library Offers projects.
• Develop Your Creative Practice – awards from £2000 to £12,000 that support individual creative and cultural practitioners to focus on their development and take them to the next stage of their practice.
• Capital – financial assistance to museums, libraries and arts organisations to invest in buildings, equipment, digital infrastructure and technology with a view to securing their longer term viability and sustainability. For the financial year 2025/2026 the Libraries Improvement Fund (LIF) will provide funding for public libraries of up to £500,000 (total available £5.5m).
• Museum Estate and Development Fund (MEND) – Funding for urgent repairs to accredited non national museums up to £5m (total available £25m).
• Creative Foundations Fund (CFF) – Funding for equipment and buildings for arts organisations – Strand 1 up to £1m and Strand 2 Over £1m and up to £10m (total available £85m).

The Creative Industries Sector Plan will be published shortly, announcing new measures to grow the creative industries across the whole of the UK.

The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) publish statistics on punctuality and reliability of trains operating on the mainline network on a periodic basis.

The Train Operating Company providing services to Chippenham station is Great Western Railway. In the financial year 2024/25:

a) An average of 4.6% of services scheduled by Great Western Railways were cancelled.
(Source: ORR - Table 3124 https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/statistics/performance/passenger-rail-performance/table-3124-trains-planned-and-cancellations-by-operator-and-cause-periodic/).

b) On average, 96.6% of services run by Great Western Railway trains arrived within 15 minutes of their scheduled arrival time
(Source: ORR - Table 3138 https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/statistics/performance/passenger-rail-performance/table-3138-train-punctuality-at-recorded-station-stops-by-operator-periodic/).

Passengers using the line between Bristol Temple Meads and Chippenham are benefiting from the bi-mode rolling stock introduced in 2019 as part of the Great Western Route Modernisation programme. These trains are delivering faster and more reliable end to end journeys for passengers.

Electrification of the line between Bristol Temple Meads and Chippenham was deferred in 2016. Passengers on this line are benefiting from the bi-mode rolling stock introduced in 2019 which are delivering faster and more reliable end to end journeys. No subsequent assessment has been made since the deferral of electrification on this line.

I refer the hon Member to my answer to Question UIN 18286 on 10 December 2024.

My thoughts remain with householders and business owners impacted by flooding after Storm Bert, flooding is a devastating experience for those affected.

Activation of the Flood Recovery Framework is at Ministerial discretion and there is no fixed threshold for activation. When making that decision each event is considered on its own merits looking at factors including how widespread the event is, the significance and scale of impacts, comparison to previous events / activations and the severity of the on-going situation. These factors combined help to determine if an event can be considered exceptional.

Overall, the scale of impacts was similar to that seen in many local areas this autumn and were not sufficiently significant for Government to intervene and for the Framework to be activated.

The government has set up a floods resilience taskforce to provide a forum in which partners from across government, frontline agencies, emergency responders and interest groups will work together to strengthen flood resilience across the country.

Ministers and officials from the department are in regular contact with counterparts in the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. As has been the case under successive administrations, we do not normally disclose details of internal discussions.

My thoughts remain with householders and business owners impacted by flooding after Storm Bert, flooding is a devastating experience for those affected.

Activation of the Flood Recovery Framework is at Ministerial discretion and there is no fixed threshold for activation. When making that decision each event is considered on its own merits looking at factors including how widespread the event is, the significance and scale of impacts, comparison to previous events / activations and the severity of the on-going situation. These factors combined help to determine if an event can be considered exceptional.

Overall, the scale of impacts was similar to that seen in many local areas this autumn and were not sufficiently significant for Government to intervene and for the Framework to be activated.

The government has set up a floods resilience taskforce to provide a forum in which partners from across government, frontline agencies, emergency responders and interest groups will work together to strengthen flood resilience across the country.

Ministers and officials from the department are in regular contact with counterparts in the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. As has been the case under successive administrations, we do not normally disclose details of internal discussions.

My thoughts are with householders and business owners impacted by flooding after Storm Bert, flooding is a devastating experience for those affected. Government support for flood recovery, administrated via the Flood Recovery Framework, is only made available in the most exceptional circumstances. Most recently this was after Storms Babet in October 2023 and Henk in January this year when over 8,500 homes and businesses were impacted. My officials will continue to monitor the data on impacts following Storm Bert and will keep me updated.

Successive years of record numbers crossing the channel has placed our immigration system under substantial pressure. To meet our statutory obligation, we ask our accommodation providers to source accommodation in all areas.

When a site becomes available and meets the requirements of our accommodation standards, we follow our engagement process and notify the local MP as well as local authority officials in advance of using the location.

The Home Office has a statutory obligation to provide accommodation and other support to asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute while their application for asylum is being considered.

The Home Office does not publish a breakdown of how many asylum seekers are accommodated in each constituency. This is as these figures are not available in reportable format, and to provide the information could only be done at a disproportionate cost. However, the latest published Immigration Statistics detail the number of asylum seekers accommodated in each local authority area. These statistics can be found at Asylum and resettlement datasets - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). Data is published on a quarterly basis, with the latest information published 25 August 2022, and the next quarterly figures are due to be released later this month.

Ofcom has a statutory duty to review the affordability of broadband services. In March 2022, Ofcom reported that 55,000 households had taken-up a social tariff, and 16% of eligible households were aware that the support existed.

In April, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport wrote to providers asking them to do more to promote their social tariffs and ensure low-income households are aware of the support available to them. On 27 June, all the UK’s major broadband and mobile operators agreed a set of new public commitments to support families through the global rising cost of living, which includes increasing efforts to promote their low-cost social tariff offers.

DCMS does not collect data on social tariff take-up, but we continue to work closely with the industry and Ofcom to monitor take-up levels.

The Government does not hold this information.

Air pollution has reduced significantly since 2010 – at a national level emissions of fine particulate matter have fallen by 11%, while emissions of nitrogen oxides are at their lowest level since records began. The Government is committed to going further and is taking a range of actions to improve air quality, including through the landmark Environment Act 2021 and by implementing the Clean Air Strategy.

The local Health Protection Team undertakes a joint risk assessment with care homes reporting outbreaks of COVID-19, as part of its routine procedures. We have launched the whole care home testing portal which will enable all symptomatic and asymptomatic care home staff and residents to get tested. We have the capacity to deliver up to 30,000 tests a day. For staff who are self-isolating they can book a test online or be referred by their employer through the employer referral portal. Tests can be booked online at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/apply-coronavirus-test

Public Health England has published clear guidance on infection prevention and control within care homes which is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/coronavirus-covid-19-list-of-guidance#adult-social-care

Data on spend on transport infrastructure projects is not available at the level of Chippenham.

However, Wiltshire Council is responsible for local transport infrastructure in Chippenham, including local roads. The funding allocated to Wiltshire Council for local highways infrastructure and other transport schemes between 2010-11 and 2015-16 is listed in Table 1 below:

Table 1

*includes top ups

** following snow and flooding

• Wiltshire Council have been successful in gaining the following funding for transport infrastructure projects, some of which will have benefitted the Chippenham constituency:

- Partly funded under the Department’s ‘Access for All’ scheme, £2.2m to install a bridge and lifts at Chippenham Station. The station officially opened by Network Rail on 22^nd January 2016.

- The A350 north of Chippenham from Badger Roundabout to Chequers Junction, A350 Chippenham Bypass is being upgraded to a dual carriageway. The improvements will help reduce journey times and ease the congestion around this area. Estimated to be completed and opened by August 2018.

• The Swindon and Wiltshire Partnership has allocated Local Growth Fund funding to the following transport schemes across Swindon and Wiltshire which will benefit the Chippenham constituency:

- A429 Malmesbury Access scheme - £1.4m for transport improvements to improve traffic flow and facilitate the expansion of Dyson at their Malmesbury site.

- Chippenham station hub - £16m for the redevelopment of Chippenham station including enhanced parking and retail offer and new railway crossing.

- A350 Dualling Chippenham Bypass - £8.8m for dualling the A350 north of Chippenham from Badger Roundabout to Chequers Junction.

• Wiltshire Council benefited from Local Pinch Point funding of £1.905m towards the A350 Chippenham Dualling. This scheme completed in March 2015.

Figures are available for the South West for total public sector transport spend as listed in Table 2:

Table 2 Total Public Sector Transport Spend for the South West

Note: includes spend by Central Government, Agencies and Local Government.

I assure my hon. Friend that no decisions have been taken with regard to the consultation and that I will be considering very carefully what she has just said as well as all the other submissions that will be made.