My hon. Friend speaks up very strongly for his local area. He is right about the importance of pubs, social clubs and live venues, and about the importance of the 20% cut that we announced in July. These are the things that make the places where we live the places that we also love. Later this year the Government will produce our high street strategy, and I encourage my hon. Friend to contribute to the work of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government in that regard. I agree with what my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary said a few moments ago: he should see the move that we made in July as a down payment on further reform.

This is a Government who are determined to help good councils and businesses to breathe new life into our high streets and town centres. In April we introduced a permanent reduced tax rate worth almost £1 billion for high street businesses, and in July, in the new Prime Minister’s first week, he and I announced a further 20% cut for pubs, social clubs and music venues. This is a Government who will do what they can to help bring a bit of breathing space from the cost of living and the costs of business.

We are committed to introducing, as soon as possible, new legislation to create a standalone offence of assaulting a retail worker and to remove the £200 threshold for shop theft, ensuring that all offences are treated seriously and that retail staff are better protected.

Commencement of individual provisions will be brought forward through regulations at the appropriate time, and the Government will set out further details in due course.

This Government are determined to tackle the scourge of late payments, which closes down the equivalent of 38 businesses every day. The Commercial Payments Bill was introduced to Parliament on 19 May and had its Second Reading in the House of Lords on 9 June. This legislation sets out stricter maximum payment terms, mandatory interest on late payments and stronger powers for the Small Business Commissioner to ensure that small businesses are paid on time. That will give the UK the strongest legal framework on late payments in the G7.

My hon. Friend always fights hard for small businesses in his patch. This Bill will ensure that purchasers pay suppliers within 60 days and that mandatory interest is paid on late invoices. For too long, large businesses have used small businesses as a source of free credit. That will end under these plans. That will mean better cash flow for businesses in his constituency, more jobs, more economic growth and better high streets.

We have made the landmark commitment to halve violence against women and girls within a decade, and we have begun delivering already; providing domestic abuse specialists in 999 call centres, specialist rape and sexual offence investigation units in our police forces, and £16 million for programmes in schools on healthy relationships and tackling harmful behaviour. Our ambition is clear, but there is much more work to do.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this important matter. Where domestic abuse drives a woman to take her own life, it is a profound tragedy and an injustice, and perpetrators must be held to account. Those who drive their partners to take their own life can face prosecution for the offences of manslaughter and encouraging suicide. The Government have asked the Law Commission to conduct a wholesale review of the law of homicide and the sentencing framework for murder, which will include a review of the use, and any obstacles to the use, of manslaughter charges where abuse may have driven someone to suicide. We recognise that there is more to do, particularly on better understanding and preventing suicides linked to domestic abuse, and we will continue to work with experts, frontline services and campaigners to strengthen our response.

I agree with my hon. Friend that we are right to seek a closer relationship with the European Union, which has an important contribution to make, from within a “NATO first” framework. That is why, last year, we signed the security and defence partnership with the European Union. The Prime Minister has said that we are looking to join the European Union’s Ukraine loan scheme, so that we can provide more aid to Ukraine, backed by the very best British companies, producing the best British kit for Ukrainian warfighters.

Russia poses a significant and persistent threat to UK and Atlantic security. Putin’s illegal war against Ukraine is now in its fifth year, and Russia conducts hostile cyber-activity, spreads disinformation and carries out sabotage against the UK and many other NATO allies almost daily. European security starts in Ukraine. In response to the recent brutal Russian attacks on Ukraine, I directed UK deliveries of air defence systems to Ukraine to be accelerated. This month, I will chair the next meeting of the 50-nation-strong Ukraine Defence Contact Group at NATO headquarters, at which we will look to further step up the military aid we can provide together.

This government is committed to learning lessons from the Covid-19 schemes. Formal evaluations of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) and Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) have been published. HM Treasury has participated in Module 9 hearings of the Covid-19 Inquiry, which examined the economic response to the pandemic.

Decisions on eligibility for COVID-19 financial support schemes were taken by the previous government. The Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) supported self-employed individuals whose incomes were adversely affected by COVID-19. The scheme was based on HMRC's Income Tax Self-Assessment system, through which people submit their tax returns, to target support as much as possible on those who needed it most, but also to minimise the risk of error and fraud.

Plastic Packaging Tax was introduced in April 2022 under the previous government and provides an incentive for businesses to use recycled plastic in packaging, thereby supporting increased recycling and reducing plastic waste.

The tax applies to businesses that manufacture or import 10 tonnes or more of plastic packaging within a 12-month period, meaning only businesses above this threshold are within scope.

HMRC are currently undertaking an evaluation of the tax which aims to assess the tax’s effectiveness, including impacts on businesses, and is set to conclude in 2026. The government keeps all taxes under review as part of the policy making process.

The Government has no plans to link Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging (pEPR) fees to business profitability. Turnover and packaging weight together determine whether a business has pEPR responsibilities, with a de-minimis threshold to reduce the burden on smaller businesses.

pEPR is based on the principle that producers meet the cost of managing the household packaging they place on the UK market when it becomes waste, creating a direct incentive to reduce unnecessary packaging and use packaging that is easier to recycle. Business profitability does not reflect the amount, type, or recyclability of the packaging supplied, or the costs that the packaging creates for local authority waste management services.

NHS England invests approximately £1 billion per year centrally to operate, support, and upgrade nationally managed technology systems, including the NHS App and core data services.

In addition, over the current Spending Review period, NHS England plans to invest approximately £2 billion with care provider organisations through the Frontline Productivity Programme, supporting the use of technology to improve productivity and make better use of existing digital infrastructure. This includes targeted investment where providers choose to converge on common platforms to support local system working and the priorities of the 10‑Year Health Plan.

Funding allocations for technology investment by individual integrated care boards and local systems will be determined by NHS England regions and systems in due course, in line with local priorities and national guidance.

We have no funding allocated specifically to local authorities to update their legacy social care systems, and responsibility for procuring and updating their own systems lies with them.

Jess’s Rule was published in September 2024 and rolled out across England as formal clinical guidance, developed with the Royal College of General Practitioners and NHS England. It supports and strengthens general practitioners’ clinical judgement when a patient returns three or more times with worsening symptoms or without a substantiated diagnosis.

Through the Frontline Digitisation programme, NHS England has provided £2 billion to National Health Service trusts to ensure trusts meet a core level of digitisation and have electronic patient records (EPRs) in place. EPR systems allow clinicians access to critical, real-time health related information, which supports the frontline to better treat and support patients. Following Cambridge University Hospitals' deployment of its EPR, automatic EPR alerts in 2018/19 saved at least 64 lives due to sepsis alerts improving the time it took to administer antibiotics.

We will not be updating Jess’s Rule to mandate the use of technology systems, as any supporting tools are for local services to decide, in line with existing governance arrangements. We will continue to keep Jess’s Rule under review, including the case for any future updates to national guidance.

Jess’s Rule was published in September 2024 and rolled out across England as formal clinical guidance, developed with the Royal College of General Practitioners and NHS England. It supports and strengthens general practitioners’ clinical judgement when a patient returns three or more times with worsening symptoms or without a substantiated diagnosis.

Through the Frontline Digitisation programme, NHS England has provided £2 billion to National Health Service trusts to ensure trusts meet a core level of digitisation and have electronic patient records (EPRs) in place. EPR systems allow clinicians access to critical, real-time health related information, which supports the frontline to better treat and support patients. Following Cambridge University Hospitals' deployment of its EPR, automatic EPR alerts in 2018/19 saved at least 64 lives due to sepsis alerts improving the time it took to administer antibiotics.

We will not be updating Jess’s Rule to mandate the use of technology systems, as any supporting tools are for local services to decide, in line with existing governance arrangements. We will continue to keep Jess’s Rule under review, including the case for any future updates to national guidance.

Care providers entering and exiting is a normal part of a functioning market, and local authorities should have appropriate contingency plans in place depending on the services being provided. Under the Care Act 2014, local authorities also have a temporary duty to ensure continuity of care in the event of business failure. This means that people continue to receive the care and support they need if their adult social care provider is no longer able to carry on delivering services.

New providers registering with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) for the first time may have their application rejected if they send an application which is incomplete, for instance one that is missing documents or missing information within required documents. The CQC does not hold data at the level requested but can confirm that over the past five years, 22,629 incomplete applications across all sectors have been rejected. The following table shows a breakdown for the past five years of rejected incomplete applications across all sectors:

New providers registering with the CQC for the first time may have their application refused. In these cases, a complete application is reviewed by the CQC’s registration team who refuse the application if they are not satisfied the registering provider is able to meet the requirements as per the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 and the Care Quality Commission (Registration) Regulations 2009. The CQC does not hold data at the level requested but can confirm that over the past five years, 1,385 applications across all sectors have been refused. The following table shows the breakdown for the past 5 years of refused applications across all sectors:

Providers already registered with the CQC may apply to vary their conditions of registration, and in some cases this may lead to a refusal or rejection by the CQC. Over the past five years, 85,822 applications to vary a registration by an adult social care provider have been received by the CQC. The following table shows the breakdown for the past five years of applications to vary a condition by an adult social care provider:

Over the past five years, 23,454 applications to vary a registration have been rejected, because the information submitted was incomplete. The following table shows a breakdown of these rejections for the past five years:

Over the past five years, 405 applications to vary a registration have been refused outright. The following table shows a breakdown of these rejections for the past five years:

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that absolutely horrific case; my sincere condolences go to the family for the loss of this poor baby. No patient should ever believe that someone is a trained professional, only to discover that they have no formal qualifications. This Government are protecting the professional title of nurse, so that no other families have to endure the suffering of his constituents. We will shortly be seeking widespread input to get that right, and we will be making changes in this Parliament. We will absolutely be addressing the issues that have been raised as a direct result of this tragedy.