Asked by: Baroness Redfern (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they have any plans to make procurement processes for British food producers more transparent and accessible.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government is committed to opening up public sector supply chains to a wider range of companies, particularly small and medium-sized (SME) businesses, including farmers and growers. The Government published a national procurement policy statement (NPPS) in February 2025. The NPPS sets expectations for government contracts to favour products certified to higher environmental standards that high-quality British producers are well-placed to meet. Given the limited information on the origin and sustainability of food in the public sector supply chain, Defra has begun collecting new data to understand how far public sector settings are serving food from local and sustainable sources and what further action is needed.
Asked by: Baroness Redfern (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they have any plans to simplify the process for British food producers, especially small and medium-sized farms, to access public sector supply chains.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government is committed to opening up public sector supply chains to a wider range of companies, particularly small and medium-sized (SME) businesses, including farmers and growers. The Government published a national procurement policy statement (NPPS) in February 2025. The NPPS sets expectations for government contracts to favour products certified to higher environmental standards that high-quality British producers are well-placed to meet. Given the limited information on the origin and sustainability of food in the public sector supply chain, Defra has begun collecting new data to understand how far public sector settings are serving food from local and sustainable sources and what further action is needed.
Asked by: Baroness Redfern (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that employees who face violence are supported, such as through guaranteed offers of counselling and group debriefing.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
DWP has a robust serious incident reporting process, where colleagues’ wellbeing is paramount. The guidance advises the line manager to consider, with the colleague, whether to seek support from our 24/7 Employee Assistance Programme (which may include counselling) and Mental Health First Aiders. It also asks them to consider using a stress risk assessment where appropriate.
There is proactive support in place such as mandatory keeping safe training, procedures, and intranet guidance to limit these incidents and to make sure colleagues and managers are aware how to respond should an incident occur. All such incidents must be reported. Colleagues are made aware that abuse affects people differently and as such the response and support they receive will be tailored to their needs, whether through immediate help or ongoing support.
Through DWP’s critical incident support, our Employee Assistance Programme supplier can attend DWP sites for face-to-face critical incident support through both group support sessions and one to one conversations. They also offer legal advice and signposting.
Asked by: Baroness Redfern (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the opportunities to support the UK steel industry through public procurement policies.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The government wants to see more use of UK-made steel in public projects, whilst respecting our national and international legal obligations. The latest steel public procurement data shows that in the financial year 2024-2025, where all the steel required could be produced in the UK, 95% of the steel procured by central government buyers was UK produced.
That said, we continue to strengthen mechanisms to enable the public procurement of UK-made steel. Updated steel procurement guidance (Public Procurement Policy Notice 022) was introduced in June 2025 and requires all in-scope organisations for all new relevant steel procurements to consult UK Steel’s digital catalogue before making procurement decisions and encourages them to consider if the national security exemption under the Procurement Act applies.
Asked by: Baroness Redfern (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the opportunities to mandate greater use of UK-made steel in publicly funded projects.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The government wants to see more use of UK-made steel in public projects, whilst respecting our national and international legal obligations. The latest steel public procurement data shows that in the financial year 2024-2025, where all the steel required could be produced in the UK, 95% of the steel procured by central government buyers was UK produced.
That said, we continue to strengthen mechanisms to enable the public procurement of UK-made steel. Updated steel procurement guidance (Public Procurement Policy Notice 022) was introduced in June 2025 and requires all in-scope organisations for all new relevant steel procurements to consult UK Steel’s digital catalogue before making procurement decisions and encourages them to consider if the national security exemption under the Procurement Act applies.
Asked by: Baroness Redfern (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that clinical academic posts are available in all regions of the UK.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department, through the National Institute for Health and Care Research, is the United Kingdom’s largest funder of clinical academic training, investing over £220 million each year in research training programmes.
We are working with the devolved administrations and stakeholders to ensure there is a comprehensive, clear, and rewarding career pathway for clinical academics in research.
We will publish a refreshed workforce plan to deliver the transformed health service we will build over the next decade and treat patients on time again.
Asked by: Baroness Redfern (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to lower electricity prices in the UK following the uplift of the Network Charging Compensation Scheme.
Answered by Lord Whitehead - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
In February the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero published a response to consultations on proposals to amend the inflation indexation of the Renewables Obligation and Feed-in Tariff schemes. Lowering levy costs through reforms such as these forms part of the work that government is doing to bear down on costs across the energy system to ensure that consumers do not see a net increase in their electricity bills as a result of this measure. More widely, at the last Budget government took an average of £150 of costs off household energy bills from this coming April.
Asked by: Baroness Redfern (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure each region in England receives equal health research funding.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department funds health and care research via its research operational arm the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) across England. The Department is committed to ensuring that research is inclusive and representative of the population geographically and demographically. To support this, in November 2024 the Department made equity, diversity, and inclusion a condition of NIHR funding for all domestic research awards.
The NIHR is taking a number of steps to secure equitable allocation of health research funding including targeted programme design, long‑term capacity building in under‑served regions, such as new regional Commercial Research Delivery Centres, and place‑based research partnerships. In addition, from this April the NIHR’s Research Delivery Network, which supports all National Health Service trusts in England to deliver research, is implementing a new national funding allocation model for NHS support costs and research delivery which will reduce regional variations in health research delivery investment.
Asked by: Baroness Redfern (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure British steel manufacturers are not undercut by imported high emission steel manufacturers.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
A successful steel industry is critical to a vibrant and secure economy. The UK is taking action on industrial decarbonisation to meet net zero, but we recognise that imports into the UK will often not be subject to the same standards, creating a risk of carbon leakage. That is why the UK has committed to introduce a UK Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) from 1 January 2027. The CBAM will ensure that highly traded, carbon-intensive goods from sectors in scope (including the steel sector) that are imported into the UK, face a comparable carbon price to those produced domestically. This will support UK decarbonisation efforts to lead to a true reduction in global emissions rather than simply displacing carbon emissions overseas, and give industry confidence to invest in the UK knowing their decarbonisation efforts will not be undermined.
Asked by: Baroness Redfern (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to strengthen domestic supply chains for steel following the publication of the Defence Industrial Strategy 2025 in September 2025.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The steel strategy, to be published in early 2026, will set out a long-term vision for a competitive, decarbonised sector, with the aim of attracting new private investment to secure UK steelmaking.
We’re providing up to £2.5 billion to rebuild the steel sector, delivered in part through the National Wealth Fund. This is in addition to the £500m we have invested in the transformation of Port Talbot. We have also taken direct action to protect steel production at British Steel and provided a £400 million increase to the investment at Sheffield Forgemasters.
In addition, we have cut electricity costs for steelmakers, changed procurement guidance so UK steel is considered for more public projects, and are working to protect our industry from unfair competition.