Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure strong competition between bids in the Contracts for Difference Allocation Round 8.

Answered by Lord Whitehead

The Contracts for Difference (CfD) scheme allocates contracts through competitive auctions, ensuring that the lowest cost bids are successful.

For Allocation Round 8 (AR8), the Government has introduced refinements following consultation to strengthen competition and improve price discovery. To that end the Secretary of State will now have visibility of anonymised sealed bids across multiple technologies, creating competition across technologies, as well as within technology specific pots.

This change supports a continued focus on securing value for money for billpayers and maintaining robust competition. Final auction parameters will be confirmed in July, and the sealed bid window will open later this year.

Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask His Majesty's Government how they intend to minimise the impact on large renewable projects that are in the planning stage and which are adversely affected by bringing forward the timetable for Allocation Round 8 by one month.

Answered by Lord Whitehead

The Contracts for Difference Scheme (CfD) runs annually. For Allocation Round 8, the Government confirmed in March it would open the round in July (in AR7, the round opened in August). The government does not expect this year's timeline to have a substantial constraining impact on the available pipeline of renewable projects. However, inevitably some projects will not be sufficiently progressed to meet the CfD entry criteria by the opening date and will need to look to future rounds should they wish to secure a CfD.

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to assist the fishing and aquaculture sectors in appropriately disposing of end-of-life fishing and aquaculture gear to reduce coastal litter.

Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

The Fisheries and Seafood Scheme (FaSS) is a grant scheme in England that supports more sustainable fishing and seafood businesses, including potential support for recycling end of life fishing gear. Through FaSS, Defra funded KIMO UK’s Fishing for Litter project, helping fishers bring litter ashore and expanding port storage and disposal facilities to support its safe collection and disposal.

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they will take to monitor the outcomes of the Third Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy for disabled people.

Answered by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill - Minister of State (Department for Transport)

Progress on the delivery of the targets and objectives outlined in the Third Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy will be provided through statutory reports to Parliament including for disabled people.

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they hold data on the proportion of children aged between five and 16 who usually walk or cycle to school in England.

Answered by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill - Minister of State (Department for Transport)

Estimates of the proportion of children who usually walk or cycle to school in England are obtained from the National Travel Survey. In 2024, 43% of children aged between five and 16 usually walked to school, and 3% usually cycled to school.

Further statistics on travel to school are available in table NTS0615, which can be accessed on the gov.uk website.

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Hayman of Ullock on 1 August 2025 (HL9721), what was the outcome of Resource Futures' research on the number of vessels reaching end-of-life and the policy options to reduce marine litter from abandoned vessels; and what steps they intend to take in response.

Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

The Resource Futures’ research commissioned by Defra assessed the scale of the problem of marine litter from abandoned vessels and policy options to reduce this. The report concluded that, whilst it is clear that recreational vessel abandonment is set to become an increasingly large problem, data gaps make it difficult to assess accurately the number of abandoned or end-of-life vessels across the OSPAR Maritime Area and in the UK. The report is available here: Marine litter from end of life recreational vessels - ME5247) (see attached).

Drawing on this research, the UK has led work with other countries in the North-East Atlantic as part of the OSPAR Convention to develop best practice guidance on the prevention, reporting, and management of end-of-life recreational vessels. The guidance was adopted by the OSPAR Commission in June and has been published on the OSPAR website here (see attached).

Found: Muswell Hill Baroness Drake Lord Fuller Baroness Harding Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Lord Teverson

Found: Baroness Carberry of Muswell Hill Baroness Drake Lord Fuller Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Lord Teverson

Found: Carberry of Muswell Hill Baroness Drake Baroness Harding Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Lord Teverson

Found: Baroness Carberry of Muswell Hill; Baroness Drake; Lord Fuller; Baroness Harding of Winscombe; Lord Teverson

Found: Best Baroness Carberry of Muswell Hill Baroness Harding Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Lord Teverson

Found: Best; Lord Baroness Carberry of Muswell Hill; Baroness Drake; Baroness Harding of Winscombe; Lord Teverson

Found: Lord Best; Baroness Carberry of Muswell Hill; Baroness Drake; Baroness Harding of Winscombe; Lord Teverson

Found: Muswell Hill Baroness Drake Lord Fuller Baroness Harding Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Lord Teverson

Found: Barber of Ainsdale; Lord Best; Baroness Carberry of Muswell Hill; Baroness Harding of Winscombe; Lord Teverson

Found: Baroness Carberry of Muswell Hill; Baroness Drake; Lord Fuller; Baroness Harding of Winscombe; Lord Teverson