Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many Intensive Work Search claimants are allocated to each Jobcentre Plus.

Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Universal Credit statistics uses the term ‘conditionality regime’ in place of conditionality groups and labour market regime. The intensive work search group is part of the labour market regime.

The latest available information on the number of people on Universal Credit by conditionality regime and Jobcentre Plus office is published and can be found in the ‘People on Universal Credit’ dataset on Stat-Xplore. The extracted statistics for May 2026 are shown in the attachment below.

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government, in light of the transfer of the Public Fraud Authority away from the Cabinet Office to the Department of Work and Pensions, how they intend to operate this transfer, recognising the powers given as core functions of the Minister of the Cabinet Office as set out in Part 1 of the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Act 2025.

Answered by Baroness Twycross - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)

As per the standard legal process of a Machinery of Government change, officials are preparing the transfer in relation to the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Act 2025, and other legislation underpinning the work of the Public Sector Fraud Authority (PSFA).

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

To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to publish the locations of (1) the coronation woods, (2) the projects of the coronation living heritage fund, and (3) the micro-woods.

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

The Forestry Commission publishes statistics on new planting of woodland, and trees outside woodland, in England, in the Forestry Commission Key Performance Indicators (copy attached). They plan to publish related geospatial data by the end of 2026-27 on the locations of the new planting wherever considerations such as data quality and data licencing enable this.

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

To ask His Majesty's Government how much funding was spent on micro-woods between 2024 and 2026.

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

Defra supported a number of tree planting delivery partners between 2024 and 2026. These partners delivered a range of tree planting. This includes the Coronation Living Heritage Fund. This Fund spent £1.1 million on Miyawaki (micro wood) projects. The funding was distributed to local authority delivery partners in November 2023. The planting of these projects took place between November 2023 and March 2026.

Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether, following the announcement by the Prime Minister's Office of 22 July, Cheaper travel for millions with a third off fares, whether funding provided through the Climate Finance Accelerator will be provided in the form of loans rather than grants; if so, how much funding is affected; and what the terms of the loans will be.

Answered by Baroness Curran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)

No. The UK uses a combination of grants and other instruments, including loans, as most appropriate to deliver the intended outcomes and provide the best value for money. The majority of UK ICF will continue to be provided through grants. No existing ICF programmes have been switched from grants to loans linked with the recent announcement of £2 bus fares.

Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they have published the submissions they made regarding justiciability of statements made under section 20 of the Environment Act 2021 in the case of R (Wild Justice) v Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government & others; and if not, what plans they have to do so.

Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)

The Government has not published any submissions made regarding the justiciability of statements made under section 20 of the Environment Act 2021 in the case of R (Wild Justice) v Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government & others and has no current plans to do so.

Question to the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade:

To ask His Majesty's Government how much money was spent from the Faraday Battery Challenge Fund; what key lessons have been learned from the programme; and which battery technologies developed with support from the programme are now in successful deployment.

Answered by Lord Leong - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade)

The Faraday Battery Challenge (2017-2025) was supported by £610 million of Government funding and helped establish the UK as a global leader in battery research, innovation and scale-up. It supported over 118 battery projects and helped unlock more than £800 million of follow-on private investment, with around 80% of projects led by SMEs. Supported technologies include advanced anodes, solid-state batteries and battery recycling. Key lessons include the need to link research, innovation and industrialisation to accelerate commercialisation. Its successor, the Battery Innovation Programme, will build on this legacy with £452 million in funding to 2030.

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

To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the number of trees planted through the coronation living heritage funds.

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

The Forestry Commission publishes statistics on new planting of woodland, and trees outside woodland, in England. The requested information is available at GOV.UK: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/forestry-commission-corporate-plan-performance-indicators. These statistics are reported annually for each financial year with interim updates where data are available after mid-year. The Coronation Living Heritage Fund ran from August to September 2023, with planting taking place between November 2023 and March 2026. The planting figures are:

New planting of trees outside woodland

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Timpson on 18 July 2025 (HL9111), when they expect HMP Millsike to be operating at full capacity.

Answered by Lord Lemos - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)

At present, around 80% of HMP Millsike’s capacity is in use. Occupancy will increase when operationally appropriate to do so. The pace of prisoner intake is kept under review by His Majesty’s Prison & Probation Service (HMPPS) and can be adjusted as necessary.

The occupation of new prisons is phased and managed carefully to ensure the prison remains safe, secure and stable as occupancy increases. This is explained in HMP Millsike’s published Mobilisation Strategy. It is recognised that opening a new prison is an inherently challenging period, as staff adapt to a new site and establish its culture, regime and processes. Staffing is one of a range of operational factors that need to be considered, together with safety and security, the stability of the prison, and the establishment of its regime and processes.

As with all privately operated prisons, HMPPS strictly monitors the performance of the prison throughout the life of the contract, including through its on-site contract management team.

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many searches of bank accounts have been executed since they have gained additional powers through the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Act 2025; and how many searches resulted in fraud (1) identified and (2) recovered.

Answered by Baroness Twycross - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)

The Public Sector Fraud Authority (PSFA) has not used any powers under the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Act (PAFER) 2025 to conduct any searches of bank accounts.

The PSFA is obliged to hold information on the use of the powers under the PAFER Act and once the Act is fully implemented PSFA will report its use of the powers to Parliament annually.

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government when they expect to publish the list of Cabinet committees and interministerial groups, including their memberships and terms of reference.

Answered by Baroness Twycross - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)

The list of Cabinet committees has been placed in the Libraries of both Houses and published on GOV.UK. We do not publish a list of other ministerial groups.

Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they have updated the charter for the Defence Safety Authority regarding reporting lines to account for there not being a Second Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Defence; and, if so, how.

Answered by Lord Coaker - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)

The Defence Safety Authority (DSA) Charter, signed 15 May 2023, remains extant. As described in the Charter document itself, it is scheduled for review at least every five years and the Secretary of State also retains the ability to amend the Charter at any time.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government how much was paid to (1) BPAS, (2) MSI Reproductive Choices, and (3) NUPAS, for abortion services and medication in each of the last 5 years.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The latest position on these statistics has been set out on the relevant webpage on the GOV.UK website, and is reproduced below for ease of reference:

“The Abortion statistics for England and Wales 2024 publication is delayed due to several operational issues. These include several technical challenges that have significantly reduced our ability to process paper HSA4 notifications efficiently. This coincided with an increase in the overall number of abortion notifications the Department receives each year.

Together, these factors have created a backlog of data that still requires processing and quality assurance. The data is being validated but the resulting delays to the publication timetable have impacted the timeliness of the now published 2023 statistics and continue to delay publication of 2024 and 2025 statistics.

The Department of Health and Social Care is currently working to deliver an improved service for collecting abortion notifications, designed to support more efficient processing of abortion data and enable more timely publications.

The statistics will be published once the required processing and quality assurance checks have been completed. We will announce the date for publication of the 2024 statistics in due course.”

The information requested on payments is not collected centrally. Although integrated care boards publish monthly transparency data on payments, including payments to BPAS, MSI Reproductive Choices, and NUPAS, this only relates to payments exceeding £25,000.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government when the abortion statistics for England and Wales 2024 will be published.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The latest position on these statistics has been set out on the relevant webpage on the GOV.UK website, and is reproduced below for ease of reference:

“The Abortion statistics for England and Wales 2024 publication is delayed due to several operational issues. These include several technical challenges that have significantly reduced our ability to process paper HSA4 notifications efficiently. This coincided with an increase in the overall number of abortion notifications the Department receives each year.

Together, these factors have created a backlog of data that still requires processing and quality assurance. The data is being validated but the resulting delays to the publication timetable have impacted the timeliness of the now published 2023 statistics and continue to delay publication of 2024 and 2025 statistics.

The Department of Health and Social Care is currently working to deliver an improved service for collecting abortion notifications, designed to support more efficient processing of abortion data and enable more timely publications.

The statistics will be published once the required processing and quality assurance checks have been completed. We will announce the date for publication of the 2024 statistics in due course.”

The information requested on payments is not collected centrally. Although integrated care boards publish monthly transparency data on payments, including payments to BPAS, MSI Reproductive Choices, and NUPAS, this only relates to payments exceeding £25,000.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government what percentage of pensioners receive (1) the basic state pension, and (2) the new state pension, as of today.

Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

In the quarter ending March 2026, around 5.4 million people (41%) who were receiving State Pension were receiving the New State Pension, while around 7.9 million people (59%) were receiving the Basic State Pension. The total State Pension caseload was approximately 13.3 million people.

Source: DWP Stat‑Xplore.

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government when will they answer question HL2660, which was due for answer by 6 August.

Answered by Baroness Twycross - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)

I refer the Noble Lady to the answer given on 18 September to question HL2660, copied below for ease:

The Public Sector Fraud Authority (PSFA) has not used any powers under the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Act (PAFER) 2025 to conduct any searches of bank accounts.

The PSFA is obliged to hold information on the use of the powers under the PAFER Act and once the Act is fully implemented PSFA will report its use of the powers to Parliament annually.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government which paragraphs of the Explanatory Notes to the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, as presented by Lauren Edwards this year, were prepared by or involved the assistance of civil servants.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The number of civil servants working on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill has varied over time. As of 11 September 2026, there were seven full-time equivalent (FTE) officials working on the bill in the Department of Health and Social Care, 1.3 FTE officials from the Ministry of Justice, and two FTE officials from the Government Legal Department. The bill team has subsequently been disbanded.

The final wording of the Explanatory Notes was a matter entirely for the bill sponsor, but as part of the Government’s duty to the statute book, civil servants did suggest minor factual amendments for the sponsor to consider.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many officials (FTE) worked on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, including any supported documents, as presented by Lauren Edwards this year.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The number of civil servants working on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill has varied over time. As of 11 September 2026, there were seven full-time equivalent (FTE) officials working on the bill in the Department of Health and Social Care, 1.3 FTE officials from the Ministry of Justice, and two FTE officials from the Government Legal Department. The bill team has subsequently been disbanded.

The final wording of the Explanatory Notes was a matter entirely for the bill sponsor, but as part of the Government’s duty to the statute book, civil servants did suggest minor factual amendments for the sponsor to consider.

Found: Committee Minutes of the 9th Meeting, held at 09.45am on Wednesday 9 September 2026 Present: Baroness Coffey

Found: Wednesday 9 September 2026 10 am Watch the meeting Members present: Baroness Sheehan (The Chair); Baroness Coffey

Found: Letter dated 18/09/2026 from Baroness Taylor of Stevenage to Baroness Coffey, Baroness Parminter of Godalming