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

To ask His Majesty's Government why the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government drafted and tabled the Environmental Delivery Plans (Appropriate Prioritisation) Regulations 2026 (SI 2026/655) when Baroness Hayman of Ullock made a commitment to the House on 17 September 2025 (HL Deb col 2331) that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs would take the lead on Environmental Delivery Plans.

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

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government is responsible for the enabling powers under which the Environmental Delivery Plans (Appropriate Prioritisation) Regulations 2026 were made and therefore took the lead in bringing forward the regulations. The regulations were developed in close collaboration with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Natural England, reflecting the shared responsibility for implementation of the Nature Restoration Fund and Environmental Delivery Plans.

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

To ask His Majesty's Government which peers were invited to the meetings to discuss (1) the draft Nature Restoration Levy Regulations 2026, and (2) the Environmental Delivery Plans (Appropriate Prioritisation) Regulations 2026, described in paragraph 44 of the 8th Report of Session 2026–27 of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee

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

Lord Krebs and Baroness Willis of Summertown were invited to discuss the draft Nature Restoration Levy Regulations 2026 and the Environmental Delivery Plans (Appropriate Prioritisation) Regulations 2026. The invitation reflected their previous engagement on the Nature Restoration Fund during passage of the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 and their expressed interest in the development of the related secondary legislation.

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

To ask His Majesty's Government which Secretary of State will publish statutory guidance on the Nature Restoration Fund, and when.

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

The Secretary of State for Defra will publish guidance on the Nature Restoration Fund so that it is in place for when the first Environmental Delivery Plan becomes available for developers. Defra will keep the need for further areas of guidance under review.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many of the respondents to the call for evidence of the Timms Review of Personal Independence Payments in the respondent group "Individuals (lived experience)" were recipients of personal independence payments.

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

The Timms Review, the first ever full review of PIP, seeks to ensure we have a system that supports disabled people to achieve better health, higher living standards and greater independence, including through employment.

The Review is being co-produced with disabled people, the organisations that represent them, carers, clinicians, experts, MPs and other stakeholders, so a wide range of views and voices are heard. It has adopted a mix of approaches combining lived experience, expert insight, existing research, new quantitative data and workshops across the UK to gather evidence. The findings from this engagement will build a strong evidence base to inform policy analysis and the Review's recommendations.

The Timms Review Call for Evidence was open to anyone who wished to contribute and received over 38,000 responses. The response form did not ask participants to provide information about whether or not they currently received PIP. Therefore, we do not hold the data requested.

Question

To ask The Senior Deputy Speaker what advice was given to the decision-makers on the reasons for and rationale behind suspending proceedings and evacuating the House of Lords while the Chamber was sitting on 2 July.

Answered by Lord McLoughlin

The Senior Deputy Speaker has asked me, as Chair of the Services Committee, to respond on his behalf. Key stakeholders including the Clerks, both Speakers and the Chief Whips were advised that a full evacuation of the Palace of Westminster, including both Chambers while sitting, was necessary to test processes under realistic conditions and to assess the effectiveness of existing fire evacuation arrangements. The advice reflected a requirement identified by the Crown Premises Fire Safety Inspectorate following an inspection in November 2024 that a full test of the Palace’s evacuation procedures should be undertaken at a busy time and occupancy. Previous drills had taken place on a non-sitting day, when only minimal numbers of staff, members and visitors were present.

The exercise was intended to respond to the Crown Premises Fire Safety Inspectorate recommendation, familiarise Members and staff with evacuation procedures, test arrangements for disabled and other vulnerable people, evaluate the effectiveness of training and fire safety systems, and identify any lessons to strengthen future emergency preparedness.

Question

To ask The Senior Deputy Speaker what is the cashflow time series of each costed proposal for the Restoration and Renewal programme and the discount rate and inflation rate assumed for each, including the timing and budgeted costing of major investments during the outlined time series.

Answered by Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede

The Restoration and Renewal (R&R) Client Board’s recent report, Delivering restoration and renewal of the Palace of Westminster: the costed proposals (HC Paper 1576), sets out the costs for the four delivery options in several different ways, for example total programme costs, average annual costs and net present cost (page 121). The report is available at https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/51442/documents/285576/default/.

The timing and budgeted costing of major investments on the R&R Programme is best illustrated through the estimated spend profiles for each delivery option. The table below shows the estimated proportion of total Programme costs (excluding inflation and VAT, including opportunities), as set out in page 121 of the R&R Client Board’s report, in each 10 year period for the four R&R delivery options. These proportions are based on the shortest estimated programme schedules (P50) set out in the report (P50 is a confidence that the estimate will not be exceeded 50% of the time).

Table: Estimate percentage of total R&R programme spend in 10 year tranches to programme completion (P50, excluding inflation and VAT, including opportunities)

The R&R Client Board’s costed proposals report also presents total programme costs including inflation. Inflation is calculated using the estimated spend profiles in the table above and the inflation rates used are based on the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Report (November 2024):

• 2024/25: 2.25%

• 2025/26: 2.75%

• 2026/27: 2.25%

• 2027/28: 1.75%

• 2028/29 onwards: 2% (flat rate)

The R&R Client Board’s report also presents net present costs for each delivery option based on discounted cashflow analysis. To ensure comparability, the net present cost is calculated over the same time horizon - 100 years – for all the delivery options. The cashflows used to calculate the net present cost for each option include: (a) the total programme costs set out in the report (including risk and optimism bias and opportunities but excluding inflation) which are consistent with the spend profiles in the table above; and (b) the annual estimated operational and lifecycle cost savings once the R&R Programme is concluded (an average of circa £45m per annum).

The net present cost has been calculated using discount rates in real terms in line with HM Treasury’s Green Book Guidance: 3.5% for years 1 to 30; 3% for years 31 to 75; and 2.5% for years 76 to 100.

Found: held at 10.00am on Wednesday 15 June 2026 Present: Baroness Sheehan (Chair) Lord Ashcombe Baroness Coffey

This inquiry will consider how the UK can maintain a secure, affordable and low-carbon electricity supply during ‘dunkelflaute’ events – periods of low wind and solar energy generation. This will include an assessment of current UK preparedness for dunkelflaute conditions, future plans, and policy and regulatory gaps.