Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking with (a) NHS England and (b) integrated care boards to ensure that NHS dental provision is effectively delivered under the Armed Forces Covenant Duty; and whether he has considered increasing levels of (i) guidance and (ii) oversight in this area to help prevent disadvantage for service families following relocation.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

We recognise that Armed Forces families may move more frequently than the civilian population in support of our service personnel. Data on dental access does not suggest that Armed Forces families are being disadvantaged when compared to the civilian population. We are taking steps to improve access to dentistry and members of the armed forces community will also benefit from the improved access these changes bring about, in the same way as the civilian population.

NHS England is working proactively with the Ministry of Defence and the Armed Forces Families Federations to provide guidance to integrated care boards in relation to local dental access for families relocating to the area and guidance for families. Signposting for Armed Forces Personnel on dentistry access for their families has been improved through the ‘Discover My Benefits website’, and A “Myth Busting” paper has been prepared by the Armed Forces Families Federation. This includes a link to the Single Point of Contact for NHS England dedicated to Armed Forces access issues.

Free NHS dental care is available to people receiving War Pension Scheme payments, or Armed Forces Compensation Scheme payments, and the treatment is for your accepted disability. We are also supporting more than 1,500 children in British military families overseas through our supervised toothbrushing programme.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to reduce ambulance wait times for Category 2 calls to the national target of 18 minutes.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government recognises that in recent years ambulance performance has not met the high standards patients should expect.

In October, NHS England published the Medium Term Planning Framework which sets out ambitious targets to improve core urgent and emergency care performance to constitutional standards, including by shortening average Category 2 response times to 18 minutes. This is being supported by practical actions, including reducing avoidable ambulance dispatches and conveyances and ambulance handover delays.

The measures being taken are already improving ambulance response times, including in North East Hampshire. The latest National Health Service performance figures for the South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust, which serves North East Hampshire, show that in October, Category 2 incidents were responded to in 31 minutes 54 seconds on average, over six minutes faster than the same period last year.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to reduce ambulance response times in North East Hampshire constituency.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government recognises that in recent years ambulance performance has not met the high standards patients should expect.

In October, NHS England published the Medium Term Planning Framework which sets out ambitious targets to improve core urgent and emergency care performance to constitutional standards, including by shortening average Category 2 response times to 18 minutes. This is being supported by practical actions, including reducing avoidable ambulance dispatches and conveyances and ambulance handover delays.

The measures being taken are already improving ambulance response times, including in North East Hampshire. The latest National Health Service performance figures for the South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust, which serves North East Hampshire, show that in October, Category 2 incidents were responded to in 31 minutes 54 seconds on average, over six minutes faster than the same period last year.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the impact of the Electronic Travel Authorisation on European business representatives attending trade events and conferences in the UK.

Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)

ETAs have been introduced to strengthen the security of our border. They also make travel easier by further digitising our immigration and borders system, ensuring millions of visitors, including business travellers, enjoy a seamless experience. The department does not hold data on numbers of visitors attending trade events and conferences.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the effectiveness of measures to deter antisocial behaviour among young people in rural areas, such as North East Hampshire.

Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)

Tackling Anti-Social Behaviour is a top priority for this Government, and a key part of our Safer Streets Mission.

Under the Government’s Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee, we are putting neighbourhood officers back into communities, both urban and rural, and restoring public confidence by bringing back community-led, visible policing. Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary will receive £5,187,776 as part of the funding settlement for 2025-26.

In addition, the Home Office is providing £66.3 million funding in 2025-26 to all 43 forces in England and Wales to deliver high visibility patrols in the areas worst affected by knife crime, serious violence and anti-social behaviour. As part of the Hotspot Action Fund, Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary will be in receipt of £1,454,452.

Following on from the Safer Streets Summer Initiative, the Home Secretary has announced a “Winter of Action” in which police forces across England and Wales will again partner with local businesses, councils and other agencies to tackle anti-social behaviour and other local issues that matter most to their communities.

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessments her Department has made of the potential impact that access to youth services and after-school clubs has on levels of vandalism and antisocial behaviour among under-18s in North East Hampshire.

Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)

Tackling anti-social behaviour and the harm it causes is a top priority for this Government.

DCMS-funded statistical analysis shows that a year after a drop in local authority expenditure on youth services, areas see increased incidences of some types of antisocial behaviour.

We are co-producing a National Youth Strategy which will set out a new long-term vision for young people, and an action plan for delivering this. We aim to publish the Strategy later this year.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessments his Department has made of how to best support patients suffering with overlapping illnesses.

Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

We recognise the growing prevalence and complexity of overlapping and co-existing chronic illnesses and long-term conditions, and the importance of improving diagnosis, management, and support for these patients.

Through the 10-Year Health Plan, we are expanding community diagnostic services, introducing Neighbourhood Health Centres, and deploying multidisciplinary teams to provide holistic support. Patients will benefit from enhanced NHS App functionality, including My Medicines and My Health, and will be able to self-refer to specialist services where appropriate.

Additionally, the 10-Year Health Plan’s commitments on artificial intelligence will give clinicians advanced tools for faster diagnosis, predictive analytics, and personalised care planning. For people with long-term conditions, this means earlier interventions, better monitoring of complex needs, and more time for clinicians to focus on patient-centred care rather than administrative tasks. The plan also commits to 95% of people with complex needs having a personalised care plan by 2027.

The appointment by NHS England of a National Specialty Adviser on multi-morbidity provides expert leadership to improve care for people with multiple long-term conditions, ensuring services are better coordinated, evidence-based, and focused on holistic patient needs.

We also recognise that doctors can find it challenging to diagnose Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS) and postural tachycardia syndrome (PoTS) because these conditions share symptoms with many other disorders.

Resources such as the Royal College of General Practitioners’ Syncope Toolkit for PoTS and the EDS Toolkit, now maintained by Ehlers-Danlos Support UK, are improving clinician awareness of both conditions. The National Institute for Care Excellence provides a clinical knowledge summary on blackouts and syncope to support consistent assessment and diagnosis of PoTS. NHS England commissions a National Diagnostic Service for rare EDS subtypes.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department taking to help improve the diagnosis of overlapping illnesses such as PoTs and EDS.

Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

We recognise the growing prevalence and complexity of overlapping and co-existing chronic illnesses and long-term conditions, and the importance of improving diagnosis, management, and support for these patients.

Through the 10-Year Health Plan, we are expanding community diagnostic services, introducing Neighbourhood Health Centres, and deploying multidisciplinary teams to provide holistic support. Patients will benefit from enhanced NHS App functionality, including My Medicines and My Health, and will be able to self-refer to specialist services where appropriate.

Additionally, the 10-Year Health Plan’s commitments on artificial intelligence will give clinicians advanced tools for faster diagnosis, predictive analytics, and personalised care planning. For people with long-term conditions, this means earlier interventions, better monitoring of complex needs, and more time for clinicians to focus on patient-centred care rather than administrative tasks. The plan also commits to 95% of people with complex needs having a personalised care plan by 2027.

The appointment by NHS England of a National Specialty Adviser on multi-morbidity provides expert leadership to improve care for people with multiple long-term conditions, ensuring services are better coordinated, evidence-based, and focused on holistic patient needs.

We also recognise that doctors can find it challenging to diagnose Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS) and postural tachycardia syndrome (PoTS) because these conditions share symptoms with many other disorders.

Resources such as the Royal College of General Practitioners’ Syncope Toolkit for PoTS and the EDS Toolkit, now maintained by Ehlers-Danlos Support UK, are improving clinician awareness of both conditions. The National Institute for Care Excellence provides a clinical knowledge summary on blackouts and syncope to support consistent assessment and diagnosis of PoTS. NHS England commissions a National Diagnostic Service for rare EDS subtypes.

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that students from low socio-economic backgrounds, in rural areas, have access to funds for extra curricular activities.

Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)

My department has been co-producing a new National Youth Strategy with young people from all backgrounds, including those in rural areas from low socio-economic backgrounds, and we are committed to giving all young people the chance to reach their full potential The Strategy will support better coordination of youth services across different regions, including rural areas and move away from one-size-fits-all approaches. This includes enhancing access to high-quality enrichment opportunities through an enrichment expansion programme, which will invest £22.5 million across 3 years to support up to 400 schools to provide a youth-voice led and tailored extracurricular enrichment offer.

By doing so we are providing a voice for all young people and their communities to help rebuild the youth and extra-curricular provision throughout the country.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to support Natural England in their responsibilities in wildfire prevention, including in agreeing land management plans.

Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) is the lead Government department for wildfire. Defra works closely with MHCLG and supports Natural England (NE) to deliver its responsibilities.

This includes the recently published Environmental Improvement Plan commitment that by 2030 NE will conduct research on increasing the natural resilience of habitats to wildfires, such as through re-wetting or restoring hydrological function, including case studies of success. An initial scoping review will be reported on in the annual progress report in 2027. This will develop our understanding of actions we can take to naturally reduce the risk of wildfires.

Alongside this, Defra supports NE in:

• Working with partners to improve systems to alert land managers about fire risk and management techniques to improve resilience. This includes through support and membership of the UK Fire Danger Rating System Steering Group.
• Being represented on a number of local and regional wildfire groups in England which help address wildfire issues.
• Encouraging landowners/managers to maintain good relations with their local Fire and Rescue Service, including through joint visits to identify risks and familiarise all involved with sites that may be susceptible to wildfire.
• Advising that landowners complete a wildfire checklist (which can be funded through Countryside Stewardship). Where high vulnerability is identified it is the landowners’ responsibility to consider fire risk assessments and fire response plans.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when the Emergency Services Network will be fully operational, including phone-based location tracking capabilities for emergency responders.

Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)

The programme’s priority is to achieve the right balance between credible plans that have user confidence and the need to deliver ESN as quickly and safely as possible to enable the shutdown of Airwave.

The Emergency Services Mobile Communications Programme (ESMCP) has successfully concluded two major re-procurements. In November 2024, the Mobile Services contract was awarded to BT/EE, followed by the award of the User Services contract to IBM in December 2024. With these committed delivery partners firmly on board, ESMCP has made excellent progress into full delivery mode.

The programme has finalised a revised Programme Business Case, which has been endorsed by the Senior Users of the three Emergency Services and representatives from the devolved nations. The Business Case is expected to complete departmental and HM Treasury approvals in early 2026. Our user community remains actively engaged in planning the deployment and rollout of the Emergency Services Network (ESN) and ensuring a safe transition from Airwave. Early adoption of a service-ready solution is on track for early 2028, with full transition from Airwave targeted for completion by the end of 2029.

Winter NHS corridor care

Horton Cemetery

Chinese Embassy

Chalk streams and salmon in Hampshire

Bank closures, digital exclusion and cyber risks

Buying community energy locally

Impact of EU 90/180 day rule on UK citizens

Securing habitat for endangered swifts and other cavity nesting birds

Found: Current membership Sarah Owen (Labour; Luton North) (Chair) Alex Brewer (Liberal Democrat; North East

Found: Watch the meeting Members present: Sarah Owen (Chair); Alex Brewer; David Burton -Sampson; Dame Nia