Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, when will HM Courts & Tribunals Service reference number 1753292273313841 (a) be listed and (b) be heard.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
I can confirm the case you have referred to will be listed within August 2026 to be heard in September 2026. A notice of the hearing will be issued on the day of listing which will be approximately three weeks ahead of the hearing date.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, when will the probate application 1763-9735-8436-3140, submitted by David Bull on 24 November 2025, in respect of Beryl Patricia Bull, be granted.
Answered by Catherine Atkinson
HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) has checked the application referred to. The application cannot currently be granted as further enquiries need to be made before a grant can be issued.
HMCTS apologises for the delay in progressing this application. The applicant is being updated and, once the relevant enquiries have been completed, the application will be processed as quickly as possible.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference, to the statement by the Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry on 15th June 2026 in column 571, at what time did that meeting begin and at what time did it finish.
Answered by Luke Pollard - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
The correction was made in the House on 22 June 2026 and is available on parliament.uk.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, on how many occasions have DVLA misread the image from an ANPR camera in the most recent year for which records are available.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The total number of ANPR images read between July 2025 and June 2026 was 95.6 million, of which 1.3 million were potential unlicensed vehicles. After the removal of those vehicles sighted more than once, 511,801 were reviewed by staff who identified 45,427 images which contained misread number plates. The DVLA routinely checks for misreads before taking action regarding non-payment of Vehicle Excise Duty.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, with reference to the oral contribution of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade in response to the hon. Member for Christchurch on 17 June 2026, Official Report, column 841, what progress he has made on responding to that correspondence.
Answered by Chris McDonald - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
This particular letter was sent to the inbox of ex-Secretary of State, Jonathan Reynolds on 10 June 2026, which is why was not seen by officials until 13 July 2026. The Department will respond to the usual timeline. The measure was announced through a Written Ministerial Statement and Oral Statement to both Houses and has since been discussed through Oral Questions and an Urgent Question. Ministers and officials also hosted a dedicated two-hour MP drop-in session to hear directly from Members and discuss concerns raised by their constituents and local businesses.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the Department of Health and Social Care or NHS England made or commissioned a clinical or patient safety impact assessment of the duty in paragraph 11C(2) of Schedule 3 to the National Health Service (General Medical Services Contracts) Regulations 2015, inserted by SI 2026/532, before that instrument was laid before Parliament.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Secretary of State for Wales
The Department and NHS England considered the potential impacts of expanding Advice and Guidance (A&G) as part of the policy development process, including through clinical input, established governance arrangements, and equalities considerations. A&G is intended to support timely clinical decision‑making and ensure patients are directed to the most appropriate care. National guidance is in place to support its safe and consistent use, and the use of A&G does not change existing clinical accountability or patient safety arrangements.
The contract does not change the clinical threshold for referral to specialist care. General practitioner (GPs) should continue to make a clinical decision to refer for specialist care where that is in the patient’s best interests, and to request specialist advice where it is needed. GPs retain responsibility for referral decisions, and this model supports, and does not replace, clinical judgement.
The 2026/27 GP Contract embeds the previous A&G enhanced service funding into core practice funding. Following near universal uptake of the A&G Enhanced Service in 2025/26, the focus for 2026/27 is on stability and simplicity. Embedding the specialist advice model within the core contract recognises its role in routine clinical practice, removes annual signups, and provides more predictable funding while supporting consistent patient pathways.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average time is between a Universal Credit enquiry being referred to the Agents Contact Team and resolution of that enquiry.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government) (Equalities)
The Department does not hold a routinely reported average time between a Universal Credit enquiry being referred to the Agents Contact Team and resolution of that enquiry.
Enquiries referred to the Agents Contact Team can vary significantly in complexity and may require input from different parts of the Department before they can be resolved. As a result, journey times are not directly comparable and are not currently measured as a single average resolution time.
The Department remains focused on ensuring Universal Credit enquiries are handled as quickly and effectively as possible, with priority given to cases where there is evidence of vulnerability, hardship or urgent need.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, when will HM Courts & Tribunals Service reference number 175329227331384 (a) be listed and (b) be heard.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
We are unable to answer your enquiry because the reference number provided appears to be incorrect.
HMCTS manages a range of different services, and the case reference is used to identify the service as well as the case. Reference numbers for HM Courts and Tribunal digital services should contain 16 digits. Please verify the number and resubmit your enquiry.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many cataract operations were carried out (a) by and (b) on behalf of the NHS in England in 2025; how many of those were by (i) NHS providers directly and (ii) private sector providers; and what the comparative costs and productivity rates were.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Secretary of State for Wales
In April 2026, for ophthalmology, performance against the standard for 92% of patients to start first treatment within 18 weeks of referral was 73.1%, 5.3% higher than a year earlier.
In most cases, contracts will have to comply with National Health Service unit prices, a set of prices and rules used by providers of NHS care and commissioners to deliver the most efficient, cost-effective care to patients. These unit prices are consistent across independent sector providers and NHS providers. Productivity rate information is not held centrally by the Department. Integrated care boards are the primary bodies responsible for commissioning care from healthcare providers and ensuring value for money is achieved.
The Hospital Admitted Patient Care Activity dataset, published by NHS England, can be used to identify procedure types, including those undertaken as part of cataract operations. Data for the 2025/26 financial year is not yet currently published. This is currently due for publication in September 2026.
The following table shows a count of cataract operations in 2025, both those in an admitted setting, or Finished Consultant Episodes (FCEs), and outpatient settings, split by NHS and non-NHS providers where there was any cataract procedure:
Provider type | Admitted (FCE) | Outpatient | Total |
Independent | 379,023 | 132,310 | 511,333 |
NHS | 278,478 | 4,700 | 283,178 |
Source: Hospital Episode Statistics.
A FCE is a continuous period of admitted patient care under one consultant within one healthcare provider. FCEs are typically counted against the year in which they end, which is the approach we have taken here. Figures do not represent the number of different patients, as a person may have more than one episode of care within the same stay in hospital or in different stays in the same year. Admitted outpatient appointments include first and follow-up attendances and telephone consultations, and excludes did not attends and cancellations. The below procedure codes are those which are considered under cataract operations:
C71: Extracapsular extraction of lens;
C72: Intracapsular extraction of lens;
C73: Incision of capsule of lens;
C74: Other extraction of lens;
C75: Prosthesis of lens; and
C77: Other operations on lens.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many full-time equivalent staff are engaged in processing Access to Work claims; by what number has that changed in the last 12 months; and what assessment he has made of the potential impact of staff numbers on the time scales in which applications under the Access to Work scheme are processed.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government) (Equalities)
As at 19 May 2026, there were 658 full-time equivalent (FTE) staff engaged in delivering the Access to Work scheme. This represents an increase of 32.29 FTE compared with 625.71 FTE staff at the end of May 2025.
The Department keeps staffing levels under review and recognises that resourcing levels can affect processing times. To address this, recruitment is underway to increase capacity, which will support the clearance of outstanding applications, and improve processing times.
Huge recruitment boost to tackle backlog in vital disability work scheme - GOV.UK.