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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the UK–India Free Trade Agreement on his Department.

Answered by Daniel Zeichner

Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, how much funding has been allocated to the Post Office in each year of the 2025 Spending Review period.

Answered by Gareth Thomas

The settlement following the Spending Review provides investment of over £500 million over the Parliament to modernise the Post Office, including £86 million from the Transformation Fund. This will allow the Post Office to implement its Strategic Transformation Plan, including the replacement of the legacy Horizon computer system, and will put the Post Office and the crucial services its network provides on a more sustainable footing.

The Spending Review settlement also ensures the Department will have maximum capacity and flexibility to provide full redress to the victims of the Post Office Horizon IT Scandal as quickly as possible. At Autumn Budget 2024, the Government set aside £1.8 billion of funding for redress payments from 2024-25 in addition to around £200 million that had already been distributed.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to continue the children's hospice grant beyond March 2026.

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

The Government wants a society where every child receives high-quality, compassionate care from diagnosis through to the end of life.

Whilst the majority of palliative care and end of life care is provided by National Health Service staff and services, we recognise the important contribution that children and young people’s hospices make to care and support for children and young people with life-threatening and life-limiting conditions, as well as to their families.

NHS England has provided £26 million in revenue funding for children and young people’s hospices for 2025/26, through what was, until recently, known as the Children and Young people’s Hospice Grant.

Integrated care boards will once again administer the funding to their respective children and young people’s hospices on behalf of NHS England. The majority of children and young people’s hospices should now have received their allocations, with the remaining few receiving theirs in the coming weeks.

Funding arrangements for 2026/27 will be confirmed in due course.

Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps he is taking to ensure that the UK Export Finance expansion reaches small businesses.

Answered by Gareth Thomas

Recognising the impact of the support it offers, the government recently increased UK Export Finance’s maximum commitment limit to £80 billion, enabling it to expand its finance support for UK businesses of all sizes.

In 2023 to 2024, 88% of the businesses UKEF directly supported were SMEs. Its most popular product was the General Export Facility, which helped businesses to access around £576 million in working capital support.

UKEF has an ambition to support over 1,000 SMEs by 2029 and will continue to innovate and launch new products, working with a wider range of banks and non-bank financial institutions to tailor the financing support that the UK’s SME exporters need.

Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps he is taking to help protect (a) jobs and (b) supply chains which are dependent on British Steel.

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

Steel is a priority for this Government. As shown with the passing of the Steel Industry (Special Measures) Act on 12 April, this Government will not hesitate to take unprecedented steps to safeguard the future of steelmaking in the UK, protecting jobs, national security and supply chains.

Since the legislation was passed on 12 April, we have acted round the clock to secure the raw materials needed to keep the blast furnaces operating safely at Scunthorpe. British Steel, the UK’s only manufacturer of rail, has secured a new £500 million long-term supply contract with Network Rail, and the statutory redundancy consultation initiated by British Steel’s owners, Jingye, has been cancelled, removing the immediate risk to 2,700 jobs.

Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what assessment his Department has made on the potential impact of the accelerated Trade Strategy timetable on business planning.

Answered by Douglas Alexander - Secretary of State for Scotland

The Government published its Trade Strategy on 26 June which was positively received by business. The Government will work closely with stakeholders on the implementation of the strategy, to ensure that resources are prioritised to deliver on key commitments such as opening new export and market opportunities and strengthening our trade defence capabilities.

Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, with reference to paragraph 7 of the document entitled Implementing the Employment Rights Bill: Roadmap, published on 1 July 2025, what criteria his Department plans to use to determine which provisions of the Trade Union Act 2016 will be repealed (a) through secondary legislation and (b) upon Royal Assent of the Employment Rights Bill.

Answered by Justin Madders

Clause 156 of the Employment Rights Bill sets out the clauses of the Bill, which repeal various provisions of the Trade Union Act 2016, that will be repealed two months following Royal Assent. Commencement dates for remaining clauses that repeal provisions of the Trade Union Act 2016 will be provided for in secondary legislation. The commencement dates for these clauses will be confirmed in due course.

Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, with reference to the document entitled Implementing the Employment Rights Bill: Roadmap, published on 1 July 2025, whether his Department plans to publish a cost-benefit analysis of the phased implementation approach outlined in that document.

Answered by Justin Madders

My department has published a set of Impact Assessments that provide a comprehensive analysis on the potential impact of the Employment Rights Bill. This analysis is available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/employment-rights-bill-impact-assessments

This represents the best estimate for the likely impacts, given the current stage of policy development. We already intend to publish further analysis, both in the form of an Enactment Impact Assessment when the Bill secures Royal Assent and further assessments when we consult on proposed regulations, to meet our Better Regulation requirements

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the UK-US Economic Prosperity Deal on her Department.

Answered by Janet Daby

In May, the UK concluded a landmark economic deal with the US. This deal protects jobs in the automotive, steel, aluminium, pharmaceutical and aerospace sectors - sectors that employ over 320,000 people across the UK. In addition, an estimated 260,000 jobs are supported by the auto industry in the wider economy.

The government remains focused on making sure British businesses can feel the benefits of the deal as soon as possible. The government is continuing discussions on the UK-US Economic Prosperity Deal which will look at increasing digital trade, enhancing access for our world-leading services industries and improving supply chains.

The department will continue to support the ongoing negotiations with the US, led by the Department for Business and Trade.

Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what tariffs applied to steel exports to the United States of America on 9 July 2025.

Answered by Douglas Alexander - Secretary of State for Scotland

Thanks to our trade deal with the US, the UK remains the only country to have avoided 50% tariffs on steel and aluminium. A 25% tariff continues to apply to UK steel exports. President Trump’s Executive Order on 3 June reconfirmed this will be removed once a US for UK quota is implemented, as per the Economic Prosperity Deal.

We are in constant dialogue with domestic steel and aluminium sectors. We will continue to work with the US to get this deal implemented as soon as possible and in industry's best interests – supporting industry and protecting jobs.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to her Oral Statement of 7 July 2025 on Giving Every Child the Best Start in Life, Official Report, column 680, what steps she plans to take to help support (a) babies and (b) parents in each of the years of the 2025 Spending Review Period.

Answered by Stephen Morgan - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury

The department’s strategy, ‘Giving every child the best start in life’ set out that we will spend close to £1.5 billion over the next three years on improving family services and early years education.

Over the next three years, the department will provide over half a billion pounds of investment in the Best Start Family Service to bring together parenting, healthcare and education support services to ensure all babies, children and families have access to the early intervention and support they need.

The department is making big investments in early education and childcare. Government spending on funded hours will reach £9 billion next year and will continue to rise over Parliament. And we are setting aside £400 million over the next three years to improve quality in early years settings and reception classes and drive better outcomes for children.

Found: Q79 Dame Harriett Baldwin: What are the committee’s red lines?

Found: Q79 Dame Harriett Baldwin: What are the committee’s red lines?

Found: Current membership Dame Meg Hillier (Labour; Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Chair) Dame Harriett Baldwin

Found: Watch the meeting Members present: Dame Meg Hillier (Chair); Dame Harriett Baldwin; Rachel Blake; Chris

Found: Watch the meeting Members present: Dame Meg Hillier (Chair); Dame Harriett Baldwin; Rachel Blake; Chris

Found: Current membership Dame Meg Hillier (Labour; Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Chair) Dame Harriett Baldwin

Found: Current membership Dame Meg Hillier (Labour; Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Chair) Dame Harriett Baldwin

Found: Q97 Dame Harriett Baldwin: Oh, you are as well. Fantastic.

Found: Dame Harriett Baldwin (Conservative MP for West Worcestershire), who had put forward an amendment on

Found: Dame Harriett Baldwin (Conservative MP for West Worcestershire), who had put forward an amendment on