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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what support her Department is giving to existing leaseholders affected by high or escalating ground rents, particularly where such terms impact mortgage availability and the ability to sell their homes.

Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)

I refer the hon. Member to answer given to Question UIN 102566 on 12 January 2026.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of removing Sport England as a statutory consultee from the planning system on the provision of community sports facilities.

Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)

I refer the hon. Members to the answer given to Question UIN 103087 on 13 January 2026.

Question

To ask the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent and Rhymney, representing the House of Commons Commission, whether all eggs served by Houses of Parliament Catering services are farmed in the United Kingdom, and whether these adhere to any independently verified standards for animal welfare.

Answered by Nick Smith

Eggs supplied to House of Commons catering services are class A free range and from a UK Farm which is RSPCA Assured.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to ensure imported meat does not adversely impact disease prevention in farming and animal disease prevention zones.

Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

Meat import controls include measures to prevent spread of animal disease such as veterinary health certification and border control post checks.

On farm biosecurity plays a key role in protecting farms from exotic diseases and can mitigate the risk of spread of such diseases in the event of an outbreak. Defra is working closely with the devolved governments, the livestock industry and veterinary bodies to improve the UK’s response and raise awareness of the risks of introduction of exotic disease.

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of the resilience of the passenger rail network in the South West.

Answered by Keir Mather - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

Network Rail is investing significantly in assets throughout the Western and Wales region, including in resilience to protect against storms and flooding in the South West. The storm events and particularly flooding that we have seen in the region recently have posed greater challenges than we have seen in the last few years. The rail industry continues to build plans to make our infrastructure more resilient including focusing on known black spots so that flooding instances are reduced, and where flooding and storms do occur, recovery of rail services can happen more quickly.

Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether his Department has budgeted for contingency funding for the development phase of the Global Combat Air Programme.

Answered by Luke Pollard - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)

The Defence Investment Plan will set out how the Department will allocate the defence budget over the next 10 years, including for the Global Combat Air Programme.

Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, how many ECO4 installations are incomplete due to installer insolvency in England the last 12 months; and what consumer protection and redress mechanisms are available to households supported through the ECO4 scheme where an installer has entered administration leaving works incomplete or defective.

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

Due to the level of non-compliance found for EWI measures, the Government is offering a comprehensive on-site audit to all households where external wall insulation (EWI) was installed under ECO4 or GBIS. This check will be provided at no cost to the consumer.

Should any issues requiring action be found, these should be remediated by the original installer. Where the installer has ceased trading, protections under the installation guarantee policy should be invoked.

All measures installed under current government schemes are covered by a guarantee.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of the number of duty solicitors available in rural areas.

Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

It is vital that those who need legal aid can access it wherever they live in the UK.

The Legal Aid Agency (LAA) is responsible for commissioning duty solicitor services and the day-to-day administration of the court and police station duty schemes. This includes keeping membership records, allocating slots and producing and maintaining duty solicitor rotas. The LAA monitors membership across individual duty schemes. Information about duty solicitor volumes broken down by individual scheme is published as part of the LAA’s Official Statistics.

The LAA considers that all police station and court slots are adequately covered for each duty scheme in England and Wales, including those in rural areas. Provision under the duty schemes is demand led and so there may be variations in numbers across each local rota.

The Government has made significant investments in criminal legal aid, to reflect the valuable work done by defence lawyers. We are investing around £92 million per year in steady state in criminal legal aid solicitors’ fees. The majority of the funding (around £82 million) came into effect from 22 December 2025, with the remaining funding (around £10 million) to be implemented as soon as possible this year.

Recruitment and retention of duty solicitors remains crucial. A significant proportion of the around £92 million investment in solicitors’ fees is directed towards supporting duty solicitors in police stations and in the magistrates' courts, including in rural areas. This investment is in addition to the £24 million per year increase we implemented in November 2024 for work done in the police station and Youth Court.

Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps he is taking to (a) reduce losses of public funding to fraud during defence procurement and (b) increase the amount of funding recovered from those losses.

Answered by Luke Pollard - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)

The Department has robust financial and commercial controls governing procurement, including single source regulations as set out in the Defence Reform Act 2014. In addition, we have introduced Initial Fraud Impact Assessments for major Defence programmes to identify, assess and mitigate fraud risks from the outset.

The Department has increased recoveries through the use of data analytics technology, leading to the prevention and recovery of £6.4 million last financial year 2024/25. We are continuing to expand our use of AI to support the prevention, detection and recovery of losses from fraud and error.

Securing the Ukraine Permission Extension scheme

Kendal Farmers Market

High street bank closures

Ending the sale of tickets to captive orca and dolphin shows

Protections for the welfare of wild animals in tourism

Dolphin hunting in the Faroe Islands

Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank

Child protection from illicit vapes

Radiotherapy in the National Cancer Plan

UK digital sovereignty strategy

World Cancer Day and breast cancer

Horse and rider road safety

90th anniversary of the Spitfire

Cervical Cancer Awareness Month

Hospices and end of life care

World Cancer Day

Lessons in storm resilience

Social media for under 16s

UN Convention on the Rights of Older Persons

Gambling harms

Found: Q27 Ian Roome: Air Marshal, I want to talk about the lessons learned from Ukraine.

Found: Liberal Democrat; Tunbridge Wells) Jesse Norman (Conservative; Hereford and South Herefordshire) Ian Roome

Found: Dhesi (Chair); Mr Calvin Bailey; Alex Baker; Lincoln Jopp; Emma Lewell; Mike Martin; Jesse Norman; Ian Roome

Submit Evidence (by 25 Mar 2026)

The inquiry will examine the current and emerging threats in the region. It will ask what the UK’s defence and security interests are, and whether we have the correct strategies, capabilities and alliances to counter these threats, particularly from Russia.